Xu Bing: Where comes the inspiration for art?

As an internationally renowned contemporary artist with a prolific career of over forty years, Xu Bing’s work has always sought to question and disrupt the various borderlines of contention and frontiers: between language and perception, fiction and reality, art and life, nature and technology, among many others.

A thinker ahead of his time, Xu Bing maintains a high sensitivity towards the worlds around him. In his words: “wherever there are people, there are problems; wherever there are problems, there is art. ”

This lecture is organized thematically through a selection of projects by Xu Bing, surveying how each responds to its situated time and place. From monumental projects like Book from the Sky and Phoenix, to fiction film Dragonfly Eyes, Xu Bing’s work takes a multitude of transformations and turns that often catch the viewers by surprise. But throughout the sheer abundance of mediums explored and experimented in the past forty years, Xu Bing seems to be preoccupied by the same set of questions at the core: what is art and what to make of it, today?

With the advent of the digital age, space technology, and new frontiers of AI, NFT and virtual-realities, the definition of “art” has become increasingly obfuscated. What does it mean to be an artist today? And where to find inspiration for creating art now?

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作为一位拥有三十余年多产艺术生涯的国际知名当代艺术家，徐冰的作品一直试图提问和打破各种纷争和前沿的边界：语言与感知、虚拟与现实、物体与生活、自然与科技、等。

作为超前于时代的思考者，徐冰对周围的世界和社会现场保持着高度的敏感。用他的话来说：“有人的地方就有问题；哪里有问题，哪里就有艺术。 ”

本次讲座由徐冰的不同项目作为主题组织，探索每个作品如何响应其所处的时间和地点。从《天书》、《凤凰》等巨作，到故事电影《蜻蜓之眼》，徐冰的作品千变万化，媒介层出不穷，时常让观众惊喜交加却摸不着头脑。但纵观过去三十年探索和实验的大量媒介，徐冰似乎一直关注思考的是同一套核心问题：什么是艺术？今天，我们用什么做艺术？艺术的价值从何而来？

太空时代、数字时代的到来，伴随着 AI、NFT 和虚拟现实的新前沿，“艺术”的定义变得越来越模糊。今天成为一名艺术家意味着什么？现在去哪里寻找创作艺术的灵感？

Artist’s talk will be given in Chinese with English translation

Caption for Image: Xu Bing (Chinese, born in 1955), Phoenix, 2015. Recycled construction materials, installation view in the Arsenale at the 56th Venice Biennale, All The World's Futures, curated by Okwui Enwezor, Venice, Italy.