Bejing Commune, 2010
Xiao Yu’s bamboo sculptures, presented in a recent exhibition at the Beijing Commune gallery, present a direct material investigation of the plant’s tensile properties, with each collection of shaped and twisted stems frozen at a moment of dynamic tension. Deceptively simple, the works explore the physical properties of the material when warped, twisted, bound, or shredded. The leaning floor works remain upright against obvious gravitational forces, held up by some unknown means. The initial impression of stillness created by installation changes as a closer reading reveals the various physical forces held in suspension.
Given the strict use of a single component, and a clear interest in exploring its materiality without obvious external references to the illusionistic and fictive, one might on first viewing make associations to late-modernist, minimal sculptures. But the cultural symbolism of bamboo is far to embedded into Chinese society for it to operate as a neutral, self-referential object. Rather Xiao Yu uses a minimalistic strategy to metaphorically stage his continuing investigation of forces at play in our rapidly changing global society. Regardless of the intentional ambiguity of the work, Xiao Yu is clearly interested in the symbolic associations of the material. As an ancient symbol for longevity, strength and grace, bamboo has held an elevated status in Chinese philosophy and culture, with its straight vertical form symbolizing the path towards enlightenment, and the ring joints representing the sequential steps of that journey. Rather then stripping away its meaning, he has infused the material with new significance by juxtaposing these historic reading with a radical reshaping the bamboo into forms that challenge our both our physical and symbolic understanding of the plant.
What lies at the heart of Xiao Yu’s practice, spanning 25 years, has been a resolute interest in considering the metaphysical meanings possible in altering the familiar, and expanding our understanding of forces that shape our identity, through the transformation of the common in startling new forms. In past work he has pondered and experimented at the edge of the taboo, to shock us to a new awareness of our technical and scientific progressions in the realms beyond what can be reconciled within our limited ethical or moral codes. In this series, the austere bamboo forms produce none of this immediate shock, but the quieter meditations that first appear in this work are a deceptive cover for the suppressed tension and forces hidden within this challenging and engaging work. Xiao Yu has created a series that allows the viewer to find their individual narrative within these large, dynamic forms that spring and coil with an essential life force.
Gordon Laurin
Beijing, 2010