Lu Pinchang: Sculpting a Life

Sculptor Lu Pinchang’s work is obscure and his presence is at first unimpressive, but the man is a giant. His life and his sculpture tell the journey that led Lu to his current monumental, eclectic style which merges eastern and western influences.

On Tuesday, Feb. 26, I biked across the river to the ceramics studio, hidden in the basement of a building that you can’t even see from the street. Most people affiliated with Harvard University do not even realize that the place exists. I only knew about the place because I take a pottery class there on Friday afternoons—and still I had no concept that such an artistic colossus would visit.

I came to this obscure location because, on that day, Lu Pinchang had come to give a slide show and lecture. I attempted to do some online research about the man, but was unable to find anything substantial since much of his website is in Chinese. For someone who knows precious little about the universities of contemporary China, his resumé was little more than a laundry list of accomplishments revealing nothing of his art.

Therefore, when I saw Mr. Lu—in China, a person’s first name is his/her family name and the last name is his/her given name—step unceremoniously from the passenger side of an anonymous looking car, accompanied only by Marvin Sweet, a local ceramic artist and lecturer at the Art Institute of Boston, I was unsurprised. As we descended the stairs into the studio, I noted his short stature, his unrefined and incomplete English skills, and his friendly demeanor, but nothing about him even slightly hinted at his remarkable life story and great artistic skill.

Along with Sweet, Nancy Selvage—Director of the Ceramics Studio—and Lena Lee—who speaks Chinese and is affiliated with the ceramics studio—I had an informal discussion with Lu. During the Cultural Revolution, Lu and his family had to move to the countryside because his father was a professor of geography and, like all intellectuals at the time, he was expelled from the city.

Lu lived here until he was fifteen, at which point, in 1978, the government opened up the universities to all applicants and he entered the Jingdezhen Ceramics College having only a homeschooled education. His reason for choosing ceramics over any other artistic medium or any other lifestyle is remarkable in that—as far as he explained—there really wasn’t one. At that age, he had no great love for or experience in the art of working clay.

However, his father had told him that he needed to learn a craft in order to survive and to prosper in society and, as a child, Lu had shown proficiency in drawing and painting. While these two factors may not logically lead to a life of ceramic art, he nonetheless took the entrance examination and was accepted.

Four years later, having earned his bachelor’s degree, he became a teacher at the university. He was nineteen at the time; most of his students were older than he was. He remained a member of the faculty at Jingdezhen until 1994 when he transferred to the arts and crafts department of the Beijing Fashion Academy for a year. Since then he has served as a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing.

Stylistically, Lu originally rejected traditional Chinese sculpture and pursued a career of sculpting in a more Western style. From this experience, he published a book in Chinese, The Western Contemporary Sculpture. However, deciding that this style was too limiting, he began to derive his influences from Chinese folk stories and traditions, even the Great Wall, although a strong contemporary Western influence remains in his work.

One of his most recent series of more personal works is entitled “Fu,” which, in Chinese, means both “fat” and “happiness,” derived from the Chinese proverb, “A fat man is a happy man.” In this series, he creates plump, slightly abstract figures in positions of vulnerability and intimacy, which give the viewer a comfortable sense of contentment and ease. One of these sculptures was modeled after his wife and baby son, an indescribably cute and smile-inducing image. His wife complained the sculpture portrayed her as fat.

Another recent, impressive project of his is entitled “Big Sword.” A government funded project, he created four colossal clay sculptures memorializing the sacking of Nanking by the Japanese in World War II. Rectangular obelisk-like structures that are bronze castings of his original ceramic sculptures, these works are the largest scale sculptures ever produced in China. Remarkably organic and vibrant, human figures emerge from this giant mass of clay, but they are all connected, on top of or next to one another, all part of the same edifice. An entire park in Beijing is dedicated to this work, a testament to Lu’s skill and true feeling for his medium.

As a result of his connection to the Central Academy, Lu has been afforded many opportunities to travel abroad, both to teach and to study ceramics and other forms of sculpture. Most recently, he participated in an artistic exchange with Sydney Art College where he learned the art of glassblowing. Previously, he had made visits to Korea, England, Spain, France, Italy, and Russia. This instance, however, is his first visit to the United States, where he is on tour.

Lu Pinchang’s website can be viewed at http://www.lpcart.com.