Relic & Wall & Trunk & the Backside 遗迹 & 墙 & 躯干 & 背面

Creator(s)

Shao-Xiang WU 吴少湘

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Date

1992

Format

Article

Location of Exhibition Event

Dr. A. Kogler, Klagenfurt

Materials

shilling coins, bronze

Dimensions

99 cm high, 182 cm high, 108 cm high,

Description

"Relic," "Wall," "Trunk," and "The Backside" are four sculptural works created by Wu following his emigration to Austria. These pieces are consistent in their shared material and formal characteristics: each features a female-bodied form constructed from Austrian schilling coins. As such, they have been grouped together in this catalogue. The use of coinage medium is emblematic of Wu’s exploration of modernist sculpture between 1988 and 1993. However, these works also involves his bold representation of the female body in Avant-Garde movement in China, suggesting that these works are a transitional position between two phases of his artistic development. Alternatively, one might interpret these pieces as a culmination of Wu’s artistic practice, a convergence of two themes. In these works, a critical engagement with both monetary and sexual fetishism is evident. The objectification of the female body serves as a vehicle for a broader critique of money worship, wherein the female body becomes both a site and symbol of fetishized desire. The shimmering coin surfaces symbolize allure and wealth, yet they also imply decay beneath their glimmering appearance—a visual echo of the Chinese proverb "金玉其外，败絮其中" ("glittering on the outside, but rotten within"). From the compiler's perspective, these sculptures articulate a profound commentary on the exhaustion of desire. They present not the object of desire itself, but its image—a simulacrum that conceals absence. Desire is thus immediated, displaced, and ultimately unfulfilled. (Zhuocheng Jiang '26)