Xiaoze Xie, The MoMA Library, 2006

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This piece is part of an ongoing project entitled "Fragmentary Views" (2001 - Present) by Xiaoze Xie, which is a … Read more This piece is part of an ongoing project entitled "Fragmentary Views" (2001 - Present) by Xiaoze Xie, which is a series of paint-compositions based upon photographs of found newspaper piles. For Xie, stacks of printed pages represent not only cultural memory and the passage of time, but the ways in which history is interpreted and recorded according to various belief systems and political agendas. This is a lithograph, signed, dated 2006, and numbered 28/30 The artist continues his ongoing series of works, Fragmentary Views (2001 to present), which explores the vulnerability and fragmentary nature of historical memory, and the general and superficial perception of world events in the age of ready global media. The paintings depict stacked newspapers where only bits of information are visible-a greater understanding is implicit, but just out of view. "What interests me most is the temporary nature of this mundane object loaded with all-encompassing information of changing daily life: from the front-page news to stock market columns to birth announcements and obituaries. Newspapers are recycled. Life goes on." - Xiaoze Xie In the compressed stacks of newspapers, viewers will notice partial images of fragile life in Baghdad, distraught looks of disbelief of suicide attack victims, the building site of the World Trade Center, campaigns against Fa Lung Gong, and, more recent events that are closer to home. The gravity of these events is muffled as it is embedded in the mundane scroll of daily life. Xiaoze Xie immigrated from the People's Republic of China in 1992, where he was born and studied art and architecture. He has MFA degrees from Beijing and North Texas University, and taught at Bucknell University before assuming his post as Professor of Art at Stanford. His works are in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art and distinguished private collections. Solo Exhibitions Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, AZ Dallas Visual Art Center, TX Modern Chinese Art Foundation, Gent, Belgium Charles Cowles Gallery, New York Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto China Art Archives and Warehouse, Beijing Gaain Gallery, Seoul Devin Borden Hiram Butler Gallery, Houston, TX He has participated in numerous group exhibitions including Shu: Reinventing Books in Contemporary Chinese Art at the China Institute Gallery in New York and Seattle Asian Art Museum, and the traveling exhibition Regeneration: Contemporary Chinese Art from China and the US. His 2004 solo at Charles Cowles was reviewed in “The New York Times”, “Art in America” and "Art Asia Pacific". More recent shows have been reviewed in “Chicago Tribune”, “The Globe and Mail” and “San Francisco Chronicle”. His work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art and the Arizona State University Art Museum. Xie received the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2003) and artist awards from Phoenix Art Museum (1999) and Dallas Museum of Art (1996). Xie is the Paul L. & Phyllis Wattis Professor of Art at Stanford University. See less