November 11 China in Art

Xu Bing is an established Chinese artist, resident in the US since 1990. He has specialized in works commenting on language, including work made up of otherwise authentic looking fabricated and meaningless characters. He has made brilliant works mixing Zen and 9/11, mixing breeding pigs with nonsense English and Chinese words, works with silkworms and calligraphy lessons in the West with Chinese character-like English. Chinese society is controlled in different ways than that of the US. Political criticism in particular is constrained in many ways, but the art world either is overlooked or considered too marginal to tightly control. Thus art has been a refuge for discussion of the evolution of Chinese society. Bing has spoken only once before in Portland under PICA auspices in 2001. A rare chance for a look into worlds of Chinese art. At the Portland Art Museum www.pam.org Fields Ballroom (1st floor Masonic Temple Building) 1219 SW Park 5:30PM $12, $5 members