Artist cares little about pain when making a point

Photo Provided to China Daily

He carried a rock along the eastern coast of England and then returned to the place where he picked it up from. The walk covered about 3,500 kilometers in 112 days from September 2006 to January 2007.

Through that project, he raised the universal question of the pursuit of material comfort.

Judith Neilson, founder of Sydney's White Rabbit Gallery that collects contemporary Chinese art including his, once said that He's performances are "silent rebukes" to Chinese society where people would even endure suffering for money, because they see it as the "ultimate protection".

During the rock-carrying project, he was inspired to conceive another work, Hai Yin, which literally translated into Chinese means "drinking the sea".

A video at the exhibition shows him standing in the sea along the coast of Qinhuangdao in North China's Hebei province, in 2011, and drinking seawater for some 30 minutes.

He raises in the work a question of how many days it would take for the world's population drink up sea. He examines the relationship between individual efforts and social progress.

"I used to believe that the so-called elites can lead the world toward a better future. But I've come to realize that what changes the world is the collective effort of individuals, either in a good or a bad way," he says.

If you go

A Chang

10 am-6 pm, through Aug 1. Today Art Museum, 32 Baiziwan Road, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 010-5876-0600.