Intellectual by Nature, Poet at Heart: Xu Bing | Brilliant Ideas Ep. 15

brilliant ideas powered by Hyundai Motor the contemporary art world is vibrant and booming as never before it's a 21st century phenomenon a global industry in its own right brilliant ideas looks at the artists at the heart of this they have a unique power to inspire astonish provoke and shock in this episode we meet Chinese artist Zhu Bing yes so this is my studio yeah so where come my studio and the studio is a pretty mess yeah the way I was so working always working an intellectual by nature and a poet at heart Zhu Bing is without a doubt one of the most important Chinese artists of his generation he's certainly an artist who really has forged a very particular path Princeton he has such a kind of immediately visible signature style you can tell when things come from his hand and you can tell when they come from his mind for over 30 years Zhu Bing has been creating works of wonder blending Chinese tradition with the contemporary he has this immediate impression that he gives which is of this extraordinarily meticulous and fanatical perfection and inventing new ways of seeing that can both delight and provoke you be sure I got no use in the column I shown you I'll show that accordingly or in Charlevoix me eating a banana chip fishing charge it on Shinda Shah had a father born in 1955 Zhu Bing was the middle child to parents working at Peking University his mother was a librarian while his father worked in the history department Shar - ah why Peola should be a monkey maybe the be eligible to leave our door opening door no moisture ha ha ha ha ha Delta G decision so your bunk and head over there in th food tango ha ha ha man Kurumi it's is wada wanna yogi la coruna Trejo Gilda needed a demon could essential to Hong Kong so he cool it'll either the ha ha la or she's raised around books and intellectuals it was a happy childhood for whooping but Mao's Cultural Revolution in 1966 brought all of that to an end his father was imprisoned and his family torn apart figured a judgment iron fenugreek seed yeah ha no judging he and Joseph Adama yet during the Cultural Revolution I went to the countryside yeah this is my small village hamlet about 18th then age and living there's about three years I do to everything I can do every farmer sings yes I work really hard yeah China was changing before you Bing it was the changing Chinese language that would have the most lasting effects under Chairman Mao the language Zhu Bing had always known was modified and simplified and then retooled for propaganda something he'd experienced firsthand as a child forced to lend his skills to the revolution in order to stay in school he came from a fairly autistic family and he had a natural talent for for writing he was put into the propaganda brigade and there his job was to write big character posters so this was shubin's job and I think that that sort of contrast between what he had seen and experienced as a child and you know the poetry that's in the language and then how that changes when the language is put to something so utilitarian as a socialist slogan I think all of these things were part of that sort of intrigue that developed in him only had Alena Charita rawa port under that Jia Wei Tung quality ago Vinson ye ji went to the Foucault tradition neasha or Takeshi issued our take a win for the 13 assurity million not sure eun-hyung la fecha Shinda - tada hi in 1976 the revolution ended the art schools reopened and Zhu Bing returned to Beijing to study printmaking at the Central Academy of Fine Arts but his experiences during the Revolution never left him and so the very first work Zhu Bing did after earning his master's was to do with language titled book from the sky it was an enormous installation of books and Scrolls that look like Chinese at first but actually nonsense it's his most iconic work to date when you enter you have this really solemn respectful air and atmosphere as though you are surrounded by this really ancient knowledge and then you know you go a little bit further you realize well you don't see anything at all for Chinese people this is a very disconcerting experience it feels like Chinese is not every characters seem to suggest something but not water country value given to the combien trigger congenita I'm interior contain your email web a summer doughnut rongeur the lenses of Bowie diamond enjoy new kinda show on a biochip Viking even though cambered on OS Ariana Leon the inertia Thien Truong Salah her courage Rodriguez agenda that's even though punctured Truman the years OSHA chefs agenda that's the Roy is Ronnie number tito-tolo such an because I need your judgment it's a very weird experience it's a really powerful one because you feel like meaning is just within reached and then it slips out now of course that's the experiential level but then there's another level for him which is when language has been twisted so that you really can't understand it anymore a sense of disorientation in truth and ability to access truth and he really felt this you know in the Cultural Revolution Caravaggio Vinci verdad que le t she don't injure jjjj oh sure he should are one man even hydrogen da juiceman they don't quite see journey that she wants the radio show they even told you know need something fancy fisherman's the homeland live I mean the quest he's fascinated really with meaning and how we created in our words but also in our lives he's so kind of so