Red Memory - Asking God
Chen Wenling
陈文令
Production date
2006
Object Detail
Media
bronze, automotive paint
Measurements
74 x 33 x 27 cm
Notes
In a 2008 conversation with curator Huang Du, Chen Wenling said that in Chinese tradition pigs are seen as ‘gluttonous, lazy, dirty, horny and stupid as well as content and happy, while science has shown that pigs are very clever. In my eyes, the pig also symbolises speed … and enormous productivity’. Chen Wenling’s anthropomorphic pig stands on two legs like a human in an attitude of supplication, its snout pointing to the heavens. Chen’s animals – and especially his pigs – are allegories of the human condition in all its raw gluttony, greed, avarice but also its desire for love and transcendence. But Chen is also representing his views of contemporary China – fattening day and night but destined to come to an unhappy end: ‘the symbolism of pigs and their speed of growth coincides with the reality of China.’
Accession number
2007.023