Juju Wang, Overgrown, 2020
Overgrown
2020
Stainless steel and zip-ties
600 x 800 x 800 cm
Steel: A rather perplexing material embellished with boldness and brittleness. lts armoured with an enduringly lustrous finish and yet unravels one’s inner perspective about strength, resistance and abrasion. “Overgrown” sculpts almost 5000 meters of stainless steel wires to explore distortions of distant memory and reality.
lt metaphorically ties the mechanics and rich emotions; zigzagging strength and vulnerability in the form of a life-size bow tie. The seemingly dichotomous concepts are further sketched upon the surrounding walls, with arbitrary lines of shadow smearing the mechanical tenacity exemplified by the steel. The installation creates an almost claustrophobic, yet cathartic moment traversing time and space given the recent pandemic. Vivid lines become dissolving shadows, Sheer depth of reality savours one’s subconscious, what’s conventionally framed as feminine blurs and blends- when opposites metamorphose, they magnetise an energy cocooned in fractured complexities.
ls ‘in’ the new energy ‘out’? The answer doesn’t lie in the bow tie per se. Curiosity is needed to escape and explore. The search for an answer starts from weaving through the wired loops ballooning from the exposed ceiling beams of this century old, quite lane house in Shanghai. “Overgrown” paradoxically conjures a state of fluidity constant to nimbleness, from perceived reality to a backdrop muted by strength and serenity. Steel strength, still you?
