Outline5#
"Bones" are parts of the bodies of vertebrates and humans, and the collaboration among these parts enables life to move; but as long as a branch is not completely dead, once stuck in the soil, after several years it becomes a tree again. Not even necessarily several years—a cheerful branch can become a tree in a year, and bear flowers and fruit in two. The artist titled a work that uses animal "bones" as branches as material, likely having discovered the image of "bone" over years of working with branches. It not only supports the structure of the work, but also visually presents a clear sense of "bone spirit" (gǔqì). Bone is the hardest, slowest-to-decay thing, often used as a metaphor for human integrity or character—such as moral backbone, chivalrous mettle, or defiant pride. Perhaps bone only has spirit when there is flesh; when branches are joined by materials like epoxy resin and fiberglass into spaces that curl like leaves, it is as a skeletal framework that the branches reveal this "spirit," and what retains this "spirit" is naturally the space within the work. So, is this space one that the branches, as plants, had already created and the artist merely reproduces, or is it a space that the artist one-sidedly seeks out among branches that did not originally exist, to carry their own aesthetic and conceptual vision?
Kang Jing, born in Shandong, graduated from Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts with a bachelor'sdegree and from the Central Academy of Fine Arts with a master's degree. He currently lives in Beijing.
His solo exhibitions include:
Family Myth in Cai Jin Space, 2024;
Black Light Scence in M studio, 2023;
Engraved on My Bone in Mocube, Beijing, 2022;
Angular on My Bone in The Opposite House, Beijing, 2022;
Never ever again in Mocube, Beijing, 2020;
The Past is False in Mocube, Beijing，2018;
Deep and Quiet in Mocube, Beijing, 2016.
Part of group exhibitions include:
“Breakout”, Xi'an LaoChengGen G Park, 2024;
“Lingt In August” in Mocube, Beijing, 2024;
The 5th Guanzhong Mangba Arts Festival，Xi'an Huyi, 2023;
"Real Life, Ready - made Technology" — First Academic Invitation for Cloud Sculpture, Beijing Song Art Museum, 2022;
"Ritual Power", Shanghai COSPACE Gallery, 2022;
"Muyun 37° Public Art Residency Program", Yun Art Museum, Shenzhen, 2022;
Xinghui Contemporary Art Museum "Alien Land", Chongqing, 2021;
"Remaking the Magic City", Shanghai Himalayas Art Museum, 2021;
“Coupling Symbiosis”, Anren Biennale, 2021;
The 8th Tomorrow Sculpture Awards exhibition in Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, Chongqing, 2020;
“Guns and Roses” Kunstraum Potsdam, Potsdam, 2016;
“The Civil Power”, Beijing Minsheng Art Museum, 2015;
Unlived by what is seen，Pace Gallery, Beijing, 2014. etc.
Kang Jing's works have won the SAP Art Award 2021 Sculpture and Installation Art Award; the 8th Tomorrow Sculpture Award Annual Award; his works have been collected by many art galleries, institutions and private collectors at home and abroad.
