Sotheby’s Asia

On view until 5 June at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, Ozymandias: Myths of the Near Future reveals a world where ruined empires, fractured bodies, and salvaged futures exploring how culture survives through decay. O zymandias: Myths of the Near Futureis an invitation into an encounter arising from the collision between Percy Bysshe Shelley’s vision of fallen empires and J. G. Ballard’s worlds of psychic and environmental collapse.

P icture this: in the palm of your hand rests a small bronze tiger in a crouching position, its surface inlaid with gold in fine seal script. No mere plaything, it is a Qin dynasty hufu (虎符), a tiger tally, an object that is modest in scale yet immense in authority. Emerging from the turbulence of the Warring States period (475–221 BCE), Qin Shihuang unified rival kingdoms and established China’s first empire under the title huangdi (皇帝), or emperor.

I n early China, jade was never merely perceived as a precious material dug up from the earth. Jade was believed to be a substance alive with meaning – imbued with qi, resonant with sound, and charged with the divine capacity to mediate between Heaven and Earth. “If one material represents, even embodies the values and expectations of China, it is jade.” (Rawson, Jessica, Life and Afterlife in Ancient China).