Artist:
Huan Zhang
Title:
Buddha Head
Year:
2001
Adress:
Admiralty
compassion
I feel compassion by this artwork.
I see a great head of Buddha. The head is dented, so I empathize the pain of the other. The head lays diagonally on the ground, so that it seems that it’s asking for compassion.
Like in so many buddha's, the eyes are lowered. So it feels to me that the buddha is thinking and feeling on his own situation. This makes me also think and feel on the situation as well.
Do we know the feeling of compassion? How often is it reported in the media? Here, many times it‘s about attacks, fighting and violence. But this buddha is non-violent. Often in the media it’s about their own-like focus. This buddha doesn't say a word. Buddha Head by Zhang Huan gives us a closer to non-violent communication.
This artwork is located in a welcoming environment with artworks. What would happen if this artwork is located in front of a house of parliament during a riot? Then it’s likely that Buddha Head by Zhang Huan would contribute to a better understanding between the parties en maybe to a non-violent resolution of the conflict.
By Theo, www.artatsite.com
Vertaling
medelijden
Ik krijg medelijden door dit kunstwerk.
Ik zie een groot hoofd van Boeddha. Het hoofd is gedeukt, zodat ik pijn meevoel die de ander heeft. Het hoofd ligt schuin in de grond, alsof het om mededogen vraagt.
En zoals bij veel boeddha’s heeft ook deze de ogen geloken. Daardoor krijg ik het gevoel dat boeddha over zijn situatie nadenkt en voelt. Dat maakt ook dat ik over de situatie meedenk en -voel.
Kennen wij het gevoel van medelijden? Hoe vaak wordt er over bericht in de media? Hier gaat het vaak over ruzie, aanvallen, geweld. Maar deze boeddha is geweldloos. Vaak wordt in de media het eigen-gelijk uitgelegd met veel nadruk. Deze boeddha zegt niets. Buddha Head van Zhang Huan laat ons geweldloos communiceren van dichtbij zien.
Dit kunstwerk ligt nu in een gastvrije omgeving met kunstwerken. Wat zou er gebeuren als dit kunstwerk vóór een parlementsgebouw zou liggen tijdens een betoging? Dan zou Buddha Head van Zhang Huan waarschijnlijk bijdragen tot een beter begrip door de partijen en wellicht ook tot een geweldloze oplossing van een conflict.
Door Theo, www.artatsite.com
www.asiasociety.org:
A Buddha head sculpture by Zhang Huan is part of Asia Society Hong Kong Center's Transforming Minds: Buddhism in Art exhibition. Asia Society Vice President for Global Art Programs and Museum Director Melissa Chiu, Lead Curator for the exhibition, tells Scene Asia that the exhibition's contemporary artworks — by Montien Boonma, Zhang Huan and Mariko Mori, in addition to Joo — can be read as"a dialogue with the past."
www.toothpicnations.co.uk:
A Buddha head sculpture by Zhang Huan on the rooftop. The new non-profit Asia Society Hong Kong Centre opened in February this year on a hill above several 5-star hotels and a large shopping mall in Admiralty. Located at the former Explosives Magazine Compound built by the British Army in the mid-19th century, three of the buildings on the site were classified as Grade 1 historical structures.
www.theguardian.com:
Two Buddhas, representing permanence and transience, face each other. One, a hollow aluminum mould, shimmers in beams of sunlight. Its tranquil head lies severed at its feet. The second buddha is a casting of the first’s interior and is created from 20 tonnes of incense ash sourced from Shanghai temples. As time passes, it will eventually crumble.
'For me [the ash] is souls,' explains Zhang, sitting next to his creation and opening his palms in a gesture of prayer. 'This is my Buddha flying here to bless the people and the city.' Otherworldly, maybe. But Zhang, who is taut and wiry with an open unlined face far more youthful than his 50 years, is also funny and humble. For the launch he is dressed entirely in shades of grey, from his hiking shoes to his cap to his grey polo shirt, the collar upturned. There are traces of the grace and physical poise that made his performance pieces as a young man beautiful: as he talks, he sits bolt upright, sometimes resting his toes on pointe like a ballet dancer. Zhang was born Dong Ming, meaning 'eastern brightness', in 1965 to factory-worker parents a year before the cultural revolution erupted. Embarrassed by his revolutionary name (an homage to Chairman Mao) he changed it when he moved to Beijing in the 1990s to study at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. There, living with other poor migrants and artists, he created angst-ridden performance pieces that brimmed with pain and a meditative masochism. That Zhang – the rebellious, dirty, daring artist who hung naked from the ceiling of his studio, suspended in chains, with his blood dripping on to a pan below where it slowly cooked – is gone.
