Medium: Ink on Chinese paper

Dimension: 80 x 367 cm

Date: 2013

2013

Materials: Mixed media: Stones, Clay, Mist, Light effect, Sounds of bird and insects, LCD screen 

Dimension: Varies

Location: Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK

Materials: Natural debris attached to frosted glass panel

2013

Exhibition Location: Inside-Out Art Museum, Beijing, China

2014

Exhibition Location: Long Museum, Shanghai, China

2015

Exhibition Location: SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, USA

In 2004, I was installing an exhibition at the East Asian Art Museum in Germany. During the Second World War, 90 percent of the collection was moved to the former Soviet Union by the Soviet Red Army. Only some photos of the lost artwork are left. I hope to use the large glass showcases surrounding the existing space to create a new work that combines local history and my cultural background. I saw the potted plants behind the frosted glass wall in the office area of the airport during a connecting flight, which looked like a smudged Chinese painting. At this time, I thought of the large glass cabinets of the museum and the missing art pieces and got the inspiration for Background Story.

Materials: Natural debris attached to frosted glass panel

2013

Exhibition Location:  55th Venie Biennale Collateral Exhibition, Museo Diocesano, Venice, Italy

In 2004, I was installing an exhibition at the East Asian Art Museum in Germany. During the Second World War, 90 percent of the collection was moved to the former Soviet Union by the Soviet Red Army. Only some photos of the lost artwork are left. I hope to use the large glass showcases surrounding the existing space to create a new work that combines local history and my cultural background. I saw the potted plants behind the frosted glass wall in the office area of the airport during a connecting flight, which looked like a smudged Chinese painting. At this time, I thought of the large glass cabinets of the museum and the missing art pieces and got the inspiration for Background Story.

2003－2013

Materials: Lithograph print in two colors from 35 plates on Entrada Natural Rag paper

“Basing on four idyllic ink paintings from the Suzhou Museum’s collection, which were painted by 17th-century artists with their imitation of previous hanging scrolls, I create this version of the classic landscapes, rendering landscape motifs such as “mountain,” “water,” “tree,” and “stone” with corresponding Chinese characters. The large characters in red, written in forms that resemble ancient pictographs on oracle bones, illustrate the pictorial forms beneath. An inscription in Square Word Calligraphy, running across all four panels, describes the Chinese tradition of 'paper copying paper' and the process of making Suzhou Landscript. ”

 -- Xu Bing