Li Chen

The Contemporary Road of Media and Tradition - Group Exhibition of Ten Leading Sculptors, Asia Art Center, Beijing, 2007, p. 50, illustrated in color
Asia Art Center, Li Chen: Energy of Emptiness, Taipei, 2007, p. 137, illustrated in color
Asia Art Center, Li Chen. 1992-2002. Sculpture, Taipei, 2004, pp. 88-89, illustrated in color

There is a faint 3 cm. scratch on the top of the work that is barely visible. Otherwise there are no apparent condition problems with this work.
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The ample bodies of Li Chen's sculptures radiate a corporeal yet oddly spiritual energy. Long interested in the philosophical ideas of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, Li creates bodhisattvas (enlightened beings) whose physical grace defies their unusual proportions. Born in Taiwan in 1963, Li has undertaken to represent the impulse toward the sacred by balancing opposites.  For example, the weight of his bronzes seems nearly insubstantial in light of their unearthly poise, and their undeniable corpulence moves towards the purity of geometric forms. It would be easy enough to write off the spiritual in today's complicated material world, but the refinement in Li's art quietly but meaningfully asserts the presence of another realm. Indeed, the force of these resonant compositions easily exceeds the sum of their parts; they belong to a different world in which quiescence triumphs over mere repose. Serenity in any time is not readily obtainable, but the ecstatic stillness of Li's work suggests the attainment of an exquisite calm could be near at hand. An appreciation of the spiritual life is central to Li's own outlook, and his great achievement is to have palpably connected the material and spiritual worlds through his intercessory figures. 

 

In the bronze entitled Clear Soul (2002), Li embodies literally the dualism that seems to lie at the heart of his practice. A similar pudgy figure appears twice, with the uppermost reclining form, dark and weighty, seemingly signifying an earthly, temporal existence. The base figure beneath is almost identical but fleshed out in a silver patina that appears of machine-tooled, superhuman perfection, as though a refulgent embodiment of the soul. Mildly humorous in its mirrored doubling of a charming ease of manner and smiling countenance, Clear Soul is also serious in its grounding of spiritual calm in the earthly world. Although Li's solution is straightforward—the literal representation of the soul as spiritual double and, literally, the base of existence—the problem of effectively representing the spiritual is certainly not an easy one.

 

Landscape in Heaven, a small bronze of 2001, consists of one of Li's bodhisattva figures, short and squat though standing upright, holding in his right hand a brilliant golden mountain and in his left, a flat shimmering disc that signifies water with its noticeable ripple. The unearthly quality of the figure's face presents the ineffable presence of heaven, holding what here seem precious relics of the landscape, as both artistic genre and natural phenomena, in his hands. Here as always, Li finds an accessible, inviting humor in his embodiment of matters spiritual.

-Jonathan Goodman