'Suckling Piglets Feeding from the Cornucopia of Nature's Eternal Wellspring' - BronzeSizes:
110 x 242 x 72cm x 1
45 x 55 x 50cm x 6
Medium: Cast Bronze (lost wax)
Edition: 8 + 4 AP
In these works of irresistible fantasia cast in silk-shimmering stainless steel and balmy bronze, respectively, Shi Jianmin conjures to life a brood of farrows rooting and snorting after the trickling milk of elemental kindness at their mother's dugs. These figures move with a power of their own and thus move their beholder to wonder in turn whether things exist beyond our perception that came into being before our inception in the universe, or whether, perhaps, the case is the converse, and these creatures, hued in metallic pigments, with self-animation, gaze at us and ask, 'Are these phallic figments of our imagination?' And as they bumble around playing musical chairs in their piggish perambulations, migrating from one teat to the next, as the whim strikes and lactive resources are on offer, we begin to see a pattern emerge, which starts to assume the outline of a mandelbrot set. Does all life move in these predestined patterns? Our sense of solipsistic security begins to crumble: Is it an illusion? Or am I? The question is not one susceptible to easy resolution, and so we watch in uncertainty as these piglets trace out their cat's-cradle paradox and come to rest once again in their original places. Meanwhile, the sow has never moved, but remains immobilized, a porcine mesa rooted to the spot as the aeons tick away and time slows to the flickering cadence of an estivating African bullfrog's heartbeat. So sit down and partake of this plenty, will ya?
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