Exhibition View of "Zhan Wang: Collapsed Geometry" at ESLITE GALLERY Beijing, 2025.
Since the 1990s, Zhan Wang has been making artificial rocks from stainless steel, transforming this natural imagery imbued with Chinese traditional cultural symbols into a postmodern form, which has also established him as a representative conceptual sculptor in China. ESLITE GALLLERY presents “Collapsed Geometry”, the latest solo exhibition of Zhan Wang in Beijing, which features nearly twenty of his major works created in recent years. It is on view from September 6 to December 28, 2025.
Building on his dialectical reflection on nature, science, and art over a long time, Zhan Wang seeks to unpack the relationship between Euclidean geometry and the “fabricated natural philosophy” that underpinned his earlier works. In doing so, he has distilled an artistic vocabulary of interactions such as geometric cuts, molding, and reconstruction, through which he has created a new series of sculptures.
View of the Opening Ceremony for "Zhan Wang: Collapsed Geometry" at ESLITE GALLERY Beijing, 2025.
Drawing on the concept of “collapse”, Zhan Wang refers to a state of self-awareness manifestation—the idea that the world has no definite form, and that it is the superimposition of observation and thought that reveals the world’s real shape. Geometry is not only a visual form, but also the projection of rational thought in reality. As early as 2009, in his “Dual System”, the artist began to explore ways of understanding the essence of the world through the medium of geometry. His creative concept was deepened in “Collapsed Geometry” (2019-2024), where he used computational fluid dynamics to simulate the flow of volcanic lava. He immersed geometric forms in this environment and, through dynamic simulations, captured how they dissolved in visual form. For his sculptures, he selected several moments of deformation when the objects still had their shapes and carved the data out on volcanic rocks.
Zhan Wang, Dual System, 2009, White marble, stainless frame, PMMA, Dimension variable, Exhibition View of “Objects of Idea”©️CAFA ART INFO Photo by Hu Sichen
Zhan Wang, Collapsed Geometry, 2019-2024, Volcanic rock, Dimension variable in 16 parts
Zhan Wang, Collapsed Geometry (detail), 2019-2024, Volcanic rock, Dimension variable in 16 parts
Exhibition View of "Zhan Wang: Collapsed Geometry" at ESLITE GALLERY Beijing, 2025.
For the artist, standard geometric forms do not exist in nature. Taihu stones represent the imagination of the natural spirit in eastern cultures, while geometry symbolizes rationality and order in western philosophy. By juxtaposing and blending these two symbols, Zhan Wang is also searching for new ways to understand the nature of the world. In “Let There Be A Tunnel” (2025), Zhan continues his basic sculptural language of “scholar’s rocks” made of stainless steel and introduces the concept of geometric construction. Using a Taihu stone as a prototype, he molded stainless steel sheets around them and imagined in his mind a standard cylindrical shape passing through the interior of the stone, forming a stark contrast with the natural cavities in it. The cylinder does not exist in reality, yet it seems to have left a trace on the metal’s surface, as if it were a great force against nature. A common thread running through many of his recent works, this concept can been found in “Inner Square” (2025), “Cross-sectioned Circle” (2025), “Bi-sectioned Circle” (2025), and “Multi-directional Circle Section” (2025).
Zhan Wang, Let There Be A Tunnel, 2025, Stainless steel, 110 x 170 x 262 cm.
Zhan Wang, Let There Be A Tunnel (detail), 2025, Stainless steel, 110 x 170 x 262 cm
Exhibition View of "Zhan Wang: Collapsed Geometry" at ESLITE GALLERY Beijing, 2025.
His series “Beyond Infinity” (2021-ongoing) and “Form of Particles” (2022) are both inspired by the concept of infinite divisions, where he cut, sealed, and assembled the stainless steel casings that had taken the shapes of natural stones. The modular components were then welded in order of size to form an infinitely extending structure.
Exhibition View of "Zhan Wang: Collapsed Geometry" at ESLITE GALLERY Beijing, 2025.
