About the Artist
Zhang Lanpo, originally from Hunan Province, was born in Lanzhou, Gansu Province, in 1973. He earned his bachelor’s degree in 1996 and master’s degree in 2005 from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. Currently, he is a university art teacher living and working in Zhaoqing, Guangdong Province. His works strive to reconstruct the panorama of life by continuously approaching and capturing the essence of death. In the realm of "eternal life," which is far more distant and extensive than the world of life, he explores the profound dilemma of human nature - a contradictory history of merit and fault, sin and punishment, humanity and divinity, cognition and judgment, concealment and revelation. It is these contradictions that continually attract him to engage in introspection and discovery.
About the work
Giant Pass Series 1
In the Picture I built a giant scepter, which consisted of captured American artillery barrels, temple-top scriptures and Hevajra (Happy King Kong). It slanted in from the brightest spot at the entrance of the cave. I was concerned about and discussed the complex relationship between power and people and heroes and mortals in history. In my view, history could be seen as a process that shapes time, space and human beings. In the sedimentary rocks of the evolution of civilization, greasy liquids of human nature diffused. They were just like crude oil transformed from countless lost lives. Dark plasma was generally full of energy, containing materials that could emit heat. At the same time, they would drill when they met with crevices and run downstream when they met low levels. They was a dark stickiness and stains and it was very difficult to rinse and could not be removed.
Giant Pass Series 2
In an upside-down cave, a dried-up arm of the deceased entered. Many fish and animals gushed out or absorbed from his palm, involuntarily or willingly. Below a half-cut face was placed on the stone mound in the Summer Palace, with three microphones from the first half of the 20th century in his brain, eyes and mouth.
Giant Pass Series 3
In this work, I photographed two children, one with a dragon on his head and the other without beads in his eyes. They were on top of two dry game legs that beat each other and elephant bones, respectively. Dinosaurs were flying in the air to compete for the stone wreath. At the bottom of the picture, beside the abyss, reclined the empty shell of jade clothes sewn with gold wire.