Tag: Sculpture

This Young Artist’s Works Capture the Agony and Ecstasy of Being Alive

Media Library

Late one April night, the artist Liao Wen was in her studio in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, listing off the many instruments that she uses to make her astonishing art. “These are my chisels,” she said in a video interview, panning the camera about. “Chisels, chisels, chisels. The wood saw. So many tools, accessories, so many machines, sandpapers.” It was a veritable hardware store of supplies, and she was in the midst of packing them all up (not an easy task) to move with her husband across the…

How a Terra-Cotta Warrior Lost Its Thumb to a Delaware Shoe Salesman

Chin@Strategy

If a 24-year-old shoe salesman slips away from a science museum’s ugly-sweater party and breaks into a closed exhibition of terra-cotta warriors, it is entirely possible that nothing bad will happen. Or he could steal a warrior’s thumb. After the salesman, Michael Rohana, confessed to doing that in Philadelphia six years ago, federal prosecutors sought a conviction on felony charges that could have put him in prison for decades. A jury was unable to reach a verdict in 2019, but his case is now heading for a resolution after a…

Could a Ming dynasty Buddha found near an Australian beach rewrite history?

Chin@Strategy

In 2018, a pair of Australian film-makers were doing runs with metal detectors in remote Western Australia as they prepared to shoot a documentary about the French exploration of Australia. The film was supposed to feature a hunt for scientific equipment believed to have been left in the area by the Baudin expedition of 1800-1803. There was no trace of Napoleonic-era exploration, but what they did find was something perhaps even more unusual. It was 15cm-tall bronze Buddha figure, weighing just over 1kg and – according to experts – likely…

Ai Weiwei says mother, 90, warns him against China return

Chin@Strategy

The Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei has said his desire to be reunited with his 90-year-old mother could lead him to return to China, but that she has implored him not to give up his British exile. The sculptor and activist, who divides his time between Cambridge and Portugal, spent 81 days in custody in Beijing in 2011 and fled his home country four years later on the return of his passport. Asked by Chris Patten, the former governor of Hong Kong, at an event in London whether people who…