An art exhibition that focuses on Chinese contemporary artist Xu Bing's ambitiously sensational project to shoot his arts into the space has launched recently in Beijing that it was inspired by the Chinese astronautic spirits and achievements.
Xu's exhibition is called the Art beyond the Karman Line, which it gathers a large number of artistic materials such as the text, videos and art installations that attempts to explore the symbolism and significance of the initiative of sending the representation of human being's creativity- art- to the place of 'unknown'- the outer space.
The Karman line is a line that divides two different spatial fields of the Earth and outer space. To be 'beyond' it, is the exhibition's theme which it implies the artistic imagination is free rein from the unknown limitations.
Behind the current exhibition was a bold artistic attempt that Xu collaborated with the i-space, a privately run Chinese space rocket company launched an 'art rocket' into the space in Jiuquan, in Northwest China's Gansu early February 2021.
The design of the art rocket was influenced by Xu's most iconic art installation, the Book from the Sky that was created 30 more years ago. At that time, the art piece with book rows and hanging scrolls that written with hundreds and millions of "Chinese" characters was 'confusingly' sensational as Xu has been the first man ever to letting English spelling made sense in texts, that it looks like Chinese characters, but essentially fabricated and 'meaningless'.
"Xu has always been seeking the diversities and alterations in explaining how a "natural" concept can be understood differently. Changing how the stereotypical cultural and social assumptions of people… The 'art rocket' project too, not it is with his arts that made it an art rocket, it is the rocket symbolizes art to demand its existence in a territory that is longed but does not yet belong the to the human beings," Zhang Yi, an art researcher, told the Global Times.
Xu's 'Karman Line' project has also hugely influenced by his observations on how the fast-developing Chinese space career can redefine, and is always updating people's understanding on the limitations of human beings.
He was touched by the spirits of Chinese aerospace scientists, and the country's big achievements in its space career.
"In the two years since I started to work on the 'space art' collection, I have learned a lot from the aerospace scientists' pursuit of their spirits. They have matured through perseverance in exploration and experimentation. In fact, without the achievements of Chinese astronauts in this field, there is no space where contemporary Chinese space art can be displayed."
The highlight of the exhibition is there will be having a work called "Where are we?", a first stop-motion animation filmed in the outer space to be displayed at the Karman line show.
The exhibition is organized by Red Brick Art Museum in Beijing; it has opened to public on November 6, and is scheduled to end on April 12, 2022.
"Xu has always been seeking the diversities and alterations in explaining how a "natural" concept can be understood differently. Changing how the stereotypical cultural and social assumptions of people… The 'art rocket' project too, not it is with his arts that made it an art rocket, it is the rocket symbolizes art to demand its existence in a territory that is longed but does not yet belong the to the human beings," Zhang Yi, an art researcher, told the Global Times.
Xu's 'Karman Line' project has also hugely influenced by his observations on how the fast-developing Chinese space career can redefine, and is always updating people's understanding on the limitations of human beings.
He was touched by the spirits of Chinese aerospace scientists, and the country's big achievements in its space career.
"In the two years since I started to work on the 'space art' collection, I have learned a lot from the aerospace scientists' pursuit of their spirits. They have matured through perseverance in exploration and experimentation. In fact, without the achievements of Chinese astronauts in this field, there is no space where contemporary Chinese space art can be displayed."
The highlight of the exhibition is there will be having a work called "Where are we?", a first stop-motion animation filmed in the outer space to be displayed at the Karman line show.
The exhibition is organized by Red Brick Art Museum in Beijing; it has opened to public on November 6, and is scheduled to end on April 12, 2022.
November 8, 2021
