Hu Heng, Nanjing University, Interior View of Cave of the Silken Web. Installation view at Palazzo Mora, 2016.

Cave of the Silken Web
This programme recreates a piece of my work called “Journey to the West: The Cave of the Silken Web,” in an architecture / art exhibition ("Architecture in Literature"), now renamed as “Cave of the Silken Web, 2016.”
“Journey to the West: The Cave of the Silken Web” is a narrative experiment of the space, based on the chapter “Cave of Silken Web” in the Chinese classical literature “Journey to the West.” It transformed the exhibition space, along with the works by Zhang Yonghe, Wang Shu, Ma Yansong, and the one I cooperated with Zhang Lei into characters of the narrative. It is a combination of literature, architecture, exhibition and mental space, and also a restatement of the Journey to the West.
For the version of “Journey to the West: The Cave of the Silken Web”, we put an emphasis on the concept. It was made of inexpensive cardboard. “Cave of the Silken Web 2016” is going to be remade with classical material. It will include two parts: (1) Installation (Size of baseboard: 60cm*60cm; Material: Bronze). (2) Painting (60cm*180cm; Oil painting).
Postscript:
“Journey to the West: The Cave of the Silken Web”
Hu Heng (ChengDu, 2011)
This is an architecture.
“Journey to the West: The Cave of the Silken Web” is an architecture rather than a model. One scene, the spider kept the exceptional talent Xuan Zang in a cave, has been altered here. The cave turned into the exhibition space, Xuan Zang into the works of the artists (Zhang Yonghe, Wang Shu, Ma Yansong, Zhang Lei/Hu Heng). The net keeps the same.
“Journey to the West: The Cave of the Silken web” created an illusion of reality rather than visualize the novel. The illusion is constituted by three dimensionalities in one space: the exhibition space, the cave of the silken web, and the miniature cave. Standing in the exhibition space offers viewers the opportunity to experience the three layers; it feels like these three dimensionalities are one in another. It triggers a sense of existence, or we could say it interferes the presence of it. It becomes a reality or an architecture.