In the ornate ballroom of the venerable Crocker Museum in Sacramento, California, an army of clay soldiers stands in formation, 210 strong. Most of these soldiers are replicas of the famous terra cotta warriors that were discovered by a Chinese farmer in 1947 in a field. Those ancient warriors — 8000 have been unearthed so far — have drawn crowds in China and on tours around the world. Scholars say they were buried with China’s first emperor, to protect him in the afterlife. As beautiful as they are, they were never meant to be seen, deep in the ground.
The warriors in Sacramento serve a different purpose. They are a project by Chinese-born artist Gong Yuebin, who moved to the U.S. from China in 2004. Gong, 52, grew up during the Cultural Revolution, when his family was forced to move from the city to the countryside. The government controlled their lives, which were filled with fear and sacrifice. Those memories have been etched indelibly into his psyche, and, he says, his massive work, Site 2801, is a result of those years. The title refers to a time nearly 800 years from now, when archeologists might dig up his terra cotta soldiers to learn about the past — our present.
Site 2801, Gong Yuebin, 2011.
What they will find are 200 warriors lined up in rows, looking very much like the original group. But interspersed with them are 10 modern soldiers, with helmets and uniforms, who seem to indicate that war and militarism haven’t changed much in two thousand years. But there’s more: Gong’s warriors are carrying dilapidated nuclear missiles, each of which contains a baby — a symbol of hope. There’s an anti-war, anti-militarism theme to Site 2801, but there is a beauty as well, and a harkening back to the past.
Gong has done large projects before; he’s gathered large trees burned black by a forest fire, and displayed them as living beings and environmental symbols. That project was called Life’s Crossroad. And he has put together a show called Nations using driftwood collected off the Pacific Northwest coast. He sees the wood as “white bones among the shore debris; their eyes staring with flickering life.”