PAF015Xu Zhen, Hello, 2021-22

A monumental Corinthian column bends and coils into an improbable serpentine form, transforming a structure associated with stability and permanence into something animated, fluid, and seemingly alert to its surroundings. Created through a combination of digital modeling and traditional fabrication, Hello reinterprets the classical Greek architectural form associated with permanence and cultural authority as a seemingly animate, beast-like body. Xu has linked its watchful capital to Nietzsche’s image of the abyss “gazing back,” suggesting that history is not simply observed but confronts the viewer in return. For the artist, the work becomes a metaphor for encounters between civilizations across time and geography. 

Tucked within an aspen grove, Hello can also be glimpsed from the Hidden Lake lift. Its vertical form echoes the surrounding trunks, while its exaggerated curves interrupt their natural rhythm. Encountered among trees rather than architecture, the column is displaced from its conventional setting and recast within a landscape shaped by growth, weather, and seasonal change. The sculpture extends Xu’s interest in cultural displacement and hybridity, asking how inherited forms shift in meaning as they move across place, time, and context.