Gu Xiong

Let us take a rational and direct perspective to look at artist Gu Xiong and his art: he was passionate and restless in the 1980s; In the 1990s, his thoughts turned to immigration and identity; Around the 2000, he initiated dialogues and made comparisons based on a new cultural identity; In the past decade, his attention has turned to the issue of international migrant workers. A journey of migration unfolds in front of our eyes, with items like “enclosure,” “garbage,” “salmon fsh,” “rivers,” “tomatoes” and “cardboard boxes” dotted along the way. In China, the most widely praised art work of Gu Xiong is “Enclosure,” created between year 1986 and 1989. Combining painting, performance art and installation, “Enclosure” is one of the most important art works in the history of China’s avant-garde art. Nevertheless, if we look back upon the forty plus years dedicated to art in Gu’s life, we would know “Enclosure” is only the starting point in his art creation. Behind the artwork, Gu’s experience at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity allows him to touch on an important issue – the meaning of life. Gu first went to Banff Centre in 1986. This experience led to an artistic breakthrough in Gu’s art and the creation of the piece “Enclosure.” When Gu encountered Banff Centre for the second time between 1988 and 1989, Gu Xiong became a Canadian. Since then, for near 30 years, Gu Xiong has walked hand in hand with his art. He uses his art to think and to raise questions. His questions gradually grow from those of individuals and families, to those of identity, to dialogues and refections on history and cultural transitions, then fnally to labour migrations and relocation in the age of globalization. It has been an extended process of cultural reconstruction. Gu’s nonstop pondering starts from minor things, and eventually bears fruit in a foreign country. Art has kept Gu company, permeated his life and empowered him. “Migrations: Gu Xiong” is an inquiry about migration in life. The art works in exhibition are created over a span of 45 years – starting from the 1972 “Sketches of Sent-down Youths,” and ending with the 2017 “Yellow Cargo – Chongqing.” In the dark era, the sketch pencil picked up by an innocent youth protected his sense of self and independence. Then in 1978, Gu became an university student at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, hence starts a nomadic life led by pursuit of art. This gala of art – it is a dialogue, also a gift. Nevertheless, migration, still goes on in life.… (más)

A slow seep of ideas, ideologies, values, and ways of commerce and life that blur borders and camouflage history are at play in the photographic works of Vancouver artist Gu Xiong. Starbucks in the Forbidden City, Kungfu coffee, images of Mao and Audrey Hepburn side by side all play a part in the post-colonial history illustrated within this body of work, a history Gu Xiong investigates through a critical and splendidly humorous lens.

Yellow River/Blue Culture presents the continuation of dialogue between artist/curator Andrew Hunter and Gu Xiong, which dates back to 1995. In his essay, Hunter explains that the exhibition is about the culture of China and its global migration-- the Yellow River-- and culture that enters China "from away . . . over the deep blue sea"-- the Blue Culture. Gu Xiong, writes Hunter, maps the landscape as "both poetic metaphor and living space." He moves freely as a global citizen recording an evolving history with its ironies, humour and, at times, tragic terrain.

This exhibition was first conceived when Andrew Hunter was a curator at the Kamloops Art Gallery. Hunter and Gu Xiong traveled to China, a country known for its ability to nurture and torment. It is an exhibition that focuses on Gu Xiong's interest in merging of cultures and explores, through magnificent photographs, the real and seemingly surreal.'

(Abstract from Foreword by Jann L.M. Bailey)… (más)

Catalogue for an exhibition held at Art Gallery of Greater Victoria from August 14 to October 11, 1998

'Gu Xiong is a remarkable artist charting a fascinating territory that is of particular interest at this time. The recent arrival of numerous boatloads full of desperate immigrant on the shores of Vancouver Island poigantly underscores the significance of Gu Xiong's artisic practice. The artist's personal history is a political dissident who left his native China during the Tiananmen Square demonstrations.' ( Abstract from Foreward by Nicolas Tuele)… (más)

Catalogue for an exhibition held at The Winnipeg Art Gallery from March 20 to June 29, 2008

'Gu Xiong’s four-channel video installation and photographs exhibited in Red River depict three rivers coming together as a spatial metaphor for globalization; the concept of flow within this transformative landscape defies any absolute boundaries, either physical or psychological. The river is brought forward to represent place and to give spatial interpretation to global fluidity addressing economic, political, social, and cultural change in a transnational mobile world.' ( Abstract from Essay by Petra Watson)… (más)