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¡¡¡¡We are living in an integrated transformation of social framework and subsistence mode. The existing standard of value and the emergence of newborn value make us feel past our prime while we are in it. As we know, in this consumption-oriented time, the acknowledgement of the intellectuals is to define the meaning of their own fields in a very narrow way and to lower their common voluntary mouthpiece wish of beings. Contemporarily, it is of the intellectuals in this time as the symbolic yielding specialists the inexpugnable life impulse and sense of duty: trying to interpret and form a definition of common sense and cultural works in different symbols. ¡¡¡¡The symbolic yields attempt to indicate that symbolization almost becomes the fundamental feature of all the spiritual yields in this time of fashion value demonstrated by the symbolization of image consumption and symbolic attention degree. But alternative natures of the symbols will arose expectations of different meanings. Wang Zhong's Contemporary Cultural Relic series and the new created Frightened Looks are focused on this. ¡¡¡¡Michel Foucault said culture is founded, preserved and spread itself in the venture, which has two faces: sometimes these are the cruelty, the war and the chaos, sometimes are the deliberation, the nonviolence and the silence. Notwithstanding the forms, the cultural venture - is the most quarreled but not the most astonished, while it is but incurable shallow - is unable to be neglected and more for nothing to withdraw. ¡¡¡¡Wang Zhong doesn't attempt to astonish the public by the quarrel and display its wits show by the meaningful depth of his works. He is rehearsing an ancient dream and desire in plain and common words and almost even in the quixotic way: inquiry on survival. Though we cannot feel sound, the plural frame and the cruciform metal body tell a long live expecting "time loss". ¡¡¡¡The tottering aged person is looking for his homestead in former times, incomplete and broken walls snuff the twinkling years light spots in his memory stream (the Ninth Five-Year Plan-Removal of Old Residence in Chaoyang District). It is still the faceless and weather-beaten old man standing in front of the broken walls watching for his life waiting "eternity", but the pretty girl is walking by unsentimentally. The disturbance and contrast of the "hope" is the necessity of time changes, but also the sentimental proverb of life like hasty travel (Old Residence Removal Plan-97, Composite Materials, 230¡Á500¡Á380cm, 1997). Wang Zhong is hereon telling and also demonstrating an evermore-elapsed "historical moment". Provided that the works with "Removal of old Residence" as magnum opus represent Wang Zhong's inescapable complex to the in-depth memory of cyan tiles and Hutong culture of old Beijing and his homesick feelings of old Beijing replaced by the new constructions, then the Big Cross series and the Contemporary Cultural Relic series from 1998 to 1999 manifest Wang Zhong's thinking leap forward. He has gone across lactation of feelings and started to make use of his statuary language to excavate the non-self value, but not that dramatic scene. ¡¡¡¡He complains the inane content and speciousness of the soul (Disclose Soul, Steel plate Jointing , 190¡Á60¡Á40cm,1998). Then the Big Cross series and the Contemporary Cultural Relic series attempt to survive. He knows he is not an apostle and his preach will not earn applauses and respects, but even tease. Due to this self-knowledge, the Contemporary Cultural Relic got its name. Yet it is of him an eternal flame and a little hope, which are described by the Skimming Image. He expects to attain applauses and deep esteem from his apostle acts because he doesn't fear the mock floating out of the noble fashion shop. Amen, in between the mountains and the deserts, in between the heaven and the earth, the sunlight throws heavily his shadow into the earth, rising morning sunshine pulls it very long to make it a bridge on a big gully. ¡¡¡¡Wang Zhong wishes for a virtual role that has Nu Wa, a Chinese goodness, who recreates beings instead of the God, after Eva ate the forbidden fruits on the sneak (Reborn Nature, Forge Copper, 90¡Á85¡Á80cm,1998), and re-cultivate the dream in an invisible space (Freedom Space, molten copper, iron plate, 190¡Á90¡Á60cm, 1999). Wang Zhong knows he himself is a daydreaming sufferer. But only doing the mission impossible, it will show up the heroic spirit, the weighty life of his inquiry and the addictive sense of pain, is that the life? Is the attraction of life manifested as a combination of self-consciousness and self-choice of the living individuals under the impulse of sense of duty? I know the value I am advocating and admiring will then leave nothing, and be like a puff of wind passing the ears. But the eagerness of my soul of freedom is just like satisfying with a spiritual holy banquet, and touches the syncretism of the self-established value of free life and goodness orientation of beings. Aristotle called that the highest goodness of beings. Is that the meaning of life (Life, Forge Copper, copper plate jointing, 220¡Á176¡Á60cm, 1998)? Upon that, Wang Zhong is like finding himself addicted to the opium poppy, maniacally drums for his work combining the features of the Big Cross and the Contemporary Cultural Relic (Contemporary Cultural Relic, No. 4, Composite Materials, 350¡Á200¡Á170cm, 2000). In addition, he has also granted them spiritual visual effect (Contemporary Cultural Relic, No. 5, Forge Copper, stainless steel, steel wire, 186¡Á240¡Á100cm, 2000). "To aware the oddness of the flower, it is but only the moonlight through the window." He is fully aware that the "survival" is something like crazy talk in a process of social transformation and cultural disorder and feels that he is wandering spectrally (Frightened Looks, steel plate, stainless steel, 300¡Á220¡Á50cm, 2000). The beings of that shadow and with symbolization become the image world and value resources in the public life, which formed the false significance context of Wang Zhong's the Contemporary Cultural Relic and the Big Cross. Therefore, Wang Zhong interpreted the puzzle and inquiry of the reversion by the extreme value of life and consumption culture from all to the public story. He is consulting his answers with all the people and himself, but he knows it in vain. ¡¡¡¡It is the meaning.It is a slick and even old story, but also the classical idea of something desolate. Having it, while we have to fight for the survival, we also lead a utopian life. Owning freedom, then I own two faces that all are my necessities. Is it life or "life"?
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