deeply introverted and so reflective I mean this is the son of a historian a librarian who grew up also watching that you know the position of the intellectual being far from stable and then still kind of coming back to it after all of that that gets really there's a very deep humanism to it all after the break we recount you brings time in New York and we enter the mysterious world of Chinese calligraphy Chinese artist Zhu Bing grew up during the Cultural Revolution when China finally opened its doors to the world Zhu Bing already a well-regarded artist at that point seize the opportunity to move to New York in 1990 it was his home for 18 years that in that time he produced works that were more experimental than before but always with words and language at their core well you're joking yeah Channel sure he founded it up tree theater silly for the shoulder we can't directly here doggy happy whenever chanchito jung yong-hwa connoisseur julio dealer he don't drink bitter jus dat don't go down a farmer Subang moving to new york was you know of course affected him greatly in the end it probably affected him by being more chinese so one thing he did was he created square english calligraphy and i think that's an interesting take on you know intercultural dynamic jew being returned to China in 2008 when he was offered to become the vice president of his alma mater the central academy of fine arts here in his personal studio in Beijing he continues to practice his square word calligraphy from New York English words made to look like Chinese characters I starting wrote that can click away by 1993 because in all my English not good but Emily live in New York so kind of like a living in between the two cultural if I'm still living Beijing no reason I created that kind of calligraphy yeah to understand you can read it is the easy to read yeah you write may M a why so I am ray a dreamer but I'm not the only one in chinese calligraphy we liked ranging that's the same word but is a road by a different way you know I am this I am it's a very complex work that can deal with how we see something how different audiences understanding something can be completely different there's always that was she being right there all these things that he likes to play with the audience expectations of what it should be versus what it could be and the incredible thing is he has a whole system to watch here she went she hundred yen she sofa social hot when Germany high jumper available so she had a hawk shooting um now what uncle Jerry Schue father's a donkey boy ha she's your washer put another key away you're sure Zoe eager to uncle inhabiting the future they went through the tillu dinero she researchers would to her communes in earth article they don't revive report on the negative M C Escher tale when washing before I said trunk or Jacobin ha whole trade agreement on a Senate order poor Roy fluid ofoma Portia made a tidal Ganga she should though cutting a shufai utility she made sure that Nathan didn't see you too young Sha Tin can come correlation in Yemen in his second studio in Beijing okay Zhu Bing has his attention focused on another language the language of signs in 2003 he started book from the ground a story told entirely with icons of a day in the life of an ordinary man in playful detail the book from the earth she's a funny project cuz it was really developed before emoji were all around us you know before we were constantly attached to our phones and he was actually looking at the kind of international language and then trying to tell a very basic story kind of from these things always icon not invented by us we don't amend anyone we just eclectic so we just to compare the holiday friend week part of the common folk them a newspaper you know the different but which was better I think this was better maybe right yeah he's always had a very keen eye for what is happening in culture in any given moment and we can see that when you look at how he began with the first book from the sky and then the more recent project the book from the ground which deals with the very contemporary symbols that are now an international language that we will understand everywhere book from the ground was released all over the world in 2012 and to much acclaim now Zhu Bing is working on a new pop-up version of the original book so via right now that we are working a new project yeah the producer that developing this book too - a river Tagus Street c-dimension book yeah Oh penny yeah the starting the stories yeah he says I went to the bathroom but he couldn't make it you know and he's a thinking sit on there thinking that what problem my stomach you know their son is sick like a service up yeah uh-huh yeah very funny then they have some bad smash yeah totally but shoot even sooner sure sugar on her end okay dude on the show tapasya territory edu and Wow early huh sure how are you Jake Joe Adams EDA company through your arse Tony on about Ksenia the nature North Oliver soldiers shadow to Widow book from sky right now on Chanel delivers who said ok don't die erde Lambert sutured he'll come home to true that the contour gamma they appreciate our kingdom coming up Zhu Bing shows us his latest projects that are once again never what they seem I guess for over 30 years Zhu Bing has enchanted the world with his thoughtful twists on tradition language and culture in his Beijing studio he's working on another one of his pieces that looks like one thing at first but as always