Lot  151 Ravenel Autumn Auction 2009 Taipei

Ravenel Autumn Auction 2009 Taipei

New English Calligraphy - Poem of Bei Dao (A pair)

XU Bing (Chinese, 1955)

2008

Ink on paper

153.5 x 38 cm (x2)

Estimate

TWD 1,500,000-2,500,000

HKD 353,000-588,000

USD 45,900-76,500

Sold Price

TWD 1,680,000

HKD 404,819

USD 52,239


Signature

Signed Xu Bing in English and dated 2008

With two seals of the artist

QUOTATION CONTENT:


"The Answer" Poem of Bei Dao

Debasement is the password of the base



Nobility the epitaph of the noble

Xu Bing Two thousand and eight

+ OVERVIEW

Bei Dao is a modern poet in China. His roots were in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province. Bei was born in Beijing. He has published the poetry anthologies: "Extracts of the Sun City", "The Collection of poems of Bei Dao", "The Collection of Poems of Bei Dao and Gu Cheng". Since he began writing in the 1970s, Bei has always been the frontrunner in Chinese modern poetry. The metaphor, together with the combination of symbol and image, created by his clear mind and intuition constitutes the obvious artistic features of Bei Dao. His poems own unique artistic strength which force people rethink their values. There are paradox epigrams with brief expressions inside his poems. His works have been translated and published in more than 20 languages. "The Answer" in 1976 is his masterpiece and "Debasement is the password of the base; nobility the epitaph of the noble." has become a renowned Chinese aphorism. In the USA, the poem of Bei Dao were published by Zephyr Press. His works were nominated for the Nobel Prize several times. He is the most influential Chinese poet who is widely-accepted by the international community.

The work "New English Calligraphy - Poem of Bei Dao" was donated by the famous artist Xu Bing for a nongovernmental literary activity. The content was the well-known sentence from poem "The Answer" written by Bei Dao, who has been nominated for the Nobel Prize several times. These two sentences were in everyone's mouth in the 1980s, and even now inspire many young people who are interested in literature. The world-famous artist Xu Bing used his specially created kind of calligraphy to compose this picture. Since the release of the New English Calligraphy, it received much public attention, many major museums around the world and some important collectors scrambled to have it in their own collection. The perfect artistic form and the deep intention of the poems, the combination of the great masters from the artistic circle and the literary circle enable this composition to be an eye-catching one.

Related Info

Modern & Contemporary Asian Art

Ravenel Autumn Auction 2009 Taipei

Sunday, December 6, 2009, 12:00am