I feel compassion by this artwork.
I see a great head of Buddha. The head is dented, so I empathize the pain of the other. The head lays diagonally on the ground, so that it seems that it’s asking for compassion.
Like in so many buddha's, the eyes are lowered. So it feels to me that the buddha is thinking and feeling on his own situation. This makes me also think and feel on the situation as well.
Do we know the feeling of compassion? How often is it reported in the media? Here, many times it‘s about attacks, fighting and violence. But this buddha is non-violent. Often in the media it’s about their own-like focus. This buddha doesn't say a word. Buddha Head by Zhang Huan gives us a closer to non-violent communication.
This artwork is located in a welcoming environment with artworks. What would happen if this artwork is located in front of a house of parliament during a riot? Then it’s likely that Buddha Head by Zhang Huan would contribute to a better understanding between the parties en maybe to a non-violent resolution of the conflict.
By Theo, www.artatsite.com
Vertaling
medelijden
Ik krijg medelijden door dit kunstwerk.
Ik zie een groot hoofd van Boeddha. Het hoofd is gedeukt, zodat ik pijn meevoel die de ander heeft. Het hoofd ligt schuin in de grond, alsof het om mededogen vraagt.
En zoals bij veel boeddha’s heeft ook deze de ogen geloken. Daardoor krijg ik het gevoel dat boeddha over zijn situatie nadenkt en voelt. Dat maakt ook dat ik over de situatie meedenk en -voel.
Kennen wij het gevoel van medelijden? Hoe vaak wordt er over bericht in de media? Hier gaat het vaak over ruzie, aanvallen, geweld. Maar deze boeddha is geweldloos. Vaak wordt in de media het eigen-gelijk uitgelegd met veel nadruk. Deze boeddha zegt niets. Buddha Head van Zhang Huan laat ons geweldloos communiceren van dichtbij zien.
Dit kunstwerk ligt nu in een gastvrije omgeving met kunstwerken. Wat zou er gebeuren als dit kunstwerk vóór een parlementsgebouw zou liggen tijdens een betoging? Dan zou Buddha Head van Zhang Huan waarschijnlijk bijdragen tot een beter begrip door de partijen en wellicht ook tot een geweldloze oplossing van een conflict.
Door Theo, www.artatsite.com
www.asiasociety.org:
A Buddha head sculpture by Zhang Huan is part of Asia Society Hong Kong Center's Transforming Minds: Buddhism in Art exhibition. Asia Society Vice President for Global Art Programs and Museum Director Melissa Chiu, Lead Curator for the exhibition, tells Scene Asia that the exhibition's contemporary artworks — by Montien Boonma, Zhang Huan and Mariko Mori, in addition to Joo — can be read as"a dialogue with the past."
www.toothpicnations.co.uk:
A Buddha head sculpture by Zhang Huan on the rooftop. The new non-profit Asia Society Hong Kong Centre opened in February this year on a hill above several 5-star hotels and a large shopping mall in Admiralty. Located at the former Explosives Magazine Compound built by the British Army in the mid-19th century, three of the buildings on the site were classified as Grade 1 historical structures.
www.theguardian.com:
Two Buddhas, representing permanence and transience, face each other. One, a hollow aluminum mould, shimmers in beams of sunlight. Its tranquil head lies severed at its feet. The second buddha is a casting of the first’s interior and is created from 20 tonnes of incense ash sourced from Shanghai temples. As time passes, it will eventually crumble.
'For me [the ash] is souls,' explains Zhang, sitting next to his creation and opening his palms in a gesture of prayer. 'This is my Buddha flying here to bless the people and the city.' Otherworldly, maybe. But Zhang, who is taut and wiry with an open unlined face far more youthful than his 50 years, is also funny and humble. For the launch he is dressed entirely in shades of grey, from his hiking shoes to his cap to his grey polo shirt, the collar upturned. There are traces of the grace and physical poise that made his performance pieces as a young man beautiful: as he talks, he sits bolt upright, sometimes resting his toes on pointe like a ballet dancer. Zhang was born Dong Ming, meaning 'eastern brightness', in 1965 to factory-worker parents a year before the cultural revolution erupted. Embarrassed by his revolutionary name (an homage to Chairman Mao) he changed it when he moved to Beijing in the 1990s to study at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. There, living with other poor migrants and artists, he created angst-ridden performance pieces that brimmed with pain and a meditative masochism. That Zhang – the rebellious, dirty, daring artist who hung naked from the ceiling of his studio, suspended in chains, with his blood dripping on to a pan below where it slowly cooked – is gone.