with Zhu Bing it's actually something completely different right now we're working on this project they cut background story first we see this is a really beautiful Chinese landscape yeah or Chinese ink painting but we let the audience that walk around the piece they like the installation yeah so the audience the first to see there's a beautiful train is a landscape ink printing but when they come back they finally they find all just actually made by the garbage if you touch the materials tightly to the to the glass in the front they will show the sharp image by the yo-yo gives a distance the image will be blurry looked like ink on the rest paper click on champion that is on with material she rewarded you at her three push alternately oh hoarder three big booty no ominous is she at Italia Oh Diana needed hisses hello that they don't gabion her sure you could try what would you the tremendously the gabion to Yushchenko darn Grande Ronde jambe Hornet ooh-hoo-hoo body - you went a throughway Holdren need yield a little eventual Kate Akio Fujii transoceanic motion it's autumn also a whole the whole party a meaty Casa Cointreau the Toyota and Jonica sofa in 2015 two of his largest waste sculptures were exhibited at the Arsenal for the Venice Biennale made to look like a pair of Phoenix's the sculptures were made entirely out of junk construction materials Zhu Bing spent two years collecting materials from all over Beijing including junkyards like this one ruin or milk without drunk or at your boy of Phoenix jail and absorption give your money to go pee in that t-shirt tie her to the drum corps - enter her don't go - in shirt t-shirt Roger some kind of tile around what a thought I gotta win Deidre she should those her feet hunt you mean that piece is so much about that particular moment in Beijing when construction was everywhere as the city was gearing up for the Olympics and you know it almost felt like a war zone just the amount of debris but it was this kind of positive debris that was building something and of course that also costs lives you know people died in these construction sites and you know in a way it's almost like a new kind of socialist realism or sort of art you know for the workers and peasants and soldiers and that he's he's really expressing a kind of concern for the people who are making these things figure Kushinagar I'm Jamal she heard hiyo do vertical funk wandering yonder soil dirt hire Peoria shinta Porsche or consignee what's that early teachers one tier you know Honora contractor had as I thought who hundred funk went with material citizen to digital on achieved ocean paging allowed integers or to Pandora so hit her may eat quanities enjoyed a beholder gosh he tried to engage in the contemporary politics to certain kind of politics in a very subtle way when the people pay their attention to those shining buildings he pay his attention to the garbage to the junks and to the levers but of course it's a he also interested in the change of the meaning or the implication of single us his phoenixes have traveled all over the world from Beijing to Shanghai to New York and each time the birds take on entirely new meanings their church in New York very beautiful eyes it's like a suddenly the Phoenix became mythical but not in the Chinese context as Anna was armed is a for military so these two Phoenix were more looks more freshest it's almost like a fleets to fleets were to co-opt people well understand it from their perspective he obviously studied the contacts are very much he closely pei-pei his attention to see the difference Robuchon quantum kind of love energy and chin true de take a look out our each other evening well oh you know what - wata - sure was your honor your code room grey on the colonel machine since infantry soldiers Hodor and OSHA vallabha quadrant that I guess in the diva should I'm coach you the Sergio pursue a logical can surely Ptolemy thought I got either diva I think Subang is really one of the most important Chinese artists in the last twenty thirty years some of his works really take a certain time to look at an experience but once you do people can get a lot more out of it it seems like his art is a type of art that you know across different times and countries people can still gain some sort of meaning from it and I think you know for art to be able to do that that's you know that's what I should do he has such a kind of immediately visible signature style you can tell when things come from his hand and you can tell when they come from his mind there's something about you know the color of that paper and the sort of feel of those strokes and that ink that really stands in for the idea that art can be a place to explore ideas and make propositions and think through questions he really is the artist as humanist and there's there's something about that consideration and that level of depth the nuance that's really uplifting Gabler Xu Jia Shin sure those IBM for our meeting sure you need the gun show her nice on PR should don't she nah organizer and attorney EPC I gotta use in the farm and I shown you our show today Akagi Miria over the horn so in the idiom pathology she should not even seen the show how the vulva brilliant ideas powered by Hyundai Motor

Channel: Bloomberg Quicktake

Views: 45,043

Rating: 4.9049234 out of 5

Keywords: Bloomberg, Xu Bing, China, art, character art

Id: jxHWJjaUDQg

Length: 24min 10sec (1450 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 20 2015