Although museum art has nurtured many great artists, it has tombed many geniuses. For most tapestry artists, the static three-dimensional space formed by museum walls and the general public wall hangings can no longer satisfy their creative desire. I wish to free myself from the restraints of easel art, to achieve the great transcendence of time and space, and to vitalize the hollow artistic theories in social life.

The capacity and limit of an artwork are defined as soon as it is completed. Conversely, its completion process is a dynamic, moving vehicle of art, history and thoughts, embodying great potential and infinite possibilities. Time and space continue to expand during its movement. The tapestry “Qi (Match)” marks my attempt to explore this aspect.

I have brought with me half of the unfinished draft of “Qi (Match)”, and I am going to finish the remaining half with your assistance here. Upon completion, the work will be displayed here as an echo of its another half which is currently hung at Zhejiang Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China. I hope that in the near future, you will bring it back to Hangzhou, so that the two halves of this tapestry could be put together and merged into one piece. When the two halves are placed separately, the tapestry surface symbolizes the cosmological concept “heaven is round and the earth is square” in Chinese traditions. There are also three words - “heaven”, “human” and “the earth”, indicating that the two halves are matched together at the moment of “favourable timing, geographical and human conditions”, which reveals ancient Chinese pursuit of the perfect state.

When the tapestry “Qi (Match)” is put together, it will serve as the messenger of art, the bridge of friendship and the testimony of history.

Zhejiang Academy of Art, China (Present-day China Academy of Art)
Liang Shaoji
July, 1989