Zhou Wendous signature untitled 2006 piece, which riffs on Duchamp, did not actually appear in his solo exhibition "The Use of the Useless" at Other Gallery, but to a large extent this work defines his aesthetic proclivities and the creative pulse animating his art (especially the creation of his sculptures). After smashing a representation of the iconic urinal, he humorously reconstructed it as a vase.

Born in Beijing in 1970, Zhou Wendou has lived in Madrid for the past decade. Although he paints abstracts in oil, makes works on paper, and shoots some fascinating documentary and conceptual photographs, sculpture is at the core of his artistic practice. The current exhibition at Other Gallery in Beijing showcases his sculptural work of the past few years, with his ongoing investigation into how various materials convey specific cultural connotations.

A piece titled "Bound" uses steel measuring tape to form a cocoon-like shape. Then there is a vinyl-padded Ping-Pong table on which you might be tempted to lounge, the impressions of ping pong balls already sunk deep in its soft surface. Yet another work fills a motorcycle helmet with a network of tiny red lights as if mapping the brainwaves that the helmet is designed to protect. Using rubber from tire inner tubes, he creates a möbius-like configuration, and in another piece, crafts a pair of angel wings from an array of feathered badminton shuttlecocks.

By stripping the materials of their usual forms and functions, he essentially returns them to a sort of inchoate state, so that it is only the viewer who bears the burden of experience. This leads us, as we confront these new forms, to invest the materials with new social connotations, leading Zhou Wendou’s sculptures to be infused with a spirit that goes beyond the humorous attitude they initially present. It is clear why some have referred to this aspect of his work as a kind of mental hairpin turn.

Zhou Wendou’s "The Use of the Useless" is on display at Other Gallery through September 7.