Praying mantis legs made of copper Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Zhang Wen photographed
In the South China Sea, where metal trade accounts for half of the country, the artistic value of copper is being rediscovered
Text/Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Zhang Wen
Photo/Provided by respondent (unless attributed)
Driving about 5 kilometers from the north of Guicheng Li interchange in Nanhai District, a large area where Guihe Road and the Guangzhou-Foshan Shinkansen intersect was once a well-known gathering place for the waste metal recycling industry in Dali. Xingqi Group is one of the leaders in this industry that emerged in the 1980s and is now facing transformation, and has given birth to countless well-known companies in the industry.
Another development direction around copper metal, which is nurtured on the basis of this industry, is also popular to explore the design and artistic value of copper elements. In the words of Chen Legend, chairman of Xingqi Group, it is necessary to sell copper from selling according to "tons" to selling according to "kilograms", and then from selling according to "kilograms" to selling according to "grams".
The person who dared to take the step of selling according to "grams" was Chen Huanzhi, the son of Chen Legend and the owner of Yongzheng Hall.
I want to do something that resists time
Walking to the gate of the Yongzheng hall cultural exhibition hall, two huge brass doors introduce the reporter into a copper world. The bronze door plaque records the origin of Yongzheng Hall: "Yongzheng Hall, the main construction, the work of good gold and stone, the dexterous instrument, the industry of copper..." Behind the description of the bronze plaque is the story of Chen Huanzhi's family's association with copper.
Chen Huanzhi told reporters that in the 1980s, the spring breeze of reform and opening up blew all over the land of southern Guangdong, and in 1986, his father Chen Legend decided to go outside, when Dali was an important gathering place for scrap metal in the southern region, and naturally became the first choice for Chen Legend to start a business. "Relying on the business of scrap metal, many private enterprises have achieved take-off, before the 2008 financial crisis, many enterprises engaged in waste recycling business can even reach 100 to 20 billion yuan in annual sales", Xingqi Group is in the first echelon of the industry.
A generation has a generational mission, and the financial crisis of 2008 made a generation of entrepreneurs aware of the urgency of transformation, but where to turn? In 2017, Chen Huanzhi, who studied architecture in Melbourne, returned to China and gave his father a piece of advice: try to the cultural industry. "Copper is a symbolic material in the history of Chinese civilization and has long been endowed with rich cultural significance", Chen Huanzhi's original intention is simple: "Wealth may not be permanently inherited, only culture can resist time." ”
"We want to change the business of copper from selling by ton to selling by kilogram, and then from selling by kilogram to selling by gram", Chen Huanzhi explained the meaning of his father's sentence: selling by ton is the business logic of waste recycling business, selling by kilogram is the business logic of doing new material business, and in the end, to achieve sales by gram, only to do cultural business.
Entrance door interior of YongZheng Hall
Let people touch the wisdom of the "heavy instrument of the country" with their own hands
Strictly speaking, Chen Huanzhi did not inherit the family business, but started his own business on an almost zero basis. In 2017, Chen Huanzhi set up his own studio. Independent legal person, independent accounting, also means that from strategic planning to specific development must be responsible for their own, "I don't know what the future will be, but I only have to work hard every day." ”
No startup is easy. At the beginning, Chen Huanzhi could only make some small ornaments from copper to attract customers. With the promotion of the business, the cultural value contained in the copper element was quickly recognized by some big names in the art and design world. In the continuous exchange with the artists, the two sides gradually reached a consensus to expand the cultural attributes of copper from commercial ornaments (copper horses, copper carts and other ornaments) to space customization. In the first half of 2021, Yongzhengtang was officially opened, and the concept of integrating copper elements into space design was vividly displayed here, "Yong is the ancient copper bell, and carrying forward the elements of copper containing cultural attributes is the original intention of The establishment of Yongzhengtang." ”
It is easier said than done, and to incorporate copper into the elements of space design, it is crucial to master copper surface treatment technology. Fortunately, having been with copper since childhood, Chen Huanzhi knows more about the chemical composition of copper than ordinary artists. He took the initiative to find a university research institute, overcame the problem of copper surface treatment, and applied for a patent. The technology developed by it can almost perfectly reproduce the patina that appeared on the surface of ancient bronzes in China, and it is precisely by virtue of this that Chen Huanzhi took over an unexpected big business.
"In 2020, the national cultural relics hall - Henan Museum will be upgraded and renovated, because we saw our copper surface treatment technology, and finally the museum handed over the internal decoration based on copper elements to us." Chen Huanzhi knows that as an important birthplace of Chinese civilization, every bronze in Henan is a rare treasure, and the Duling Fangding in the museum is a "heavy weapon of the country". How to create an interior decoration that matches these exhibits is really a very high requirement. After thinking about it, Chen Huanzhi's team started from Duling Fangding, studied the pattern and instrument type of Ding, and then borrowed from the copper handrails, copper walls, and copper doors that were applied to the decoration of the museum, taking the door handle of the museum as an example, the team used brass material, and then used the copper surface treatment to make the old, and used Guangdong's "intangible heritage" technique - enamel color process on the façade. In addition, in order to reproduce the patina of Duling Fangding, the team continued to experiment and made a dozen kinds of green comparisons, "Although they are all patina, each kind of patina has its own personality." We have to choose the one that best matches the personality. Under this almost harsh process, the work of Chen Huanzhi's team has been highly praised by the Henan Museum.
"We had a thought at that time, Duling Fangding is the wisdom of Chinese civilization created by our ancestors, and we can't touch the cultural relics now, but we can let people touch the wisdom of the 'heavy weapon of the country' through other ways." Chen Huanzhi recalled.
A patina painting inside the main hall
With the help of the new generation of "national tide" wind to get more recognition
Nowadays, Yongzhengtang has become a place where many artists and designers often come to get inspiration and communicate with each other, taking the strengths of many people, Chen Huanzhi wants to use copper to prove himself, but also to prove to the world the quality of domestic products and the wisdom of Chinese civilization. "I have a wish in my heart, to make something, to make some word of mouth, to spread our products and wisdom abroad."
Although Yong Zhengtang's career is still in its infancy, Chen Huanzhi is still full of confidence in the future: "This confidence comes from the change in aesthetics and interests of the post-90s and post-00s. He observed that the cultural self-confidence of the new generation has been unprecedentedly strengthened, and the love for the national tide is unprecedented, which are all favorable conditions for Chen Huanzhi's copper culture concept to be widely recognized in the future.
"The copper plates we design, each piece can be a work of art, but each piece can not be a unique product, we do not want to create a unique product, but hope to promote the design of copper to a wider range of applications, can be furniture, can be doors, can be background walls." Chen Huanzhi said that he hopes that every copper design is a thoughtful and ornamental product, so that the cultural value of copper can be recognized by the market.
Journalist's Note
"To sell the copper business from ton to grams"
Walking into the Yongzheng Hall, not to mention the variety of artworks that use copper elements to the extreme, just the sentence "To sell copper business from ton to gram" is enough to make people feel quite shocked. Our ancestors achieved social development through copper smelting in the early days of civilization, and now, in the era of gradual prosperity, people are determined to re-excavate the cultural value of copper, is this not a kind of cultural self-confidence?
(Zhang Wen)
Edit: Bao Kuo
Source: Golden Sheep Network