Xu Bing is one of the few contemporary conceptual artists who really excites young people I meet. He collects and works with objects that are moving from ordinary to extraordinary – a tank-flattened bicycle from Tiananmen Square, a jar of air from SARS-era China. He swept up and kept dust and debris from the 9/11 Twin Towers attacks, and later used it in a work of art.
Where Does The Dust Itself Collect? was originally created for a show in the UK, and has also been shown in Brazil. To avoid customs interest and issues moving the dust, Xu Bing glued it all together into a small (creepy!) figure remoulded from his daughter Yi-Yi’s doll, flew with it himself, then reground it and scattered it at the venue.
The dust spells out a quotation from a seventh-century Zen poem: “As there is nothing from the first, Where does the dust itself collect?”
Images from MyModernMet
