User:Tutuguo

Phoenix Phoenix is an installation by Chinese-born artists Xu Bing. Xu Bing lived in US for 20 years and returned to China in 2008 to take a position at Centra Academy of Fine Art. Back then he accepted a commission to create sculpture for the atrium of the World Trade Centre which was being developed in Beijing. At first he refused this project, according to him, that it’s difficult to build up public art, the art work will be placed in an important, and it unconsciously force people walked by to look at it, which is a kind of visual hegemony. Fortunately he accepted. He started with filed research and wondering around the construction site. The fact that labourers there were still using such low-tech methods in this modern day shocked him. Inspired by this fact, Xu Bing decided to use debris and tools that he salvaged form the construction site. Eventually he constructed two enormous phoenixes, they showed solicitude to labourers, who mainly come from small villages and living at the bottom of the society. Phoenix is a creature has undergone sorrows but still kept its self esteem, it represents hope and dream that haven't come true. This pair of phoenixes, reflecting to important systematic social problem existing in China: over-urbanisation attracts large amount of people from villages to cities, to become a component that construct cheap labor force. These pair of phoenix contributed by commercial construction material reflected the grimness side of modern China. That was just a few months before the financial crisis of 2008. It was also when there was a government ban on all trucking and construction to ensure cleaner air during the Beijing Olympics. The building’s developers, afraid that the birds carried a message about waste, asked Xu Bing if they could be gussied up, perhaps with a crystalline exterior. He declined and the developers rejected his birds. But Xu Bing determined to continue. He had them constructed at a factory on the outskirts of Beijing, where they were to have taken take four months to complete. Instead, the process took two years, with Mr. Xu working from drawings, models and computer-generated diagrams. While they may appear to have the naïve quality of Chinese folk art, every inch — from beak to tail feather — was carefully considered. The first shown of this project was in font of the Today Museum in Beijing.It was being fond by public, and even increase the traffic jam in the area by then, taxi drivers were telling each others and their costumers. Two main things brought public to this work, first was that phoenixes is a bird bring people luck and fortune in Chinese culture, second was that this huge bird constructed by wastes have been used and through away every day. And they were taken to New York to show in the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights. Then after Xu Bing built up another two pairs for Venice Binnale. Public did interested in this project, and it does reflected social issue of modern China. Yet as an art project, it cannot bring solution back to the problem immediately. The project stopped once it finish demonstration, no matter how heated it was, it can only bring discussion and attention from mostly who cannot change a lot or improve the situation for labours. And sadly for labours, what effect can this work even caused on them? To me, what made this project a good social project was that the artist enlarged the problem, using the most direct materials form the issue. Besides he uses phoenixes to carry this whole concept. In this way Xu Bing successfully created dialogue between art and social, public and issue itself. Moreover I like they were two aesthetic, well-constructed sculptures, contributed by wastes yet still beautiful. As for now, this project has been nicely completed. Especially form art and cultural aspects. But to social aspect, I really consider it can create way more bigger influence on public, and in some way, it can change the system, or at least improve the situation. So what I suggest is, turn this into a project that allow public to participate in the process. Like, organise people who is interested in it to visit the constructive site, and collect wastes, build up their own sculpture.