Xu Bing will discuss his 9/11-related installation on Tuesday night at the Museum of Chinese in America (photo by Jeff Morgan)
Exhibition: Spinning Wheel Building, 5 West 22nd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves., Tuesday – Sunday, September 8 – October 9, free, 12 noon – 6:00 pm
Artist Talk: Tuesday, September 13, Museum of Chinese in America, 215 Centre St., free with RSVP, 6:30
www.insite.lmcc.net
www.mocanyc.org
Chinese-born artist Xu Bing, who is based in Beijing and Brooklyn, incorporates words and history into site-specific installations that examine language and politics in unique ways. In his current work at the Morgan Library, “The Living Word 3,” the characters depicting the Chinese word for “bird” lift off the ground and fly to the ceiling as they morph into birds themselves. In 2004, Xu installed “Where Does the Dust Itself Collect?” in Wales, consisting of dust that represented debris from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, accompanied by a Zen poem, examining the tragedy itself as well as its aftereffects on a shocked world. Xu has now reinstalled the poignant work in the lobby gallery of the Spinning Wheel Building in the Flatiron District in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, in conjunction with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s month-long “InSite: Art + Commemoration” series, which continues through October 11 with exhibitions, live performances, poetry readings, and other events that look at how artists have dealt with 9/11. On September 13, Xu will be at the Museum of Chinese in America to give a special artist talk with professor Lydia Liu about the project’s first installation in the United States; admission is free with advance RSVP.