Thrown to the Wind
Wang Zhiyuan
王智远
Production date
2010
Object Detail
Media
used plastic bottles, steel
Measurements
1100 x 300 x 300 cm
Notes
Wang Zhiyuan developed this work in part as a joking reference to a Christmas tree, but also as a deadly serious comment on the significant social and environmental problem of the waste produced by an increasingly wealthy and consumerist society – in China and everywhere. In an interview for White Rabbit Collection Wang said, ‘When I returned to China my strongest impression was of the plastic bottles and rubbish piled up everywhere’ – something that simply did not exist in the much poorer and more frugal China that he had left in 1989. His enormous twisted column of detritus and packaging acts as a dramatic reproach to our wastefulness and our heedless pursuit of our own immediate gratification in the face of so much evidence of the harm done to the environment by this ‘throw-away’ society.
Accession number
2010.056