The artist Li Chen (b. 1963) is regarded as one of the leading sculptors working in Asia today, his powerful, large-scale bronzes fusing Zen thought with contemporary art practice. Li, who lives and works in both Shanghai and Taiwan, began his largely self-taught career by producing traditional Buddhist sculpture. It was not until the 1990s that he freed himself from the restraints of the traditional canon while nevertheless retaining a profound spirituality in his work. This was further deepened through his studies of Confucian, Buddhist, and Daoist scriptures.
The Asia Art Center in Beijing’s 798 Art District is proud to present the inaugural exhibition of a spectacular new series of sculptural works by Li Chen. Titled Soul Guardians: In an Age of Disasters and Calamities, the exhibition consists of three large-scale installations. If Li Chen has produced singular bronzes of exceptional harmony in the past, the present sculptural installations are designed for a world marked by natural and man-made disasters, warfare, decay, and global ecological calamity. Our world is unsafe and full of mishap, the pace of uncertainty ever greater, the gods are no longer benign.
