Wang Huaiqing - Tripple Feet
Wang Huaiqing’s work is infused with his deeply-felt and authentic connection to art. Whereas much of modern painting aims at the fusion and renewal of eastern and western art, Wang insists on a dialogue with Chinese cultural traditions. As he has said, the breakthroughs that he seeks do not only serve artistic ends, but relate to his more fundamental struggles against constraints in life. Having been born and raised in a closed society, Wang experienced greater freedoms during China’s liberalisation, which led to both economic development and prosperity on the one hand, and cultural disconnection and alienation on the other. This ambivalence is a strong motivating force behind the Wang’s art, as well as its notable expressive content. Triple Feet (Lot 1034) marks Wang Huaiqing’s venture beyond the medium of painting into the format of mixed-media installation, presaging his attempts in free-standing sculpture and large-scale installations. In its exploration of a new formal vocabulary, the work embodies a striking, spiritually-charged aesthetics.
Measuring 2 metres tall and 3 metres wide, Triple Feet is a rare monumental sculpture by Wang Huaiqing. It reflects the inspiration that Wang finds in Ming-style furniture, as well as his investigation of western modernist aesthetics and ideas. The work has a rich and multifaceted context, not only incorporating Wang’s early experiences but also his post-millennial ambitions: in the mid-1980s, he visited Shaoxing, Zhejiang, to observe and sketch the traditional vernacular architecture of the Jiangnan region and explore the abstract beauty of its white walls and black roof-tiles. This led to Wang’s creation of his own semi-abstract pictorial language, which distills, deconstructs, and reorganises Jiangnan vernacular architecture into forms that hover ambiguously between figuration and abstraction. In 1999, Wang was moved by the conclusion of the most dramatic century of Chinese history and the optimism of the new millennium to depart from his past sombre palette. He employed bright reds for the first time in Feet 2, which resembles a Ming-style corner-leg table. At the turn of the millennium, Wang created House in a House--Red Bed, which interprets his unforgettable experience of sleeping in a canopy bed in the hostel next to Lu Xun’s former residence in Shaoxing. Incorporating furniture parts, the work breaks from the two-dimensionality and the physical boundaries of a pictorial composition and situates itself ambiguously between painting, sculpture, and installation.
Notable Auction Records
Created in 2011-2012, Triple Feet reflects further progress from the two works mentioned above and embodies the new direction taken by Wang Huaiqing in the new millennium. As in his interpretation of a canopy bed, Triple Feet incorporates installation into painting and sublimates painting into pure installation; it is both grounded in tradition and oriented towards the modern. Employing the bright-red colours favoured by Wang after 2000, the work delineates the basic form of a canopy bed in hard edges. In its clarity, decisiveness, and order, it recalls one of Piet Mondrian’s ‘General Principals of Neo-Plasticism’ (published in Vouloir, 1926): “the Plastic means must be the rectangular plane or prism in primary colors (red, blue, and yellow) and in noncolor (white, black and gray)” In its incorporation of furniture parts, Triple Feet adopts a more mature and abstracting approach. The single leg that juts out and breaks the pictorial plane not only introduces the media of sculpture and installation but also embodies the artist’s individuality. Wang himself has referred to Triple Feet, in its creative motivation and formal expression, as a continuation of and evolution from Feet - 2, which sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong for HKD 5.4 million. Triple Feet takes an abstract composition inspired by classical furniture, frees it from the constrained expansiveness of the two-dimensional pictorial plane, and projects it into space. It embodies a salient transition between the modern and the contemporary, as well as the boundless creativity in Wang Huaiqing’s radical reinterpretation and reception of tradition.
A work of unparalleled art-historical value and importance in Wang Huaiqing’s career, Triple Feet exists only in six editions. One edition is in the collection of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum and included in “One To All – The Art of Wang Huaiqing,” his 2012 exhibition in the same museum. Another edition is in the collection of the Tsinghua University Art Museum and included in “Vertical Horizontal – The Art of Wang Huaiqing,” its large-scale retrospective of Wang’s work in 2021.
