'Tate Modern'Size: 250 x 87.3 x 99.9cm x 2
Medium: hand carved wooden joints with Huali wood
Edition: 20 + 4 AP
He Yunchang boasts a knowledge of the Island of Britain arguably second to none. He gained this awareness in an epic odyssey of performance art - his métier - in which he circumambulated the entire island's coastline over the space of four months, lugging a seven-pound (3.6-kilo) rock the entire way, a rock which he replaced in the same spot in Boulmer, Northumbria from which he had previously picked it up. [Footnote?: The Rock Touring Around Britain, Sept. 24, 2006 - Jan. 14, 2007].
He Yunchang demonstrably knows no bounds: his artistic vision and drive are best encapsulated in the phrase 'indefatigable and indomitable'. He Yunchang is an engagingly modest man with absolutely nothing to be modest about. Though small and slight of frame, his physical feats are nothing short of Herculean. His shrewd, first-hand, ground-level observations of landforms and architecture uniquely endow him with the insight needful to portray famous British landmarks as they really are - or really should be - and nowhere is this power of perceptual penetration to the pith more in evidence than in his forceful rendition of London's Tate Modern Gallery as a traditional Chinese table and chair suite. His depiction artfully captures the magisterial grandeur of that venerable edifice, but chides it at the same time for its air of preening, overweening pomposity and reserved ostentation and elevation of form over substance, 'Arrogate not unto thyself such graces, thou merest, meanest ark of imperishable empyrium!' this piece proclaims with strident persuasion. 'If this be heresy, so be it; I shall burn rather than recant!'
He Yunchang is uniquely positioned to make such a dismissive statement, since his unassuming manner is itself an affront to conspicuous consumption. He has further absorbed through his pores the British penchant for spoofing and taking the piss in the course of his chequered travels and travails around that remote, dank, barbarian isle. This renders his commentary - viewed with an intimate outsider's eyes - all the more compelling and undeniable. He Yunchang's unwavering dedication to truth and artistic verity and integrity, and his unflagging quest for textual and contextual verisimilitude find their proper outlet in this piece, which speaks to that question that burns within us all, 'Am I a temple to eternal art, or mere temporal vanity?'
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