Lot 151
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
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.
Modern & Contemporary Asian Art
Ravenel Autumn Auction 2009 Taipei
Sunday, December 6, 2009, 12:00am