An A.D. White Professors-at-Large keynote public event

A.D. White Professor-at-Large Xu Bing will present the public lecture “What to Make of Art Today?” on Thursday, October 20 at 5pm at the Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall.

Open to all.

About Xu Bing
Xu Bing is an internationally acclaimed Chinese artist whose creative and cultural interventions touch on the fields of public and ecological art, printmaking, new media installations, drawing, and sculpture. Xu Bing operates studios in New York and Beijing where he served as Vice President of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. For the 2022 Cornell Biennial, the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art has commissioned his newest Background Story, a lyrical light box in dialogue with an historical Chinese ink painting in the Museum’s collection. His biography charts the path of the international influence of Chinese contemporary art and its complex place in Chinese culture over the last forty years.

ADW Professor-at-Large Xu Bing keynote: “What to Make of Art Today?” (Oct. 20, 2022)

This event part of an A.D. White Professors-at-Large (ADW-PAL) visit and is cosponsored by the Johnson Museum of Art and the Cornell Council for the Arts.

Xu Bing will visit Cornell as an ADW-PAL from October 17-21, 2022. He was elected as an ADW-PAL in 2015. 

Xu Bing’s “Background Story” exhibition opens October 8, 2022 and closes January 22, 2023. Located in the Gold Gallery, Floor 2L, in the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art.

Xu Bing has created a new work based on a centuries-old Chinese painting, Woodcutter in the Winter Mountains by Yang Xun, in the Johnson Museum’s collection for his series Background Story. Through the manipulation of recycled plastic and miscellaneous trash from daily life, the artist dilutes or intensifies light to “draw” an ink-like image on glass that conveys traditional Chinese reverence for nature while serving as a warning about humans’ ongoing mistreatment of the environment.

2022 Cornell Biennial
Sponsored by the Cornell Council for the Arts and curated by Timothy Murray, the 2022 Cornell Biennial “Futurities, Uncertain” features exhibitions, installations, and performances by 23 international and 17 Cornell-based artists. Free and open-to-the-public events will rotate on the Cornell Ithaca campus and the Cornell Tech campus in New York City from July through December 2022.