Sundaram Tagore Gallery, 547 West 27th Street
Sundaram Tagore Gallery, 547 West 27th Street
We are pleased to present the first New York solo exhibition by Beijing-based artist Zheng Lu, whose dynamic new sculptural installations evoke splashes of water suspended in mid-air.
At first glance, the gravity-defying sculptural works appear wholly modern in their stainless-steel fabrication and ambitious technical execution, but a closer inspection reveals thousands of Chinese characters inscribed onto the surface of the metal. The calligraphic script is inspired by the artist’s longtime study of traditional Chinese literature. For the works in this series, Zheng culled text from Appreciation of Still Water by Tang dynasty poet Bai Juyi. In doing so, he not only celebrates the power of water, an element essential to existence, but he also draws on the custom of apprentices copying masters’ works yet pushes this idea further by introducing new interpretations and possibilities.