Out of the Dark: Works by Xiaoze Xie
Stanford Department of Art & Art History presents
Out of the Dark: Works by Xiaoze Xie
"I think a banned book is a battlefield, a site of power struggle; a banned book is where society, politics, art and literature converge."
Out of the Dark is an online showcase of Xiaoze Xie’s recent paintings from The Library Series, the video Transience, and Forbidden Memories (Scrutiny and Objects of Evidence), a research-based project focusing on the history of banned books in China. Virtually displayed to scale in multiple spaces in the McMurtry Building, Xie’s recent work employs a variety of mediums, including painting, installation, photography, and video, to explore time, memory, history, and the issue of censorship.
Transience
2011
Single-channel video with sound. Duration: 12 min 32 sec.
Transience is slow-motion video work inspired by book-burning events throughout history. Combined with meditative guqin music, the flying, theatrically-lit books imply that memory, knowledge, and thoughts are being tested in the extension of time and space.
Forbidden Memories
Xie has systematically photographed more than 100 premodern Chinese books in various public collections (Scrutiny), and acquired over 800 books published from the early twentieth century to the present day (Objects of Evidence). The premodern titles, from the early Ming to the late Qing Dynasty (15th-19th c.), exemplify various categories of books banned for religious, philosophical, political, and moral reasons in late imperial China. The modern books collection includes publications banned in the Republic Era (1911-49), the early years of the People's Republic (1950s), the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), and recent decades.
Scrutiny (Premodern Books)
2014, printed 2018-19
Archival inkjet prints
Objects of Evidence (Modern Books)
2012–ongoing
The Library Series
Xiaoze Xie, the Paul L. & Phyllis Wattis Professor of Art at Stanford University, is an internationally recognized artist who has exhibited extensively in the US and abroad. Recent solo exhibitions include Eyes On: Xiaoze Xie at the Denver Art Museum (2017–18) and Xiaoze Xie: Objects of Evidence at the Asia Society Museum in New York (2019–20). His work is in the permanent collection of such institutions as the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Oakland Museum of California, San Francisco Asian Art Museum, and the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. Xie received the Academic Award in Painting in the Third Nanjing International Art Festival (2016) and the Painter and Sculptor’s Grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation (2013).
Xiaoze Xie wishes to thank the librarians, scholars, authors, editors, curators, photographers, filmmakers, gallery staff, research and studio assistants, and friends who have helped to make this project possible, and support from Stanford University, Peking University, Fudan University, Denver Art Museum, and Asia Society.