Travelling to the Wonderland
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
Background Story: Blue and Green Landscape
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.
Background Story: Landscape after Wu Zhen
2013
Materials: Natural debris attached to frosted glass panel
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."
- Xu Bin
The Suzhou Landscripts
2003-2013
Materials: Lithograph print in two colors from 35 plates on Entrada Natural Rag paper
“Based on four idyllic ink paintings from the Suzhou Museum’s collection, 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