Xie Xiaoze and Wildwood Press
Fudan University, Anthology of Poetry of the Eight Dynasties
2014
Scroll
- Artist: Xie Xiaoze
- Printer/Publisher: Wildwood Press
Fudan University, Anthology of Poetry of the Eight Dynasties
2014
Physical Qualities
Photolithograph with relief and hand coloring on handmade paper, Sheet (2 sheets): 762 x 762 mm. (30 x 30 in.)
Credit Line
Julius Levy Memorial Fund
Object Number
2016.12.4
Xie photographed stacks of books in various stages of extreme deterioration in the storeroom of a university library to produce this photolithograph, which has an under-sheet covered with red ink. The resulting image is seductively beautiful, evocative of abandonmentand the slow process of destruction. Yet the red around the edge suggests the blood or flame of the living world. Xie’s work captures the transitory nature of time and suggests the fragility of learning and civilization. By depicting books too damaged to restore, he considers the precarious future of the ideas and knowledge they contain.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by purchase, 2015; Wildwood Press, St. Louis, and the artist
Time Frames: Contemporary East Asian Photography
Inscribed: Recto: at lower left, in graphite: "Xie [character] Xiaoze Xie 2015 7/10" Verso: none
