THE WALL

Installation

Mixed technique, cement, books

2019

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Critical text by Luca Beatrice:

Exactly thirty years have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was the 1989, a year of transformation and of historical events as for example the  World Wide Web invention. Coming to art, instead, at the Center Pompidou was inaugurated the exhibition Les Magiciens de la Terre, the first major international exhibition that united western artists with other worlds, at that time considered very far, if not exotic. Globalization was therefore coming to swift steps. But returning to the image of the Wall, for us Westerners there is no suggestion (and today no celebration) that does not refer to that extraordinary need to break down barriers for a new desire for freedom. On the other hand, every wall that is erected proposes the sense of limit, as if history had really taught us nothing. The Wall is also the main theme of Hu Huiming's installation, but the inspiration feeds once again on the relationship with the culture of origin. Inside each cement brick that forms this barrier, a pressed book is hidden, which can no longer be accessed or read. The episode refers to a specific historical event: when Emperor Qin Shihuang burned the books, the ninth generation of Confucius, a descendant of Kongzhen, hid many classic texts of tradition within a wall. All the the books were got safe, saved but illegible. Later, at the time of Emperor Hanjing, Liu YuYu, prince of Lu Gong, expanded his palace and demolished the original house of Confucius. So nothing remains of the wall, and this is an extreme attempt to bring it back to life.