圖左至右：台北，台北市立美術館〈一生萬: 王懷慶藝術展〉二〇一二年九月一日至九月二十三日，展覽圖錄彩圖，128-129頁（另一版數）；北京，清華大學藝術博物館〈縱·橫：王懷慶藝術展〉二〇二一年十二月二十八日至二〇二二年三月三十一日（另一版數）
《三足鼎立》
王懷慶的藝術創作，充滿忠實於本心的藝術感動，在現當代畫壇致力尋求東西方藝術的融貫與革新之同時，始終堅持對話中國文化傳統。藝術家曾自言，他在創作上追求突破，不止是藝術上的需要，更是生命上掙脫束縛的吶喊。特別是生於封閉社會，而隨著改革開放逐步獲得自由的世代，面對著國家發展所帶來的繁榮，以及隨之而來的文化斷裂，這種愛恨糾結的情感，即化為強烈的內在驅動力，在作品上不吐不快。《三足鼎立》（拍品編號1034）的誕生，標誌了王懷慶的藝術不再局限於繪畫，甚至跳脫繪畫融合裝置的表現形式，全面開拓獨立雕塑以至大型裝置項目，從中嶄新形式語法的探索路上，展現別具精神性的文化審美。
《三足鼎立》高2米、闊3米，屬於王懷慶罕見的雕塑巨作，展現王懷慶以明式傢俱作為抽象靈感的創作精髓，以及藝術家對西方現代主義的美學與理念基調之涉獵及融貫。作品的語境豐富，不但結合了王懷慶早年的經歷，也反映了他踏入千禧之後的壯懷：八〇年代中期，藝術家前往浙江的紹興寫生，從觀照江南傳統民居的建築，發掘白牆黑瓦背後的抽象之美，由此開創自己的半具象語言，將傳統民居的造型結構簡化、解構、重組，以介乎於具象和版抽象之間的造型顯現；至1999年，藝術家有感中國歷史最波瀾起伏的一百年即將結束，象徵新開始與新希望的廿一世紀即將到臨，由此一改沉鬱深邃的色彩語言，首度以大紅色系創作出《足－2》，呈現一張氣勢磅礡的明式花葉足條桌。踏入千禧之交，藝術家接續創作《房中房－紅色之床》，將其在八〇年代初，首次遊歷江南，在浙江紹興魯迅故居旁邊的招待所首次睡上傳世的「架子床」之難忘經驗，作為創作之造型及情感基調，繼而將傢俱部件以嵌入形式表現，突破畫布的二維平面與邊界局限，打破了繪畫、雕塑和裝置藝術的界限。
《三足鼎立》創於2011-2012年，即可見以上兩幅作品的深化發展，為王懷慶在千禧之後踏上一條嶄新大道的充分體現：作品延續藝術家對架子床的清晰理解，在繪畫疊加裝置的表現形式上，昇華至純裝置藝術的展現模式，使之既有傳統的鋪墊，又有現代的觀念。作品承繼王懷慶於千禧之後的創作常用的大紅色系，並以簡潔俐落的硬邊線條勾勒出架子床的輪廓，猶有蒙德里安（Piet Mondrian）在1926年所發表的〈新造型主義之基本原則〉中，對於「造型一定是長方平面或柱體，以原色（紅、藍、黃色）與非彩色（白、黑、灰色）組成」的藝術主張，盡見明確、俐落而有秩序的形式目標。《三足鼎立》在傢俱部件的植入上展現更成熟的抽象化處理，尤其是突破作品平面的單足，不僅為作品整體佈局增添雕塑與裝置性質，在意識形態上，亦如藝術家個人主體意識的彰顯。王懷慶點評本作之時，特別提及作品在創作理念以至造型展現上，與上拍於香港蘇富比，並以5,400萬港元成交之《足－2》，具有連續性並得以昇華：《三足鼎立》將藝術家從古典家具提煉而成的構圖，進一步從寬廣卻有限的平面，尋求突破並躍入空間，凸顯現當代之間的轉換，體現藝術家以嶄新思維承續傳統的無窮創造力。
本作在王懷慶的創作歷程之中地位非凡，總創作版數只有六版，其中兩版由台北市立美術館及清華大學藝術博物館收藏，更展出於藝術家於2012年在台北市立美術館《一生萬》及2021年清華大學藝術博物館收《縱橫》大型回顧展中，極具學術及收藏價值。