Exhibition Information:
"Under the Ruins - A Small Universe of Poetry and Painting"
-- Xiao Xiao Contemporary Art Solo Exhibition
Exhibiting Artist：Xiao Xiao
Forms of Exhibition Works: Oil painting, Horse Skin Acrylic Painting, Poetry Paper, Poetry Performance
Curator：Lin Niannu、Tang Jun、Wang Xiaoyan
Academic Chair：David Brubaker
Organizer：Beijing Shangyuan Art Museum
Co-organizer and Media support:：
Opening Ceremony：2024.10.21 15:30H
Exhibition Time：2024.10.21—10.24
Exhibition Address: Original Exhibition Hall Site
+ library, Beijing Shangyuan Art Museum
Xiao Xiao
AUF DEN RUINEN
- für die verbliebenen Künstlerinnen und Künstler von 2024 im Shangyuan Art Museum
Hier auf den Ruinen
war eine grosse Ausstellungshalle.
Jedes Jahr hing drinnen ein Universum
aus Bildern, Skulpturen, Gedichten,
aus den Seelen der Menschen.
Unter ohrenbetäubendem Donner im Juni
wurde die Kunst verschluckt und zerstört.
Seit Juli wuchert auf den Ruinen
Tollkraut, giftige Blüten
und in der Nacht Lagerfeuer.
Wir sind im fliegenden Staub geblieben
und stehen hier am 21. Oktober um 3:30 Uhr
auf den Ruinen des Shangyuan Art Museums
und salutieren! Kunst und Poesie,
sie werden so leicht noch nicht sterben.
Oktober 2024
Übersetzt von Martin Winter im Oktober 2024
Die verbliebenen Künstlerinnen und Künstler von 2024:
Li Liannu, Zhan Mingzhao, Shi Xiangyu, Liu Bingling, Wei An, Tang Jun, Xiao Xiao, Yao Lihua, Luo Yinglong, Duan Weiguo, Bumubutai, Hezi, Zhao Jiaxuan, Li Haiying, Zhu Pengfei, Sun Rongning, Wang Xiaoyan, Zhang Zongxi, Fang Hua, He Qiming, Dorina, Tu Haiyan, Meng Zhi, Xing Yun, Martin Winter, Goran Stakic, David Brubaker
Xiao Xiao
ON THE RUINS
- for the remaining artists at Shangyuan Art Museum in 2024
Here, on the ruins,
there used to be an exhibition hall.
Every year, the walls inside
were crammed with pictures, sculptures, poetry
from the souls of people,
a small universe.
Come June, this tall building was swallowed and chewed
in an earsplitting racket
and by July these ruins
were growing with jimsonweed,
poisonous flowers, and fires at night.
We who remain have been breathing dust,
and now we stand here,
on October 21 at 3:30 pm,
on the remains of Shangyuan Art Museum
to salute you! Poetry and art,
here is a name that refuses to die.
Translated by Martin Winter in October 2024
The remaining artists at Shangyuan Art Museum in 2024 are:
Li Liannu, Zhan Mingzhao, Shi Xiangyu, Liu Bingling, Wei An, Tang Jun, Xiao Xiao, Yao Lihua, Luo Yinglong, Duan Weiguo, Bumubutai, Hezi, Zhao Jiaxuan, Li Haiying, Zhu Pengfei, Sun Rongning, Wang Xiaoyan, Zhang Zongxi, Fang Hua, He Qiming, Dorina, Tu Haiyan, Meng Zhi, Xing Yun, Martin Winter, Goran Stakic, David Brubaker
“Under the Ruins - A Small Universe of Poetry and Painting”
——Xiao Xiao Contemporary Art Solo Exhibition
David Brubaker
Xiao Xiao shows the role of poetry and painting when human society is at crossroads between care for natural life and powers of destruction. This exhibition is about a cosmic will that watches and records hands that level sources of artistic expression back down into earth. Yet, the eyes in “Under the Ruins – A Small Universe of Poetry and Painting” are not simply those of a supernatural being that is distant and invisible. Instead, as Xiao Xiao describes in prose, the will of the universe depends on a neighboring dimension that contains thousands upon thousands of small universes of unique persons who are metaverses of self-awareness.
