Zhan Wang: Universe

Veritas Branding & Marketing Pte Ltd., Singapore, 2012, 60 pp.

Zhan Wang, a leading figure in contemporary sculpture literally breaks new ground at STPI. Wielding a Herculean sledgehammer, he smashes boulders of rocks into an explosive spectrum of rocky debris flying across the studio floor. Zhan’s new body of work “Universe” created in collaboration with STPI, reimagines humanity’s fascination of the Big Bang Theory, where in an inexplicable moment, a tiny dense state expanded majestically into a colossal cosmic plane.

“Zhan Wang’s creative collaboration with STPI brings fresh insights into the artist’s practice in fascinating paradoxes of emulating natural phenomena, solidifying moments of flux and reimagining the origins of time to envision new creative possibilities,” – Emi Eu, Director of STPI.

Constantly pushing the envelope with unconventional ideas, Zhan Wang has scaled Mount Everest to put a metal rock sculpture at its summit, set adrift a hollow mountain in the ocean, tried to launch a stainless steel “meteorite” into space and detonated a large boulder in mid air for “My Personal Universe”, an installation of 7,000 suspended stones replicating a moment of stillness in its explosion.

With a foreword by Low Sze Wee in both English and Chinese, and an essay by Chang Tsong-Zung.