Roller
13 9 月 2022

Roller points to a threshold where flight slips into disorientation. Taking selectively bred ornamental pigeons as its point of departure, the work translates their mid-air rotations and downward falls into fixed trajectories of movement. What originally belongs to chance and risk—falling—is here trained, repeated, and ultimately rendered as a form to be viewed and appreciated. Through this paradoxical imagery, Ren Han reveals how natural behavior is reshaped within systems of aesthetics, entertainment, and control: imbalance no longer signifies failure, but is transformed into a stable visual structure. The work thus gestures toward a broader tradition of spectatorship—how intervention, violence, and falling are unconsciously absorbed into order and endowed with form and meaning.

This series is produced on the surfaces of old books collected by the artist. Through physical incision and destruction, Ren Han turns vessels of knowledge and narrative into sites where motion, descent, and instability become visible, allowing images to drift across the covers like ghosts, moving over the surfaces of juxtaposed books.

Roller #5
27×32.5x18cm
carved on old books
2024
Roller #6
28.5x29x22cm
carved on old books
2024
Untitled(Roller #7), 23.5x34.5x16cm, carved on old books, 2024
Roller #7
23.5×34.5x16cm
carved on old books
2024
Untitled (23f127) 旧书上的雕刻 carved old books 54x44x26cm 2023
Untitled (23f127)
carved old books
54x44x26cm
2023
Untitled(Roller #4), 30.5x34x22.5cm, carved on old books, 2022
Roller #4
30.5x34x22.5cm
carved on old books
2022
Untitled(Roller #3)
Roller #3
35×25.5×17.5cm
carved on old books
2022
Untitled(Roller #2), 36.5x29x30cm, carved on old books, 2022
Roller #2
36.5x29x30cm
carved on old books
2022
Untitled(Roller #1), 38x24x18cm, carved on old books, 2022
Roller #1
38x24x18cm
carved on old books
2022