Solid Gold

Imagine, if you will, 15,000 freestanding, golf-ball-sized golden heads, swaying gently on stakes at varying heights in a 430-square-foot room. The heads, multiples of a few hundred sculptured images, look out, face-on, at the viewer.

At first you might shake your head in wonder: How can they all fit so harmoniously into so small a space and yet seem so calm, uncrowded and singular? Perhaps that’s what rising Chinese painter Fang Lijun was going for when he created the installation. A statement about individuality amid the crushing population of his native country. Or perhaps not.

We’ll all be able to gaze upon the spectacle when Fang Lijun: Heads opens today at the Laboratory of Art and Ideas at Belmar during a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. In addition to the installation, Fang’s first solo museum exhibit in the U.S. will include other sculptural works and a large-scale, 36-panel composite painting.

“The essence of the work is how Fang Lijun imbues in these faces complex emotions — isolation, desolation, boredom, anxiety — and combines with these a very simple effect of beauty. They’re covered in gold leaf, so they shimmer,” explains Lab director Adam Lerner. “And even though there are 15,000 heads, the show is actually a very sparse, meditative, quiet environment. This exhibition is good for the soul.”

Heads continues through August 26 at the Lab, 404 South Upham Street in Lakewood; for more information,
call 303-934-1777 or visit www.belmarlab.org.

April 18-Aug. 26