For relational aesthetics, Franz Erhard Walther is a prehistoric entity. He committed early on to bringing sculpture down from its classical plinth, transforming it into textiles that merge with the human body. In his own words: “In this way, I made the body into a plinth. ” This approach endows the artwork with spatial fluidity and a temporal sense of process, alternating between “activation” and “storage” states, awaiting the next activation. Walther was once deeply inspired by Art Informel and firmly believed in the meaninglessness of artworks, whose realization exists solely within imagination. This imagination stems not from a one-way gaze, but from conscious activity generated through physical contact. His long creative career can be viewed as an ongoing inquiry and exploration into the ontology of sculpture.

Just as the titles of some of his works serve as brief instruction manuals, Walther predetermines the basic commands of activation and the rules of the game, without offering further extensions. Viewed diachronically—for instance, from his 1. Werksatz (First Work Set, 1963–1969) to the Das Neue Alphabet (The New Alphabet, 1990–1996; Figure 3) —the chromatic shifts of the textiles visibly transition from post-war bleakness to consumerist vibrancy. However, this does not imply a parallel representation of historical background and social environment. In my view, the core of Walther’s artistic concept aims to repair and elevate human subjectivity through art. When the audience becomes the co-creator of the work, art no longer externalizes itself in an objectified form; our bodies are invited to participate, clearly not serving merely as the plinth of the sculpture. As demonstrated in Ten Pedestals [Place Distance Direction] (1969), the body seemingly becomes a mobile sculpture, while the textile appears to act as a part of the plinth. Through a system of mutual constraint, they suggest that our ordinary footsteps possess an unacknowledged freedom and lightness.

Figure 3. Franz Erhardt Walther, Das Neue Alphabet (The New Alphabet), 1990–1996. Installation view of The Body Draws, The Henry, Seattle, USA, 2015. Photo by Eirik Johnson. Image  courtesy of Henry Art Gallery, Seattle.

In contrast, the younger artist Nabuqi grew up within the open horizons of post-relational aesthetics. When reflecting on her own practice, she is, to some extent, contemplating paired or grouped relationships. Although her early works did not manifest as open forms—leaving the relationship between the audience and the objects still bound to the modes of gazing and being gazed at, surrounding and being surrounded—she has “constantly tried to resolve and subvert this traditional subject-object relationship.” In her 2018 exhibition Do real things happen in moments of rationality?, she utilized scenographic construction to define the exhibition space as an integral sculpture, thereby achieving a reversal of roles between the work and the spectator: as the floor of the entire space expanded into a plinth, she “had already incorporated the concept of the crowd into the sculpture.”

Many of Nabuqi's specific works can similarly be interpreted through this dyad of “relation/plinth,” where the plinth acts as a lever that tilts and modulates the audience's angle and degree of entry into the artwork. By transforming open-air theaters and fountains (Figure 4) into indoor scenes, she transports publicness into privacy through the shift of the plinth. Her transformation of floor lamps into non-illuminating bronze sculptures effectively endows everyday objects with an invisible sculptural plinth. The Drifting seat (2021) appearing in the exhibition hall leave the choice entirely to the audience: you may endow them with such an invisible plinth, or simply use them as standard seating. Her work Fish finding a path ashore (2024) can be viewed both as a historical metaphor for the fate of an ethnic group and as an endeavor by sculpture to seek a new plinth within contemporary contexts.

Figure 4. Nabuqi, Bonsai (detail), 2021.

Facing Walther’s diverse yet conceptually consistent body of work, this exhibition attempts a paradigmatic presentation through the juxtaposition of physical objects, performances, and documents. Similarly, in selecting Nabuqi's works, we endeavor to showcase her multifaceted practice constructed across different stages and series.

Zhu Zhu

October 2026