Silken touch

An artist's patient fascination with a thread-spinning insect makes his work slowly come to life, Deng Zhangyu reports.

Many artists create dozens of works a year, but conceptual artist Liang Shaoji takes his time to make his pieces. That's because he first has to spend time raising silkworms and watching them spin threads - a medium that runs throughout his art life. Liang's recent show at Shanghart Gallery in Shanghai unveiled the latest works of his Nature Series made in the past five years. The highlight, Destination, is an installation of large steel chains dusted with silken and sparkling-white threads, in sharp contrast to the black oil flowing within the chains. A video records sound of glass breaking, silkworms spinning on glass and the artist's breathing.

The 69-year-old says the entire Nature Series is a sculpture of life, time and nature. It started in 1989, featuring everything related to his tiny co-creators, including silk threads, cocoons and silkworm corpses.