Prescription for the Soul 處方: Sculptures by Wang Xinggang 王興剛雕塑展

“…有時打開所有的‘抽屜’，發現並未找到你所要的東西，這是常人的正常反饋，這個人自己本身代表的是他過往的一些積累，所擁有的一些記憶、經驗及喜怒哀樂，都放到了抽屜中，可以裝的很多或很少，這和人的修行有關，有的人該放下的放下。這個抽屜是空的，空與不空是一樣的，有和無不是對立的。”

——王興剛自述

“…We are always trying to understand each other, but sometimes when we open all the ‘Drawers’, we find that we still haven’t found what we are looking for. This is normal feedback for the average person. This person represents the accumulation of his past experiences, memories, and emotions. All of these have been stored in the drawers, which can either hold a lot or a little depending on one’s degree of enlightenment. Some people let go of the things they should let go of and we find that the drawer is empty. Empty and non-empty are the same, existence and non-existence are not opposites.”

——Artist Wang Xinggang

“王興剛的《處方》適合用虛與實來談論，因為這個系列的作品本身就有虛與實兩個組成部分。在王興剛塑造的工、農、商、學、兵、官六個代表性的人物形像中，每個形像都有可以拉開的空抽屜。抽屜的空間，就是作品中的虛。這種空間的處理方式，在當代雕塑中並不常見。空洞的抽屜在這裡意味著什麼？為什麼要在人體上挖出抽屜而不是別的什麼東西？既然已經費勁地挖出抽屜，為什麼不用它們來裝東西？我想每個觀看王興剛的作品的人，都會提出各種各樣的問題。王興剛的作品不僅讓人觀看，而且讓人探究，讓人思考。在這裡思考與觀看巧妙地構成了一種虛與實的關係。”

——彭鋒 《虛與實—讀王興剛的系列雕塑“處方”》

“Prescription lends itself to discussion in terms of positive and negative, as the series is inherently comprised of positive and negative elements. In this series, he has sculpted the forms of a worker, farmer, businessman, scholar, soldier and an official, each of which has carved in it empty drawers which can be pulled out. It is precisely the space in these drawers that creates the negative in these sculptures. Such treatment of space is quite uncommon in contemporary sculpture. What do the empty drawers imply? Why has he carved out drawers in the human body rather than something else? And given that he has taken the effort to sculpt out the drawers, why doesn’t he put anything inside? I believe that anyone looking at Wang Xinggang’s works will have a myriad of questions to ask. Wang Xinggang’s works not only invite the viewer to observe visually, but also to contemplate, and it is this visual observation combined with contemplation that in turn cleverly create yet another form of positive and negative.”

——Peng Feng “Positive and Negative – On the Prescription series by Wang Xinggang”