He Xiangyu Coca-Cola Project (Extraction)

NARRATOR:
Artist He Xiangyu initially brought a single bottle of Coke to his studio and boiled it until he was left with a solid residue. As he worked alone, it took him more than six months to boil down one ton of Coke, but he knew it wasn’t enough. So he went back to his hometown Dandong in Liaoning Province and hired ten workers to boil down 127 tons, which is around 60,000 bottles of Coke, resulting in a residue of black, earthy substance that took more than a year to create. The substance looks like sparkling ore and is displayed here in a clear and bright transparent box.

The history of Coca-Cola's sales in China has made it a symbol of Western culture and consumerism. In 1979, when the Chinese economy had just begun to open to the outside world, Coca-Cola, which had been banned, re-entered the Chinese market. This red-packaged beverage became very popular, selling more and more and becoming a ubiquitous product in people’s daily lives.

The 127 tons of Coke that He Xiangyu cooked was equal to the average amount of Coca-Cola sold in his hometown in just over a year. Now that these figures and their metaphorical consumption desires have transformed to a solid substance, shockingly appearing in front of your eyes – will it make you think about the truth behind consumption?

He Xiangyu had to bypass local agents overseen by multinational corporations to obtain such a large amount of Coke. During the production process, he had to deal with investigations and questions from different government departments. The project turned into a work of real social intervention, showing the complex relationships between various powers.

NARRATOR:

Coca-Cola Project (Extraction) is a sculptural work created by He Xiangyu between 2009 and 2010 using crystallised Coca-Cola sugar. The work consists of countless clods of sugar crystals, which look like black earth, piled up in various configurations within a transparent elevated display case. The case has a black frame and is 120 centimetres high, 400 centimetres wide, and 100 centimetres deep.

The Coca-Cola sugar crystals are irregular in shape. Some of them are arranged tightly to build a stack as high as half the height of the display case and look like they are glued together to resemble clods of moist earth. Some are loosely stuck to one another to form what looks like a perforated surface. Stepping closer to the display case, the viewer will see that these sugar crystals are actually granular sediments. The work is mainly black in colour with parts of dark brown, interspersed with tiny fragments of silver or white. Seen from afar, the work reminds the viewer of a rock eroded and weathered by seawater or some sort of gigantic black mineral.