xu zhongmin: egg shape

image © designboom xu zhongmin’s ‘egg shape’ is an interactive installation, which detects motion from viewers to activate itself. the artwork shows abstraction of human beings practicing a process and it captures time as a running phenomenon. the illusion ‘walking’ as well as the ‘clockwise walking around the mountain’ is a metaphor for time and experience of time. ‘egg shape’, 2006 image © designboom

a chinese zoetrope-type device was invented already in 180 AD. these devices produce movement from an interruption between the display of sequential drawings / images.  – in a similar manner, the artist employed a stop-motion animation using a flashing lamp (the light source here is a xenon flash lamp) to make an improved stroboscope to create single images of the fixed figures on the rotating egg, resulting in the effect of moving objects.

detail of ‘egg shape’

the 3D animated installation ‘egg shape’ by can be seen among other 180 art works by contemporary chinese artists at the palazzo reale, milan, italy, until february 7, 2010.

‘time wheel’ no. 1, 2008 painting, woodcut(prints) and woodcarving installation

when the wheel turns, the prints become three-dimensional.

detail of ‘time wheel’

xu zhongminwas born in 1961 in the sichuan province, china. he learned acting and stage design with the mianyang sichuan opera troupe from 1975 to 1981, before being accepted into the prestigious sichuan fine arts academy where he studied printmaking, painting and sculpture until 1987. growing up during the 1960s and 1970s in china, zhongmin’s education and artistic development were interrupted by the onslaught of the cultural revolution. many of zhongmin’s works now examine the legacy of this period.