After the Stone Age
Song Hongquan
宋红权
Production date
2011
Object Detail
Media
granite
Measurements
77 x objects, dimensions variable
Notes
After the Stone Age (2011) is a triumph of technical and conceptual virtuosity, at once absurd and marvellous. Working with granite obtained from a local quarry, Song used traditional stone carving tools to carve exact simulacra of the very same tools. For three years, he dedicated himself to carving crowbars, hammers, chisels, mallets, nails and screws. The level of veracity is astonishing; he has been able to transform the appearance of granite, making it resemble the well-used wooden handles of hammers, or the metal of the pincers that hold the stone in place. These are copies of his father’s tools, seventy-seven separate carved items, including the beaten metal container — here, of course, made of stone —that holds them.
Arranged in a vitrine, or carefully lit on a plinth in the gallery space, his stone carving tools are evidently relics from another time, preserved in a museum display. Rapidly slipping into the past, if not already disappeared, the ancient art of stone carving is being transformed by mass-production and machine-tools, as well as new and emergent technologies such as 3D printing and 3D carving. Enormously touching, each piece reproduces the marks of Song’s father’s hands left behind over a life-time, a record of hard physical work and dedication to his craft. Like possessions that must be disposed of after the passing of a parent — the sewing machine that no-one will now use, the delicate teacups that nobody wants today, the neatly-arranged tools hanging on a pegboard, or the nails and screws saved in glass jars — these tools are artefacts of memory, laboriously carved by a loving witness. The title ‘After the Stone Age’ thus becomes, not a reference to pre-history, but rather an elegy for the recent past.
Arranged in a vitrine, or carefully lit on a plinth in the gallery space, his stone carving tools are evidently relics from another time, preserved in a museum display. Rapidly slipping into the past, if not already disappeared, the ancient art of stone carving is being transformed by mass-production and machine-tools, as well as new and emergent technologies such as 3D printing and 3D carving. Enormously touching, each piece reproduces the marks of Song’s father’s hands left behind over a life-time, a record of hard physical work and dedication to his craft. Like possessions that must be disposed of after the passing of a parent — the sewing machine that no-one will now use, the delicate teacups that nobody wants today, the neatly-arranged tools hanging on a pegboard, or the nails and screws saved in glass jars — these tools are artefacts of memory, laboriously carved by a loving witness. The title ‘After the Stone Age’ thus becomes, not a reference to pre-history, but rather an elegy for the recent past.
Accession number
2011.069