Just as it is impossible to define Li Xiangqun's social identity in terms of a particular professional attribute, his sculptures are also difficult to summarize in terms of a limiting stylistic language and formal approach. Li Xiangqun's sculptures are a visible multiplicity of texts, presenting multiple levels of semantics with solid images. From The Eternal Operation and We Walk on the Road to the Four Families and the Walkers series, all of them show his self-reflection of trying to shape the inner life personality of his subjects without relying on absolute "objective reproduction" to illustrate people and society. In Li Xiangqun's sculptures, whether it is the "realistic" national leaders, the "realistic" literati, or the Empress Dowager Cixi, who has shed the veneer of power, they all present a dual state of external similarity and internal transcendence. The implicit language that breaks through the exterior provides us with a visual clue to look deep inside the objects, suggesting a wide space of meaning in the works between the visible and invisible.
The multiple semantics of Li Xiangqun's sculptures also comes from his experimentation and use of various materials. With the artist's hands, eyes and heart, the cold and hard physical materials take on a historical, humanistic and emotional temperature. The large sculpture "The Great Forbidden City" of nearly 200 square meters made of white bronze is a simple remembrance of the historical scenery of removing the golden bricks and glazing, carved beams and painted pillars. The ancient color of white bronze, like rammed earth, is both the accumulation and the echo of history, which is thunderous without any noise; in the series of "The Other Side", the figures stand out like noblemen who are well versed in Taoism, and the fluttering crowns suggest the direction of the wind.
It is more appropriate to use "artistic will" to interpret the multiple semantics of Li Xiangqun's works. According to Wilhelm Worringer, artistic will is the objective presentation of the subject's potential inner demands. Li Xiangqun's recent works have a tendency of "non-figurative" and "abstraction", and this artistic language is the effective way to show the artistic will, i.e., the inner demand of the subject. This demand of the subject refers to both the creator and the audience of the work, and the Du Fu or the nameless man in ancient costume under the generalization and blocking treatment suggest the sculptor's own tracing, interpretation and reconstruction of historical figures and culture. At the same time, the concise structure of the forms and body language leave room for the viewer to "enter" the work to a greater extent, which is a key factor in evoking the viewer's emotional resonance. "Figurative" limits the imagination, "abstract" opens the imagination, which is the purpose of the artists' bold attempt to break through the external object of expression since modern art, and is also the reason why Li Xiangqun's sculpture creation in recent years has been labeled as "new context" and "post-traditional". This is also the root of Li Xiangqun's sculpture in recent years, which has been labeled as "new context", "post-traditional" and "new literatiism".
The sculptor himself does not want us to be confined to a specific linguistic context, just "the mountain is full of emotions, the sea is overflowing with meaning", but hopes to produce "The sculptor himself would not want us to limit ourselves to a specific linguistic context. In a sense, Li Xiangqun's sculptures are a self-recognition that transforms historical life into the present moment. He creates artistic situations full of metaphor, presence and theatricality.
"The wind rises and the clouds fly" is the best interpretation of the life and emotional state of Li Xiangqun's sculptures.