Rubble brings wonder as it is answered by resilience and the courage of each small universe to continue artistic creativity: “every poem, every painting, is an artistic metaverse,” Xiao Xiao writes. Every poem, every painting helps to fracture concepts of reality in a way that returns you to an intimate bodily space in a present where forms of existence are reimagined. Thus, a small universe sharing poetry and painting becomes an origin of social critique. There is a beauty and even charm when such a critique expressed in an artwork helps the heart return to the roots of its own natural vitality.
By inscribing Staring (2023) and Flowing Gold (2023) with poems, Xiao Xiao sends alerts and warnings to each human metaverse living alongside: “Keep your eyes fixed” to bear witness to hands of destruction, and “Be careful! The abyss of intoxication/ the eyes of the sky are fixed on you.” Paintings made after “the earsplitting racket” express a range of feelings and attitudes. Loss and disorientation are suggested by The Sequelae of the World (2024) and Despair (2024). The four photographs document the struggle between eyes that witness and hands that flatten. The ten works of Tibet: Hum Ma Ne Ba Mi Ou (2024), first exhibited during Xiao Xiao’s visit to Cairo in August, convey toughness and durability. The images of yaks released in nature are metaphors for artistic freedom, and signs of Pyramids in Egypt and sacred mountains of Tibet are uplifting symbols of cultural longevity and sharing.
The common origins of painting and poetry are topics in Xiao Xiao’s short essay “Beautiful Poetry and Painting: The Small Universe of Poetry and Pictures.” She describes poetry as the painting of language and as belonging to dreams and imaginings that are immaterial and outside time; painting projects poetry into the dimension of things and color. Is painting ever outside measurable time? Perhaps painting is also about heart and soul, when color projects a dimension of existence in which thoughts of things are cleared way and one’s own two eyes become instead an element of heart. Xiao Xiao makes it clear: her paintings are about dimensions of nature that are in parallel, not about forms and colors as such. Seeking innovation, she positions poems in her contemporary paintings. The atmosphere of dedicated free creation at Shangyuan inspires promising experiments.
The poems, paintings and photographs of “Under the Ruins” at the Shang Yuan Art Museum are about intertwining dimensions of nature that permit each of us watch and carry the universe forward from the space of our respective realms. Xiao Xiao’s work is an inspiration for souls of small universes living on continents and territories near and far. This exhibition in surroundings of leveled earth helps each of us to savor essential roots of living contact with nature and each other.
October 2024
Xiao Xiao is a Chinese poet and painter. Her poetry collections include Time Stands on Its Tiptoes; Even More Grief-filled Than Grief; Xiao Xiao's Poems ( a bilingual Chinese-Spanish edition with Spanish translations by Yasef Ananda, published in Cuba, 2018); Elegy for Another World (Romanian translations by Horia Garbea, published in Romania, 2016); The Speed of Grief (Korean translations by Park Jaewoo, published in Korea, 2019); The Seeds of Job's Tears (German translations by Wolfgang Kubin, forthcoming in Austria, 2021), and others. Her work has also been translated into English, Japanese, French, Vietnamese, Arabic, Bengali, and other languages. Her paintings were part of exhibits such as "Art by Contemporary Chinese Poets," and "Contemporary Chinese Literati Painting and Calligraphy Exhibit." Her long poem, "Elegy for Another World," was named by critics as a representative work of Chinese women poets in the 1990s. Ouyang Yu's English translation of the poem was published in the journal, Long Poem Magazine, in England.
Xiao Xiao is the recipient of numerous awards in China and abroad, including the Wen Yiduo Poetry Prize, 100 Years of Modern Poetry: Special Contribution Award, Poetry Currents Annual Poetry Award, Beijing Literature Poetry Award, 2018 Ten Outstanding Poets Award, and the Tudor Arghezi International Literature Award in Romania. She is the first Chinese recipient of this award, and Romania made her an honorary citizen. She was awarded the 2019 Philippine World Poet Laureate Award, and the Korean 2020 Changwon KC International Literature Award. In 2020, Xiao Xiao was included in Europe's largest literary dictionary, Dictionary of International Literary Criticism (Kritisches Lexikon für fremdsprachige Gegenwartsliteratur). Her entry was written by Wolfgang Kubin.
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