The Art of Ah Xian

China Refigured brings together sculptures by contemporary Chinese artist Ah Xian and a selection of traditional art works drawn principally from the Rockefeller Collection. The majority of these works are porcelain, one of the most significant Chinese exports to Europe in the late sixteenth century. By featuring fine examples of traditional porcelain from the Northern Song (960-1127), Ming (BCE 1368-1644), and Qing (1644-1912 CE) periods, this exhibition explores the artistic traditions and cultural context underpinning the work of this contemporary artist.

Ah Xian's China China series of porcelain busts was begun in 1998. His works in this exhibition were produced in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province, in collaboration with artisans from various studio-kilns around the city. Jingdezhen was the center of China's porcelain production in the early Ming, continuing into the Qing period when export wares to Europe became important for trade. In Ming times, Jingdezhen was reported to have three hundred kiln complexes, each with certain firing specializations. The techniques, styles, designs and glazes one sees in Ah Xian's busts are also evident in the selection of traditional works that are mainly from Jingdezhen. For example, the ubiquitous dragon design and underglaze cobalt blue glaze are just some of the commonalities between the traditional and contemporary works in this exhibition.

Ah Xian's sculptures in porcelain and more recently in lacquer and cloisonné represent Chinese artistic traditions, but technical and stylistic mastery are only one aspect of this exhibition. China Refigured also explores ideas of Chineseness or Chinese identity. In Ah Xian's work, casts of the human body are a background upon which he projects traditional Chinese decorative designs such as dragons, birds and flowers, and landscapes. By making these designs resemble tattoos, Ah Xian makes a statement about the indelibility of one's cultural background, all the more prominent in his work since his residence in Australia for the last twelve years.

These sculptures by Ah Xian establish a series of multilayered oppositions. The most overt is the tension between the sculptural form of the bust and the painted surface designs, which the artist likens to the oppositions of West and East. The bust is part of a Western portraiture tradition dating back to the busts of ancient Roman times and the designs are derived from Chinese decorative traditions, unique to China and in some cases to the studio-kilns at Jingdezhen. Such an opposition can also be seen as the relationship between the personal (since many of the busts are of Ah Xian's family, including his wife, brother, and father) and the political (a statement about the artist's own Chinese heritage articulated outside China).

Ah Xian was born in 1960 in Beijing and migrated to Sydney twelve years ago. He has held solo exhibitions in Asia, Australia, and Europe. This is his first exhibition in the United States.

Sample Works

China China-Bust 14 Ah Xian’s sculptures portray still and silent figures with their eyes closed. The decorative designs painted onto their surface frequently reinforce these qualities, especially when they are positioned directly over the eyes or mouth. For example, in China China -Bust 3 a large red butterfly is painted across the figure’s eyes and a flower covers the mouth. This creates a sense of containment as if the figure were imprisoned by the decoration.

China China-Bust 22 Ah Xian's China China-Bust 22 epitomizes landscape painting and porcelain production from the Ming period (1368 B.C.E.-1644 C.E.). The steep, rocky mountain peaks surrounded by mist are painted onto the head and the small houses and valleys are on the neck, shoulders, and chest. By painting a landscape onto the body, Ah Xian identifies the figure as Chinese, an identification with a sense of place.

China China-Bust 36 Dragons are complex yet auspicious symbols in Chinese mythology and cosmology. Ah Xian's works feature dragons coiling and writhing around the face and neck, sometimes in vivid red overglaze and at other times in white carved relief showing the detail of individual scales. The artist's selection and placement of the dragon onto casts of male figures reveals a symbiosis between the surface design and sculptural form, since dragons embody male qualities such as vigor and potency.

Human Human-Dragon The lustrous yet durable surface of lacquer is achieved by painting multiple layers of the sap from the native Chinese rhus verniciflua tree onto a base material. Ah Xian’s busts in lacquer are his most recent experiments with Chinese craft traditions. This work in red lacquer shows a dragon coiled around the figure’s face carved in relief. Although Ah Xian’s porcelain works have featured dragons, none are as arresting as this. The relief carving, which is essentially a series of incisions into the surface of the sculpture, conjures up a more active and in some ways more violent relationship between the design and the figure.

Human Human-Lotus A technique introduced to China during the Yuan period (1276-1368), but most popular in the Ming period (1368-1644), cloisonné enamel is a surface created by the fusion of enamels onto a copper base. Ah Xian's figure in cloisonné titled Human Human-Lotus is his only completed full body sculpture. The female figure is decorated in lotus flowers and lily pads. Although the lotus has a particular association with Buddhism, in Chinese literature and painting flowers are also equated with feminine beauty. For example, flowers and women were often considered to share attributes such as refinement and delicacy.

China Reconfigured:
The Art of Ah Xian
with Selections from the Rockefeller Collection