March 30, 2004
Xu Bing's Corpse Powder
by Jerome du Bois
After the strong man with the dagger, comes the weak man -- with the sponge. -- Lord Acton
Yesterday, from the Associated Press:
CARDIFF, Wales (AP)--A New York-based artist became the first winner of a new British art prize on Sunday for a work made from dust collected from the streets of Manhattan after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Xu Bing was awarded the inaugural $72,000 Artes Mundi, the Wales International Visual Art Prize, at a ceremony at the National Museum and Gallery in Cardiff.
Xu, a New York resident who was born in China, used white dust from near Ground Zero to trace an ancient Chinese verse on the floor of the National Museum and Gallery in Cardiff. It reads[in English]: "As there is nothing from the first, where does the dust collect itself?''
This is vampiric appropriation at its most visceral. On that horrible day, whatever else he did, Xu Bing took the time to plan an artwork. It wasn't the first time, either:
A skilled calligrapher whose work often involves language, Bing left China after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, from where he collected a tank-flattened bicycle.
This guy's a ghoul, and he just won the world's most lucrative art prize.
Can anyone know what's in Xu Bing's dust? Could there be the pulverized remains of human beings nicely distributed over this gallery floor, carefully outlining the stencilled letters? Yes.
(Photo:Jeff Morgan)
And what about that twee Zen master's saying?
As there is nothing from the first, where does the dust collect itself?
When there is nothing from the first, we build it. We don't sit in the dust and bemoan fate. We get up and get on with it.
And this dust, Mr. Xu Bing, did not collect itself. You damned well know exactly where it came from, because you were there. But then, you were also slinking around Tiananmen Square when the others faced the tanks, weren't you? And on that day, as on the day our hearts were torn from us, you took your souvenir.
Enjoy the seventy-two grand. Spend it in New York City, why don't you, the greatest city on Earth, where you live, and where they don't.
UPDATE (April 4): Dan at Iconoduel responds in a suprisingly civilized manner.
UPDATE (April 7): Patrick Prescott of Your Daily Prescott comments as well.
I'm liking this bounce.