Zhan Wang, Beyond Infinity No.5, 2025, Stainless steel, 129 x 45 x 32 cm
Zhan Wang, Form of Particles No.3, 2022, Stainless steel, 86 x 48 x 67 cm
Art historian and critic Gao Minglu describes Zhan Wang’s updated methodology in “Collapsed Geometry” as “Innermaterial Enlightenment”: “Zhan Wang drifts between modern revelation and rare material purity, which is what innermaterial enlightenment means. This idea encompasses not only the mutual inspiration between materials (such as stainless steel and stone) but also the meditative dialog between the artist and these materials. Having worked with stone and stainless steel for three decades, he is intimately acquainted with their temperaments and character. His focus on the entanglement between these two substances has given rise to a variety of artworks. Now, he seeks to awaken the sculptural genius of them, forging a new path where ‘form can still be achieved even in the absence of rules or standards’ (collapsed geometry).”*
Through continuous creation and contemplation, Zhan Wang has formulated “ten artistic axioms” that encapsulate his artistic concepts. These “art axioms” printed on the walls of gallery, as concise and succinct as the geometric axioms of ancient Greece, originate from artist’s reflections on his own creative practice, subtly indicating to the audience how he imparts a creative order to matter in creation while using objects as a medium.
*Written by Gao Minglu, From ‘Intermaterial Entanglement’ to ‘Innermaterial Enlightenment’: On Zhan Wang’s Recent Work ‘Collapsed Geometry’, 2025
About the Artist
Zhan Wang (born December 1962, Beijing) graduated from the Sculpture Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1988, and currently lives and works in Beijing. With “concept as material” as the core of his practice, he pioneered the notion of “conceptual sculpture” in the mid-1990s, breaking through the boundaries of traditional sculpture by replacing conventional narrative with ideas (“thoughts”) and transforming them into material carriers. His artistic exploration extends across installation, video, and two-dimensional experiments.
In the following interview conducted by CAFA ART INFO, Zhan Wang shared more about the creative process, the continuation and breakthroughs of his ideas exhibited in his latest works, as well as his recent reflections on abstract and representational art.
CAFA ART INFO: How did you get inspired to create these works?
Zhan Wang: Through my previous practice, I realized that those standard regular geometric shapes that became principles in ancient Greece probably were not derived from mimicking the objective world (in ancient Egypt, they were used as measurement tools). They were products of human subjective assumptions and deductions! In other words, geometry does not exist naturally in the world as it is a subjective hypothesis to perform subsequent geometric reasoning. The objective summarization, deduction, and simulation of nature can never produce geometry. Therefore, I experimented with the work “Dual Systems”, first exhibited in “Objects of Idea” (2020) at Long March Space. Of course, these unverified ideas exist only as artistic experiments and research.
Moreover, in the practice of making stainless steel rocks, what I fear most was the appearance of geometric concepts, such as straight lines, parallel lines, right angles, and perfect circles, because in nature, no part can be described using these terms. Nature is a living entity, existing in a parallel state to our subjective world, without any connection. It is for this reason that I began to focus on what true geometry really is.
When original geometry becomes a plaster statue, it turns a tangible matter into an idol which has lost its geometric meaning; in other words, we mistakenly think that is abstraction and rationality. As a result, very few people in China actually study what abstraction really is, and abstraction has almost become “crying up wine and selling vinegar” in decorative paintings. The phrase “geometric plaster statues are not geometry” comes from this.
Exhibition View of "Zhan Wang: Collapsed Geometry" at ESLITE GALLERY Beijing, 2025.
CAFA ART INFO: The exhibition is titled “Collapsed Geometry”. What does “collapsed” mean in this series of work?
Zhan Wang: “Collapse” is also the reason natural landscapes catch our attention, and it forms the foundation of our aesthetic system as it explains why there is no inherent, natural authenticity in understanding the world, as everything in nature moves toward irreversible chaos. Chaos is the fundamental phenomenon of the world. Only by stepping outside this phenomenon can human essence and subjectivity exist. It is through subjective separation that creation becomes possible—creation is the subjective confrontation of human beings with the world.
The Greek concept of “geometry” and concept of “artificial rocks” in the Han dynasty originated around the same time. I create to merge the abstract thinking of “geometry” (subjective) with the hypothetical thinking of “artificial rocks” (based on the objective) in art. It is not a matter of applying Western learning with Chinese substance, but rather about integrating the substance itself.
Exhibition View of "Zhan Wang: Collapsed Geometry" at ESLITE GALLERY Beijing, 2025. Photo by Ke Wei.
CAFA ART INFO: What do you think are the continuities and breakthroughs of your current work compared to your previous ones?
Zhan Wang: Frankly speaking, I have never been fully satisfied with my previous works. I proposed “Collapsed Geometry” as a way to incorporate abstract ideas representing the foundations of Western culture from today’s cognitive perspective, in search of a new breakthrough. In “Phantom” (2025), I suspended a stainless-steel rock to block a beam of “light”, then shattered the original stone and stacked the pieces in the shadow of the faux rock. In this sculpture, the line between what is real and what is replicated is blurred. Here, light, shadow and the original body all converge into one another, which is “a reciprocal transposition of real and fake yields equal volume.”
