Guan Xiao in "Beijing"
Guan Xiao
The sculptor and video artist Guan Xiao employs juxtapositions—past and present, tradition and innovation, the natural and the industrial—to create works that are discordant, astute, and frequently humorous reflections on the matrices and radical contrasts of twenty-first-century life. At work in her Beijing studio, Guan combines readymade industrial materials like motorbike and automobile parts with traditional Chinese ceramics and tree roots, creating dissonant, futuristic, and quasi-anthropomorphic sculptures. For her multi-channel video work, the artist brings together found footage from the Internet in a series of contradictory yet inexplicably resonant tableaux. For Guan, this “fragmented reality [is] closer to how we actually experience life.” Part of a younger generation of Chinese artists, Guan candidly describes the unique difficulties faced by many Asian artists, who must contend with imported contemporary-art styles. Yet, the artist remains optimistic about the future and her generation’s ambitions to develop their unique voices in a crowded global art culture.
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About the artists
Guan Xiao was born 1983 in Chongqing Province, China. In her sculpture and video work, Guan juxtaposes discordant images, diverse cultural artifacts, and modern technology to create objects that are futuristic, referential, unsettling, and humorous. Working with traditional Chinese sculpted tree roots, 3D fabrications, and readymade industrial objects, Guan Xiao epitomizes the next generation of artists from China, rooted in transnational culture and immersed in our technology-fueled present. Her video works mirror viewers’ experiences of the Internet and personal memories, where seemingly unrelated images find inexplicable yet resonant connection.
Amid Beijing’s dizzying economic, urban, and cultural transformation, five artists respond to the region’s relentless evolution with urgency and ambition, all the while contending with many centuries of Chinese cultural traditions.
Educators’ Guides provide information about selected artists and themes, questions for classroom discussions, and hands-on activities that provide students with a fundamental understanding of creative and critical thinking processes.
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