In the stories and histories of humanity, there lingers the vision of a "Golden Land"—El Dorado. For centuries, explorers ventured deep into South America, driven by the promise of eternal glory and wealth, in pursuit of this unknown yet known realm. As Edgar Allan Poe wrote in his 1849 poem: "Over the Mountains of the Moon, down the Valley of the Shadow, ride, boldly ride, if you seek for El Dorado."
After multiple trips across the highlands, coasts, rainforests, and lakes of the South American continent for his ongoing art project 500 Brushes in Peru, Wu Jian’an, too, seems to have “glimpsed” this legendary Golden Land.
Inspired by encounters and reflections from his travels, Wu has created several new series of works. Titled Of Gold and Feathers, these pieces will debut on November 15, 2025, in the artist’s latest solo exhibition at YUANLINK in Shanghai’s Zhang Yuan. The public is invited to join an artistic pilgrimage—an exploration of the known and unknown, weaving together material, memory, emotion, and imagination. The exhibition is curated by Mr. Shao Zhong, with Ms. Cao Dan serving as academic director.
Throughout his artistic practice, Wu Jian’an has consistently sought to liberate sensation through innovative uses of materials and to expand his visual language through deep methodological inquiry. By bridging past and present, individual and collective, reality and legend, he constructs works of remarkable visual intensity and emotional resonance, conveying a unique worldview in a thought-provoking manner. For this exhibition, the artist emulates the narrative logic of his beloved magical realist writer Jorge Luis Borges, fabricating a storyline “from a lost catalogue”:
“I” once came across a catalogue whose illustrations resembled images woven from feathers, accompanied by photographs of peculiar stones and masks carved from leather. Though incomprehensible, these images were hauntingly beautiful. The feelings they evoked grew increasingly vivid in memory, yet “I” became less certain of their actual existence. The catalogue itself could never be found again. Thus, this exhibition serves as an attempt to reconstruct those images and relive the overwhelming, ineffable moments of sensation they provoked.
This non-existent catalogue serves as a metaphor for the artist’s experiences on his journey—when impressions are both foreign and intense enough, prior knowledge and rational judgment recede, leaving only indescribable sensations that grow more potent with time. In the gallery, works crafted from feathers, stone, metal, gold leaf, and leather become fragments of memory guided by the feelings evoked during travel—a surreal world built from real-life sensory experiences. These pieces are materially rich and labor-intensive, yet their outcomes remain ambiguous and elusive, as if they truly originated from some distant, unknown civilization—or perhaps from a puzzling, symbolic dream...
Curiosity creates new worlds. El Dorado was never found, yet its elusive vision tangibly reshaped the course of human exploration during the Age of Discovery. The secrets of alchemy remain obscure, yet the desire to transcend known laws and boundaries continually drives innovation in thought and skill. The century-old Shikumen architecture of Zhang Yuan YUANLINK, with its blend of historical resonance and cultural revitalization, provides an exquisitely fitting backdrop for the exhibition.
Rather than a straightforward representation of Peruvian civilization, Of Gold and Feathers seeks to create a resonant field that awakens curiosity and perceptual potential. The exhibition invites visitors on a spiritual adventure—a practice in exploring the relationship between “seeing” and “feeling,” and an alchemical experiment with material, memory, and imagination.
*Text courtesy of Wu Jian’an Studio.
