ZHANG HUAN | „MY TEMPLE“

2. Art Project Krauthügel

July, 24 –  September 29, 2015
Krauthügel, Salzburg

With the second Art Project Krauthügel, the Krauthügel, a 80,000 square meter meadow area below the fortress Hohensalzburg will not only be an artistic area for the public but also a spiritual place: Zhang Huan will built a temple on these ground for which he will use  historical components from an 17th century Ming Dynasty temple. The artist creates a correlation network between art and history, art and nature, rationality and spirituality.  His temple, which seems to have arisen from ancient China, is charged with the history of many generations whom the artist transforms from their timeframe into actuality.
At the entrance of the filigree architecture is an empty plastic bag, a familiar object of everyday consumer life. It floats as a peculiarly delicate strange object between the wooden beams of the installation. The ancient material wood meets the material of the present (and future?) plastic. While the natural material wood represents durability and historical growth, the bag is a product of fast pace and reproducibility. However, it can also be read as a symbol of transportation and movement, as a vacuum that needs to be filled.  For Zhang Huan it symbolizes the “Illusion of the future and the expectation of a new life.”