Traffic Accident
Li Zhanyang
李占洋
Production date
2001
Object Detail
Media
bronze, paint
Measurements
74 x 139 x 70 cm
Notes
Li Zhanyang is a story-teller and an observer of life. As a young man, when he first went to live and study in Beijing to study at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, he was drawn to crowds and to the unpredictable and often chaotic events that he witnessed on the streets, in shops, bars and restaurants. His brightly coloured sculptures are miniature parables of contemporary life, depicting ordinary people from every part of Chinese society – taxi-drivers, thieves, karaoke hostesses, policemen, politicians and businessmen. Influenced by folk art and socialist realism as much as by traditions of figurative sculpture, they are narrative works, irresistibly recalling early Renaissance figurative sculpture, and revealing all the idiosyncrasies of his world. Here, a drama unfolds as if caught on film by paparazzi: a taxi has knocked down a man who sprawls on the road. A wailing woman crouches in front of him, a camera-wielding tourist snaps the scene, and a policeman is caught at the moment of dismounting from his motorbike. A crowd has gathered, as crowds always do in China, with everyone ready to join in the argument.
Accession number
2007.054