“Urban Landscape – San Francisco” is a visually stunning installation. It was installed by Zhan Wang (China, b. 1962) and is constructed using a large amount of stainless steel household cooking objects. Pans with spoons and serving utensils outline the city. The inner city features tall towers of pots and pans of different shapes and sizes which perfectly emulate skyscrapers. Knives and other similar objects highlight the lanes of the city roads. The background is illuminated in part by Wang’s famous stainless steel rock sculptures.
The piece is critical in nature. The intention of the piece is to show the potential of change in beautiful cities. He is able to travel the world and create beautiful cities that are disassembled after some time. Growing up in China, Wang explains that the places he loved in his city were constantly demolished along with all the memories from those places.
“As someone who has lived all his life in Beijing, I have seen this regime demolishing non-stop. They don’t let you choose a place and make it special and meaningful; sooner or later, they will take it down. By trying to reach a level of western-oriented modernization, we are destroying the continuity of our own tradition.” – Zhan Wang
Bibliography:
Art Basel. “Urban Landscape – San Francisco, 2008”. 2015. https://www.cafa.com.cn/en/News/details/8330204.
Kobe Mentzer
This inspired me to think differently about my artist’s work because the material and style used to make this piece so powerful and now I want to focus more on how my artist made the painting instead of just analyzing the content of the painting.
Matthew Kapica
I find this work of art to be super interesting. I love how the artist used metal pots and pans as well as other cooking utensils. I think that shows power in creativity while still being able to show a beautiful city that shines in the image. The artist in this post says that he cherishes his hometown city back in china. I think he chose metal because it is reflective, and it is a reflection of his own beautiful city, as well as resembleing San Francisco. I wish you just added some more detail about why he chose metal pots and pans. All though it is nice to sometimes interoperate things yourself, but I just wish I knew exactly why he choose metal cooking utensils.