Art lovers discover live nude

AN unusual exhibition of nude sculpture is being displayed in Beijing tomorrow in which one of the statues is actually a real, live human being.

''I wanted to do this 10 years ago but I never had the chance,'' said Wang Deshun, a 57-year-old pantomime artist who will be posing at the exhibition. ''But then, [Chinese] people did not appreciate art of the human body. The time for that had not arrived. Now it has arrived.'' Or almost arrived. The exhibition, at the International Art Palace of the Fine Arts Foundation of Beijing, is being displayed for a hand-picked group of about 70 experts who will debate whether what Mr Wang calls ''living sculpture'' should be shown to the masses.

''At first we wanted a public exhibition, but then thought it best to go a small step first,'' Mr Wang said.

The idea was inspired by an exhibition of Rodin sculpture in Beijing at the beginning of this year. At a cost of 30,000 yuan (HK$40,200), Mr Wang and the sponsors - a Chinese company - asked the Fine Arts Academy to make five sculptures resembling the works of Rodin and Michelangelo.

Mr Wang will appear nude, covered in brown body paint to make him look like a bronze statue, along with the other sculptures in five different poses for about an hour in total.

In one pose, a female statue will be grabbing at his hips while in another, Mr Wang clings to the legs of a woman who seems to be trying to escape his embrace.