Where There is a Question, There is __
2024.12.20 - 2025.5.30
Chengdu Art Museum
This large-scale solo exhibition brings together over 80 representative works created by artist Xu Bing over the past 50 years. The pieces, spanning different periods of his career, offer a comprehensive view of Xu Bing’s evolving reflections on art. The exhibition provides a rare opportunity to gain insight into the artistic journey of one of China’s most innovative contemporary artists.
In the curatorial preface, curator Wu Hongliang writes: "On December 1, 2016, Master Xu Bing gave me a book titled My True Words. On the spine, he had written a phrase: 'Wherever you live, you must confront the problems that arise there; where there are problems, there is art.' This line, taken from a letter Xu Bing wrote to young artists, also serves as the thematic foundation for this exhibition in Chengdu. The title, ultimately chosen as 'Where There is a Question, There is __,' was the result of an extended deliberation process."
As suggested by the exhibition’s title, the small dash represents a starting point of the unknown and curiosity, while the "problem" functions as the driving force. The intrigue of art lies not in providing answers, but in the continual questioning of "life" and "existence."
This exhibition marks Xu Bing’s first large-scale solo show in Southwest China. As the artist himself states: "I have been creating art my whole life, and the more I do, the less I understand what art is—especially ‘contemporary art.’ I’ve erased the boundaries. Initially, this field had no limits, and no authority could dictate what constitutes contemporary art. It is precisely because it lacks clear boundaries that this ‘uncertainty’ is so compelling to me; it drives me to create, to search, and to question."
