Black Body marks a distinctly experimental shift in Huang Kui’s practice, constituting a notable departure from his earlier works. The piece is extremely small in scale, measuring only 20 × 20 cm. Executed on the floor, it is shaped entirely with black pigment, with the intention of pushing the painted surface toward an extreme three-dimensional objecthood.
Methodologically, the work no longer relies solely on stop‑motion animation; instead, it incorporates time‑lapse photography as a parallel recording device. As the materiality of the oil paint is strongly accentuated, the image undergoes continuous subtle transformations over extended periods. The recording is conducted almost without interruption—even when the artist is absent from the studio, the equipment remains in operation to capture its ongoing evolution.
The work is over ten centimetres thick, approaching its own length and width. It is precisely this unusual thickness that caused the piece to suddenly crack and eventually collapse as it approached completion. This occurrence was not premeditated by the artist but arose from the contingency inherent in the material itself.
The exact moment of completion remains undetermined to date, as the work continues to change slowly. The artist can only persist in documenting the process through time‑lapse recording, treating it as a continuously transforming “black body” whose final state perpetually remains in suspension.
Detail pictures:
Facebook
Instagram
WeChat 微信