Solo Show: JUNK
Artist: Xiao Lu
Work: JUNK (Installation/Performance)
Passage Gallery, Sydney
14 June -19 July 2024

 

About “JUNK”

A black room, visible round the clock from the outside through glass.
A black table, a bottle of ink, a brush-pen, several stacks of xuan paper. Eight red light bulbs.
I come to Passage Gallery irregularly. Using ink, I scrawl freely on sheet after sheet of xuan paper and then throw them in the air. Gradually, rubbish fills the space.
For thousands of years in China, literary scholars have moved in the detachment of painting landscapes and flowers-and-birds. Savouring the exquisite elegance of the otherworldly aesthetics of avoiding reality, they have achieved a nation which has seen generation after generation of centralized feudal and imperial power.
I have come from China, where there is a strict system of art censorship with untouchable red lines everywhere. The self-censorship of art organisations and artists erodes everybody’s spirit.
The blackness surrounds me: terror, oppression, helplessness, anger, despair, freedom, roaring, resistance…
And one other thing: it can go to fucking hell.
Junk!

— Xiao Lu

 

 

Happening of various of the night or day, each performance involves the use a bottle of ink and 100 pieces of rice paper.

 

 

 

 

Passage website：https://www.passagegallery.com/xiao-lu-mandarin
JUNK performance video link：https://www.instagram.com/p/C90h6yDSfH7/
Media reports：https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/australia-art-exhibit-junk-06172024135802.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawH0NbZleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHfUk3k7_3tPIOTBjNnnzGuOkUFXmOnArkiInghYjUsoM-kPW-X1VkJO6Vg_aem_rTdfnDozWK01w_ks-jAZmA