Zhan Wang

Zhan Wang's solo exhibition, Collapsed Geometry, featuring nearly twenty of his latest major works created in recent years, is now on display and will run until 28 December 2025.Building on his dialectical reflection on nature, science, and art over a long time, ZHAN Wang seeks to unpack the relationship between Euclidean geometry and the "fabricated natural philosophy" that underpinned his earlier works. In doing so, he has distilled an artistic vocabulary of interactions such as geometric cuts, molding, and reconstruction, through which he has created a new series of sculptures.

Drawing on the concept of "collapse", ZHAN Wang refers to a state of self-awareness manifestation—the idea that the world has no definite form, and that it is the superimposition of observation and thought that reveals the world's real shape. Geometry is not only a visual form, but also the projection of rational thought in reality. As early as 2009, in his Dual System, the artist began to explore ways of understanding the essence of the world through the medium of geometry. His creative concept was deepened in Collapsed Geometry (2019-2024), where he used computational fluid dynamics to simulate the flow of volcanic lava. He immersed geometric forms in this environment and, through dynamic simulations, captured how they dissolved in visual form. For his sculptures, he selected several moments of deformation when the objects still had their shapes and carved the data out on volcanic rocks.

For ZHAN Wang, standard geometric forms do not exist in nature. Taihu stones represent the imagination of the natural spirit in eastern cultures, while geometry symbolizes rationality and order in western philosophy. By juxtaposing and blending these two symbols, he is also searching for new ways to understand the nature of the world. In Let There Be A Tunnel (2025), ZHAN Wang continues his basic sculptural language of "scholar's rocks" made of stainless steel and introduces the concept of geometric construction. Using a Taihu stone as a prototype, he molded stainless steel sheets around them and imagined in his mind a standard cylindrical shape passing through the interior of the stone, forming a stark contrast with the natural cavities in it. The cylinder does not exist in reality, yet it seems to have left a trace on the metal's surface, as if it were a great force against nature. A common thread running through many of his recent works, this concept can been found in Inner Square (2025), Cross-sectioned Circle (2025), Bi-sectioned Circle (2025), and Multi-directional Circle Section (2025).

Through continuous creation and contemplation, ZHAN Wang has formulated "ten artistic axioms" that encapsulate his artistic concepts. His series "Beyond  Infinity" (2021-ongoing) and "Form of Particles" (2022) are both inspired by the concept of infinite divisions, where he cut, sealed, and assembled the stainless steel casings that had taken the shapes of natural stones. The modular components were then welded in order of size to form an infinitely extending structure. As one of the ten artistic axioms states, "Bisections stop outside of infinity."

In Phantom (2025), he suspended a stainless-steel rock to block a beam of "light," then shattered the original stone and stacked the pieces in the shadow of the faux rock. In this sculpture, the line between what is real and what is replicated is blurred. Here, light, shadow and the original body all converge into one another, which is, as the artist puts it, "A reciprocal transposition of real and fake yields equal volume."

Art historian and critic GAO Minglu describes ZHAN Wang's updated methodology in Collapsed Geometry as "Innermaterial Enlightenment": " ZHAN Wang drifts between modern revelation and the pure-material minimalism, which is what innermaterial enlightenment means. This idea encompasses not only the mutual inspiration between materials (such as stainless steel and stone) but also the meditative dialog between the artist and these materials. Having worked with stone and stainless steel for three decades, he is intimately acquainted with their temperaments and character. His focus on the entanglement between these two substances has given rise to a variety of artworks. Now, he seeks to awaken the sculptural genius of them, forging a new path where 'form can still be achieved even in the absence of rules or standards' (collapsed geometry)."*

*Written by GAO Minglu，From ‘Intermaterial Entanglement’ to ‘Innermaterial Enlightenment’: On ZHAN Wang’s Recent Work ‘Collapsed Geometry’, 2025

LINKS

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghOQzGZL1Ck&t=64s
  

• Zhan Wang: From “Artificial Nature” to “Collapsed Geometry”