Exhibition View of Phantom (2025) at ESLITE GALLERY Beijing, 2025.
CAFA ART INFO: The Taihu stone pierced by a cylinder seems to unexpectedly follow the order of structure (geometry and traditional forms) yet break it (melting and penetrating through) as well. What creative intention do you think this resulting form carries?
Zhan Wang: Such as in “Let There Be A Tunnel” (2025), I use a Taihu stone as a prototype, stainless steel sheets were molded around them and imagined in my mind as a standard cylindrical shape passing through the interior of the stone, forming a stark contrast with the natural cavities in it. The cylinder does not exist in reality, yet it seems to have left a trace on the metal’s surface, as if it were a great force against nature. This demonstrates that human subconsciousness, if trained, might approach pure conceptual potential. From a visual perspective, the stainless steel rock progresses from a first-level binary combination of “expansion creation” to a second-level binary “juxtaposition”. Through this dual juxtaposition, it changes our visual habits and also alters cognition.
Zhan Wang, Inner Square, 2025, Stainless steel, 100 x 107 x 187 cm.
Zhan Wang, Cross-sectioned Circle, 2025, Stainless steel, 73 x 82 x 91 cm.
Zhan Wang, Multi-directional Circle Section No.1, 2025, Stainless steel, 78 x 106 x 117 cm.
Zhan Wang, Sectioned Square, 2025, Stainless steel, 86.5 x 95 x 110 cm.
CAFA ART INFO: Would you share with us your creative thinking on the video installation, and why you are interested in lava?
Zhan Wang: This is not an ordinary video as it is a particle-based visual transformation calculated from fluid dynamics formulas. I have discussed this idea extensively with curator Su Lei in 2016. He helped me find a mathematician from Tsinghua University to collaborate, thus we realized an experiment: placing myself into molten lava to undergo deformation, then capturing a particular moment to create a three-dimensional deformed body. I called it “Invisible”, as a metaphor for the unseen inner world of humans (it later even received a national invention patent). I used this invention again in “Collapsed Geometry”. The term here is borrowed from quantum physics, and when translated into art, it conveys materialization, contraction, and observation. The abstract geometric shape that should not exist gradually becomes tangible through computation, but it soon dissipates into countless particles.
Zhan Wang, Collapsed Geometry, 2016-2025, Single-channel video, Colour，silent, 1'27''.
CAFA ART INFO: The sentences on the walls are somewhat enigmatic, paradoxical, yet they also seem to convey the truth. Do they correspond to your intentions conveyed in these works?
Zhan Wang: I believe artistic expression lies beyond all existing human modes of expression; it is a way that cannot be classified, like a ventilation cut opening outside a closed space. The artistic axioms that I create belong to the same category: they are geometric axioms of artistic perception. They were also inspired by the exchanges with my friends. As conceptual sculptures, they should present more of the abstract thinking aspect, so I wrote them down at the very last moment of creation.
Exhibition View of "Zhan Wang: Collapsed Geometry" at ESLITE GALLERY Beijing, 2025. Photo by Xu Zhonglei.
Exhibition View of Not Touching Prevents Complete Blackness (2024)
In “Not Touching Prevents Complete Blackness”(2024), a textual instruction was also used and this applied to my earlier works such as “Buddhist Medicine” (2004 – 2006) and “New Art Quick Training Workshop”(1997), among others. I believe that art has never been purely a visual phenomenon; it is a mixture of vision, sensation, and concepts, where the conceptual part often requires explainable words (not a diagrammatic text, beyond ordinary words). I have found that when you add a text to art as an expression, rather than an explanation, it can take you to where any material alone cannot reach; conversely, what materials convey is also beyond what words can achieve. By doing so, I hope to achieve the effect of “1 + 1 = 3”.
About the Exhibition
Dates: September 6 - December 28, 2025
Location: ESLITE GALLERY Beijing∣B06, No. 797 Rd., 798 Art Zone, No. 2 Jiuxianqiao Rd., Chaoyang Dist., Beijing City 100000
Opening Hours: Tuesday to Sunday 11:00-18:00 (Closed on Mondays)
Text (CN) by Mengxi and Liu Xinyao, edited (EN) by CAFA ART INFO.
Image Courtesy of Zhan Wang and ESLITE GALLLERY Beijing.
