WALLACE CHAN: TOTEM

Totem is a large-scale installation of the unassembled parts of Wallace Chan’s 10-metre-high sculpture made of iron beams and carefully modelled titanium heads of various sizes. The installation presents an interactive relationship between the work and the exhibition space, encouraging viewers to approach the parts closely and to view them from various angles. Chan invites visitors to experience these different perspectives as they wander among the sculptural elements, transforming their static completeness into an expansive ‘universe’ composed of many parts.

The term totem usually refers to a revered ancestral spirit and is connected to a primal belief that the universe and everything in nature has a soul and that totems are symbols of human connections with all living and inanimate things. The reoccurring enigmatic face in Chan’s sculptures is a spiritual being, a kind of personification of our planet and its natural energy. It is the interconnection of the Earth’s separate parts that enables it to regulate its own environment and to be habitable and capable of sustaining human life. By presenting his ‘Totem’ sculpture in unassembled parts, Chan alludes to the need for its reconstruction by displaying an assembly diagram on the gallery walls.

The enigmatic face motif is one of the defining characteristics of Chan’s imagination. Its ageless and androgynous facial features have a serene aura, as if to reference Buddhist imagery. While it resembles an ancient archetype, it possesses a timeless quality belonging to both past and future, with a somewhat uncanny aura, like an extra-terrestrial. The recurrent versions of the face at different scales are made from titanium, the strongest, most durable and lightweight metal known. Chan has pioneered its unprecedented use for large-scale sculptures.

By juxtaposing the titanium faces with the iron beams, Chan sets up a dialogue between the two materials, with the lightness and durability of titanium providing a dramatic contrast to the weightiness and susceptibility to corrosion of iron. Chan is sensitive to the character of the metals he works with and believes that the inanimate materials possess some innate metaphysical energy or life force. His skill at creating both miniature and monumental sculptures seems to give him unique insight into the connection between the Microcosm and Macrocosm that characterises his practice. With his background in Buddhist philosophy, the work is linked to contemplation and curiosity about life, nature and the mysteries of the universe.

The spectacle of Chan’s installation does not belong to a singular form; rather, it is produced by the relationship between its multiple parts. Once disassembled, the integrity of the sculpture as a unified form is removed, suggesting the fragility and imminent collapse of a previous order. It symbolises both social and psychological fragmentation in the current atmosphere of uncertainty over global issues, such as polarised politics, climate change and pollution. Chan’s fragmentary sculpture can also be perceived as the vestiges of some lost civilization or a memorial to a distant primordial existence.

This can be appreciated as a series of conceptual and formal distinctions between the sculpture and the ground beneath us, as different arrangements of both figurative and abstract physical mass. Their experience is intended to feel their way into the sculptural space from within and become almost part of the sculpture at both its centre and periphery.

Titanium is the strongest, most durable and lightweight metal known. After eight years of research and experimentation, Wallace Chan started using titanium, first for jewellery and then for large-scale sculptures. After considerable experimentation, he discovered how to work with titanium and has recently created large sculptures with it.

The central motif of the sculptures is the colossal head, whose facial features are calm, with a peaceful aura and enigmatic expression that seems to reference Buddhist imagery. It evokes both past and future, as it can represent either an ancient archetype or an extra-terrestrial. The sculptures are quite complex and feature smaller versions of the head occasionally ‘framed’ within a square configuration of iron girders.

Chan uses this device, with the recursive smaller version of his sculpture becoming an even smaller version, to evoke the notion of infinity and its relationship with space and time. Chan has a similar penchant for using distortion, deconstruction and fragmentation, which has precedent in art history in both Baroque and Postmodern sculpture. The sculptures convey a sense of concentration, inviting the viewer’s gaze to penetrate their peaceful, idealised Buddha-like faces with exaggerated ears, features that have their origins in the gemstone carvings of goddesses he made in his formative years.

The sculpture’s recurrent motif is an enigmatic face, which is the dominant motif in his sculptures and one of the defining characteristics of Chan’s imagination. This is reproduced in different scales and sizes. The central largest fragmentary head forms part of a 5m sculpture that was exhibited earlier this year at Canary Wharf, London.

The unassembled sculpture suggests the fragility and imminent collapse of a previously unified order. The installation offers an interactive relationship with the work and gallery space, encouraging viewers to approach the parts closely and to inspect them from every angle. Chan invites the visitor to experience these different perspectives as they wander among the sculptural elements, transforming their static completeness into an expansive ‘universe’ composed of many parts.

This can be appreciated as a series of conceptual and formal distinctions between the sculpture and the ground beneath it, as different arrangements of both figurative and abstract physical mass. Their experience is intended to feel their way into the sculptural space from within and become almost part of the sculpture at both its centre and periphery.