Some of us are late bloomers. Not\u00a0Hu Shaoming<\/a><\/strong>. Last year, while still in school at\u00a0The Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts<\/a>, he created a 4 piece exhibit over 4 months entitled\u00a0Reconnecting Time<\/i>\u00a0that set the internet abuzz.<\/p>\n

In \u201cThe age of Mechanical Reproduction\u201d as cultural critic\u00a0Walter Benjamin<\/a>\u00a0put it, Hu Shaoming\u2019s art is handcrafted with meticulous precision \u2013 the closer you look, the more details you find \u2013 from very mechanically reproduced objects.<\/p>\n

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Coolhunting<\/a>\u00a0describes his home city of\u00a0Guangzhou<\/a>\u00a0as:\u00a0“The chaotic capital of\u00a0Guangdong<\/a>\u00a0province in the south of China, one of the main hubs of Chinese industrial production and one of the biggest trading ports. The whole province is scattered with factories for digital products, textiles, shoes and furniture\u2014most of the Made in China products we consume worldwide come from this area. The city’s proximity to all sorts of material, machinery and production facilities makes it a playground for artists, an ideal place to experience new media and techniques.\u201d<\/p>\n

The past is a source of intrigue for this artist, as he showed in\u00a0Reconnecting Time<\/i>, altering four antiques which he had purchased all over the world, fascinated with their “exquisitely precise composition”.<\/p>\n

This year, the young sculptor, now graduated, has produced two more works that are lighting up the web art scene,\u00a0Umbrella<\/em>\u00a0<\/i>and\u00a0City of Dreams<\/i>. Hu Shaoming continues to connect to the past, this time by building incredibly intricate cities of cylindrical buildings from every kind of mechanically reproduced bit, bob, and gizmo, from buttons and knobs to gears and salt shaker tops.<\/p>\n

As the metropolis, reminiscent of\u00a0Fritz Lang<\/a>\u2019s 1927 film of the same name, grows away from a traditional Chinese parasol in Umbrella<\/em>, representing China\u2019s traditional past as the city\u2019s foundation. The look of the buildings also recalls\u00a0Art Deco<\/a>\u00a0style which, circularly enough, was inspired by machines and mechanical production.<\/p>\n

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In\u00a0City of Dreams<\/i>, another metropolis grows from the head of a giant seahorse which, again, beneath its translucent \u2018skin\u2019 is constructed of mechanical bits, polished and precise. The foundation of our modern cities is indeed nature, without which neither they, nor we, their inhabitants would exist. The same mechanical bits throughout the piece demonstrate our connectedness, that we are literally \u201cmade of the same stuff\u201d. Although such statements have been made to the point of clich\u00e9, the sculptor manages to say them in a fresh, new, thought-provoking way, evoking multiple pasts; Mechanical products of the past, rapidly being replaced by electronics, the past when nature dominated mankind, the past of Chinese traditional life, and past dreams of a Utopian future. What else do these pieces evoke in your imagination?<\/p>\n

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Some of us are late bloomers. Not\u00a0Hu Shaoming. Last year, while still in school at\u00a0The Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, he created a 4 piece exhibit over 4 months entitled\u00a0Reconnecting Time\u00a0that set the internet abuzz. In \u201cThe age of Mechanical Reproduction\u201d as cultural critic\u00a0Walter Benjamin\u00a0put it, Hu Shaoming\u2019s art is handcrafted with meticulous precision \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[6283,6282,6279,6280,6281],"yoast_head":"\n