Kong Guoqiao

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ART . RedBox Studio .cn – Do a Book: Group exhibition and installation at White Space, Beijing

[...] Ain Cocke, 郭鸿蔚 Guo Hongwei, 洪浩 Hong Hao, 黄敏  Huang Min, Ravikumar Kashi, 孔国桥 Kong Guoqiao, 梁志和 Leung Chiwo, 刘任Liu Ren, 马军 Ma Jun, 掉对 Out, 庆庆 Qingqing, Kiki Smith, [...]

, in Art, Printmaking (1 Comments)

Kong Guoqiao was born in 1968 in Hangzhou. In 1986 he entered the printmaking department at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts and completed his Masters in 1993. From 1996-1997 he practiced printmaking at the University of Ulster Art and Design School and returned to Hangzhou in 2002 to enter the first session of painting methododolgy postgraduate program at the China Academy of Art, completing his Ph.D in literature in 2008. He is currently the Head of the printmaking department at the China Academy of Art, serves as the Director of the Zhejiang Artists Association and is the secretary-general of the Zhejiang Printmaking Artist Society. He has received numerous art awards for excellence and his works are included in established institutions, including the China Art Museum, Shanghai Art Museum, Guangdong Museum of Art, University of Sydney collection.

Oral History (2007) 口述历史
Etching on paper, spiral bound / 24 pages
30 x 20 cm / 11 3/4 x 7 3/4 in
30 x 40 cm / 11 3/4 x 15 3/4 in (open)
Edition of 10, 2 AP

Oral History is a personal diary of musings on current events told through an artist book of etchings. Whereas history in book form is often conveyed through words, this intimate presentation of images from books and newspapers with journalistic entries in both English and Chinese or German is composed in a surrealist manner with detailed renderings and juxtaposed with powerful images: the fateful image of 9/11 is contrasted to the fallen Tower of Babel; a ghastly murder victim is likened to the figure of a nude with the words “Who is watching over us?;” death toll figures from the Rape of Nanjing are compared to the numbers from concentration camps in WWII. Solemn and sobering, the exquisitely rendered images are palatable in their refined, nearly architectural style. As with oral history, where the personal narrative colors the transmission of factual information, the informal presentation as a spiral bound book creates an intimate experience as the viewer is forced to encounter each moment page by page.