From gemstones to 10m giants: Wallace Chan’s Vessels of Other Worlds spans Venice and Shanghai

More than the sum of its parts, this sprawling dual-site exhibition across Shanghai and Venice tackles time and scale with ambition and verve.

The poet and painter William Blake proposed that we should be able, “To see a world in a grain of sand… and eternity in an hour.” This ability to imagine, and even work with varied materials and sizes, from minute to massive, ideally encapsulates the focus, art and drive of Chinese artist Wallace Chan.

Born into poverty seventy years ago and emigrating to Hong Kong with his family, the craftsman began jewellery design in his mid-teens near the fire escape of his overcrowded family apartment. From these humble origins, Chan’s motivation has propelled him to the highest levels of jewellery design, where he has created commissions for ultra-high-net-worth individuals valued at over $10m.

While not an ostentatious man, even joining a Buddhist monastery in the 2000s, and clearly beloved by his immediate staff, he leads a large studio of some sixty artisan technicians. Between them, and under his instruction, they have created Vessels of Other Worlds, an extraordinary presentation blending Eastern philosophy, advanced mechanics, garish and kitsch colourways, influences from Renaissance masters, and funfair rides. And that’s not the half of it. The exhibition is vast, set within the sprawling spaces of the Long Museum West Bund, one of China’s largest private galleries (33,000 sqm), founded by collectors and philanthropists Liu Yiqian and Wang Wei.

In fact, as the late American sculptor Richard Serra has suggested, he was “Interested in monumental scale because it forces the viewer to look at the world differently.” Appropriately, walking through the exhibition design at the Long Museum, you are reminded of some of Serra’s pieces and formed negative spaces, and of many of the Chan sculptures, whose paths lead to as many questions as they give answers. They certainly challenge you to see the world anew. They are also, in three cases, extremely large, towering up to 10m.

“Both extremes are difficult, but in very different ways. In a tiny gemstone, there is almost no room for error. One movement of the hand can change everything. The difficulty is concentration, precision and restraint,” he explains. “At monumental scale, the difficulty is not only technical, but also spatial and human. A large work must relate to architecture, gravity, engineering, light, distance and the movement of viewers. The smallest mistake can become very visible, but the smallest detail can also disappear if the whole rhythm is wrong.”

Creative Boom covered Wallace Chan’s first exhibition in the UK in 2019. Despite his huge international appeal, to many in Britain he is considered a jeweller and engineer rather than a contemporary artist. The West has celebrated his genius in design, for which his achievements include creating a hyper-strong porcelain, five times more robust than steel, as well as ‘The Wallace Cut’ that adds greater reflective qualities within precious stone cuttings, and extensive works with titanium unmatched by anyone on Earth. This has all led to his jewellery work being included in the prestigious and permanent collections of the British Museum and V&A but not shown at galleries like Tate or The Hayward.

Chan suggests that, “Categories can be useful for museums, collections and history, but they can also become walls. I began with carving and jewellery, so people may call me a jeweller, designer or inventor. I do not reject these words, but they are not large enough to contain the whole journey. In earlier centuries, art was understood in a much more encompassing way. Michelangelo could be an artist, an architect and a poet. Leonardo da Vinci could be both a scientist and an artist. Dalí and Picasso both created jewellery, yet no one would question whether they were artists. So I sometimes wonder: after so much progress, why have we become more anxious about borders?”

His practice has expanded in response to the needs of creation: from carving to sculpture to jewellery; from jade and wood to gemstones, stainless steel, bronze, titanium, and beyond. “There was no sudden shift. It has always been one continuous path. So when people ask whether what I create is art, or whether I may call myself an artist, I find the question interesting. Is “artist” a title given by an institution, a market, a degree, or a museum category? Or is it a word for what one does with one’s life? For me, the evidence is in the work itself, and in more than fifty years devoted to making.”

Over the course of several Venice Biennales, Chan has made it more evident that he deserves a place at the table. Consecutive appearances have introduced the art world to his sculptural works, both informed by and building on his jewellery design. ‘Titans’ (2021), ‘Totem’ (2022), and ‘Transcendance’ (2024) have led to this year’s dual-site exhibition, where ‘Vessels of Other Worlds’ opened in Venice in June and Shanghai in July. A triptych video work directly links a live video feed from the Chapel of Santa Maria della Pietà to the museum on the banks of the Huangpu River.

Curated by long-time collaborator James Putnam, famed for first combining museum artefacts with contemporary works, the shows tackle several concerns and conflicting concepts. While the initial funding may have come from jewellery sales to the very wealthy, the idea of using sculpture is one of more expansive inclusion. Pairing Venice and Shanghai, with their shared history of trade and connections to the water, allows for a conversation between the sites. Exchange rather than commission.

That the shows span geography is an understatement. Themes of life and death are tackled. Birth and rebirth are inescapable, circling the three-dimensional mandala towers. Human faces twist and contort, mirror and reflect – there are masks of meditative bliss and acceptance. He introduces them as, “Figures and motifs that appear on the surfaces of my sculptures are not intended to represent specific individuals or narratives. They are manifestations of an inner being—a state of existence that exists somewhere between the human, the spiritual, and the material world. The recurring figures are deliberately androgynous… There is something sacred in this state of ambiguity, because it suggests a condition beyond ordinary identity. The figures represent a kind of inner consciousness rather than an external portrait. The face becomes not simply a representation of a person, but a reflection of an interior landscape.”

Concluding, he says that, “Ultimately, these figures, creatures, and motifs are ways of exploring the relationship between the visible and the invisible. Through the language of light, reflection, material, and symbolism, I hope to create works that reveal multiple worlds at once.”

They are evidence of accumulated philosophies and ways of seeing and being, formed through a rich and journeyed life, lived by Chan with great self-awareness and interest. When a show two years ago was referred to as a retrospective, he scoffed at the term, explaining he had many more years left to produce new works. Looking at the ambition displayed here, there’s little doubt of it.

“I continue to create works that will outlive me. My practice is devoted to slow art. Depending on scale and complexity, a work may take months, years, or even more than a decade to complete. I often imagine that one day, when none of us is still here, these works may continue to exist. Perhaps they will one day answer questions posed by other forms of intelligent life, and become witnesses to who we were, what we believed, and how we understood existence.”

Continuing, Chan says, “To create something that can last for a thousand years is, of course, costly. But if a work truly lives for a thousand years, then its cost becomes less than a cup of coffee a day. What feels truly expensive to me is fast art: art that consumes time, material, and labour, only to disappear after one year, ten years, or fifty years. If I am to devote myself fully to a work, then it must be able to travel beyond me. I imagine the life of each sculpture extending far into the future, and in that sense they truly become vessels of other worlds.”

As a final point, he adds these words of wisdom, “Everything is difficult, but nothing is impossible. You are responsible for your own art. Cross-disciplinary practice and lifelong learning are essential for your growth.”