Shi Jinsong - Earlier Works

Earlier Works

Shi has been known to break away from his typical steel structures. In 2003, he presented an installation at the Centre Pompidou called A Life of Sugar. The installation was made out of caramel and sugar and designed to melt over the course of the show. The idea of the exhibition was to critique disposable consumer goods.

Shi's Tree Motorcycles (2008) consisted of a tree for the frame and working motorcycle parts on the inside, making them drivable. “I dreamt that a trunk with a big light was running on the road.” Shi Jinsong said in an interview. “I just wanted to know what a big tree – which is four or five meters long – with a speed of more than 100 km per hour looks like.”

Shi also created fancy metallic motorcycles to show in the 2008 Shanghai Biennale. Shi was included in one of the first groups to participate in the exhibition. He created his own humorous logo name, “Ha Ke Long”, for his motorcycles which resemble Harley Davidson’s. The logo was based on the words “halong-kellong” and “tuolaji”, meaning "walking tractor" in Chinese. The motorcycles, carved with symbols of the dragon and phoenix and equipped with karaoke and video instruments, were meant to be driven around the museum by a muscular man dressed as Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Read more about this topic:  Shi Jinsong

Famous quotes containing the words earlier and/or works:

    The very locusts and crickets of a summer day are but later or earlier glosses on the Dherma Sastra of the Hindoos, a continuation of the sacred code.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    All his works might well enough be embraced under the title of one of them, a good specimen brick, “On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History.” Of this department he is the Chief Professor in the World’s University, and even leaves Plutarch behind.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)