Heavy metal of Xi Hua: Entangled with his hometown and his alien land

                                                                                                                                                                            Gu Zhenqing

   In the context of the new century of globalization, urbanization and cyberization, a modernized China is heading towards the post-industrial era in a very rapid way. At the same time, massive industrial landscapes between 50’s and 70’s, such as, factories, equipements and machines parts, are fading out of our sights. The glories and pains arose when dreaming the dream of China being a industrial power have also dissolved away. Nevertheless, the spirit remains and hidden trouble left after the fever of marching towards the industrial revolution have been influencing and perplexing the present China for a long time. Xi Hua has always been critical about the changes which took place in his surrounding industrial environment and he kept doing his self-examination. His personal stand and his belief of essentialism are gradually revealing the glory of practical significance.

   Maybe it is due to the reason that Xi Hua has spent his childhood living in the factory, he has a strong obsession about the alternative space composed by giant factory buildings and huge machineries. The old timey machines are no longer roaring. Xi Hua is devoting himself to rearrange his memory of the industrial time. He has an acute understanding of physical property, as well as the texture of industrial materials, especially of things that are made of metal, like, obsoleted oxygen cylinders, barometers, water pumps and so on. With an artistic retouch, Xi Hua turned these materials into carriers and media of his expression. We can feel the overwhelmed visual power by looking at the images of cutted steel sheets and welded screws. Xi Hua’s working method of recycling the ready-made, has revealed the brand new meaning of industrial material living in the context of contemporary art. His attention to the industrial progress concerning the issues of urban development, energy conservation, environment and humanities, is out of his traditional and modest good will of constructing the ideal home, and out of his “I love you but I hate you” concern of the city he’s living in. In fact, Xi Hua has been entangled with the modernized hometown and his alien land. His hard work and conflicts have been poured into his works in a very pure and visual way so as to give the works a sense of sublime. Xi Hua’s rationality is tangled with the Utopia quality of China in the time of dreaming to be the industrial power. However, his nostalgia expression is closely bound up with the present China, with its sunshine, its air and its entire living environment.