In the sculptural work created by Wu Hao, the temporal and the ephemeral have a significance that should be emphasized. For his temporal-spatial installations Watermarks Project, Wu Hao allows a mixture of acrylic paint and water in a variety of porcelain and glass vessels to evaporate – taking more than half a year in each case. In implementing his plans, the artist relies upon the assistance of third parties. In workshops, he teaches them how to handle and conserve the vessels and about the background of his work. Not until the actual installation of his artworks, which can be flexibly adapted to the relevant exhibition spaces, does Wu Hao intervene, selecting, combining, and arranging the vessels.
After their ‘production period’ these vessels reveal more than just watermarks from the sediments of the original acrylic paint mixtures – they also give indications of the weather, the seasonal humidity, and the air quality of the different cities. Wu Hao’s Watermarks Projects are a complex, performative ‘community project’ created jointly by the artist, by each individual city and its inhabitants. They tell of different urban environments and can also be understood as a subversive/poetical statement; only by seeing ‘watermarks’ yet possible interpretations of a sociological, ecological and political character are opened up.
Wu Hao
Watermarks Project: Wuhan, 2014-2015
