Distance 35
Meng Huang
孟煌
Production date
2015
Object Detail
Media
oil on canvas
Measurements
180 x 280 cm
Notes
When Meng Huang was a child he lived for a time near the railway and he would often get on the train that took people to work from end to end of Zhengzhou, China’s most important railway junction. Later, as a young man, he sometimes took spontaneous train journeys across China’s northeast, observing the changing landscape. In his essay about Meng Huang’s ‘Distance’ series, German philosopher Wolf-Jürgen Cramm says: ‘Meng Huang’s Distance series seems to represent a tension between distance and intimacy, between the individual and society, between freedom and a feeling of security or belonging, between the desire for adventure or willingness to take risks on one hand, and the longing for protection or safety on the other. To say that there is a tense relationship between these two conceptual poles means that the tension cannot be utterly and satisfyingly resolved on one side or the other.’ In these paintings there is never a living soul, the urban spaces are interrupted only by train or tram tracks, signalling and switching equipment and light poles. The tracks lead off into the distance, but their final destination is, of course, invisible. Do they represent the promise of a better place, or simply a continuing, ever-present restless journeying, never to arrive?
Accession number
2015.527