On Saturday, May 22nd, 18 galleries in the Culver City Art District celebrated openings, giving Culver Citizens a preview of the artworks that will be on display during the Culver City Art Walk on June 4. Last week, I shined a spotlight on two shows that you should be sure to check out on the 4th. The first was Wayne White's show at Western Project. The second was Terry Thompson's show at George Billis Gallery.

This week, I'm going to recommend two more must-see shows, the first being Zhang Huan's show at Blum & Poe at 2727 South La Cienega Boulevard.

Works of art have no choice but to be made using the vocabulary of the present, but so often modern works of art seem to be little other than brusque assertions of contemporary style and individual personality. Great works of art survive not because of their style but despite it. They survive because they have a quality that transcends their idiom.

Zhang Huan's new exhibit at Blum & Poe, entitled 49 Days, taps into this sense of the ancient. His work has a classical feeling of solidity and simplicity -- an emphasis on form and a concentration on materiality.

Zhang Huan has established himself as one of the most important artists to emerge from China since the early 90s.  Zhang has developed a vast body of work ranging from endurance-based body performance (while living in New York) to large-scale public commissions, painting and sculpting with incense ash.

The pieces in the current show, including the imposing 22-foot-tall bell-shaped Pagoda (pictured above) are constructed of brick salvaged from demolition sites of centuries-old buildings in the Shanghai area that have been bulldozed to make room for more modern architecture, making it perfect fodder for consideration of what lasts and what passes away.

And then there's the stuffed pig... According the the Blum & Poe website:

Pagoda serves partly as a tribute to Zhu Gangqiang, or the "Cast-Iron Pig", now famous for having survived 49 days in rubble, following China's historic 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Upon hearing its story of survival, Zhang negotiated the pig's purchase and has subsequently adopted him into his studio, employing a full-time caretaker and making his likeness a central part of his artistic practice.  The number "49" (from which the show takes its title) is dually significant, both for its relationship to Zhu Gangqiang's story and for its connection to Buddhist thought, as the Buddhists believe 49 days is the amount of time ones soul remains on earth between death and reincarnation.

Some pig, indeed.