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Wang, born in 1949 of a military family, is the same age as the People's Republic. As a teen-age Red Guard in the Cultural Revolution, he belonged to a rebel faction in his home town of Tianjin. There he once helped loot and burn a Roman Catholic church. Chastened by those outbursts, he has become a sculptor whose brooding images, carved from blocks of wood bought at a local firewood shop, show the evils of political fanaticism. "When I was a Red Guard," Wang says, pointing to his work, "I would have smashed all of this."
Officially a scriptwriter for Peking television, Wang only began sculpting about two years ago—and then by accident. "I happened to carve a piece of wood that had fallen off a chair," he recalls. "I didn't really know how to carve, but as a scriptwriter I had been influenced by the French theater of the absurd, especially Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Ionesco's The Bald Soprano. So I decided to try to carve a kind of theater of the absurd in wood." Though many foreigners and Chinese alike have been impressed by the energy and originality of his work, he is not recognized as an official artist by the state, and thus cannot make a living by his sculpture.
Excluded from official circles, Wang belongs instead to an unofficial group called the "Stars," which grew out of last year's Democracy Wall movement. This group of 26 artists was allowed last summer to show 160 works in Peking's main art museum —an important gesture toward openness in China. Wang's large, totemic figure of Mao, with one eye open and one eye shut, was the most controversial piece in the show, which drew between 4,000 and 7,000 visitors a day during its two-week run. Says Wang: "Today's leaders have made their ideas about economics very clear, but they have not yet decided about art and culture. Many of them are still afraid of Western influences, thinking that they are unworthy and immoral. The leaders have been isolated for such a long time that many of them are not very cultivated. But as living standards go up, there will be an effect on art and culture too. The best way to develop art is not to pay official attention to it at all.
"During the Democracy Wall period (when critical posters were tolerated by the authorities), we had feverish expectations, so we are disappointed with today's slowness—but we recognize that moving ahead slowly is better than not moving ahead at all. In fact, going too fast could bring a reaction from the conservatives, who continue to hold great power. Still, I think we shouldn't be afraid. The Chinese people have often-been too afraid."