Introduction

Xu Bing is an internationally celebrated Chinese artist. He works in a couple of disciplines and materials but the most common is ink painting, printmaking, and calligraphy¹. Xu has worked with pigs and silkworms². Though, one of his well-known installations is a gigantic flying dragon titled Phoenix.

How was Phoenix created?

The installation features two monumental birds fabricated entirely from materials harvested from construction sites in urban China, including demolition debris, steel beams, tools, and remnants of the daily lives of migrant laborers.

The materials were all gathered by the migrant laborers themselves, who worked on a construction site. It is easy to notice the elements of the creatures’ form as you walk around the exhibition space. You will see jackhammers and shovels connected to hard hats, hoses, beams, and other cast-off materials.

The internally illuminated 12-ton birds were suspended mid-air, dwarfing viewers. The male Phoenix Feng measures 90 feet long, while the female Huang reaches 100 feet in length, beak to (steel) tail feathers. It took Xu two years to collect and assemble. The whole project’s engineering is something that most people would term as impressive as the work itself.

How Xu came up with the idea

In an interview, Xu gave a clear picture of how Phoenix’s whole idea came to pass. He said that in 2008 he was commissioned to create a permanent sculpture. This sculpture would be a formal atrium of the World Finance Centre in Beijing as designed by Cesar Pelli.

Xu went to the construction site and was shocked by the kind of labor and the working conditions. This made him extremely uneasy. He was struck by the reality of the impressive high rises built for the rich and how the lower and middle classes made them.

Now Xu got the idea to use the debris and the dirt to make something that would merge the good and the bad, the rich and the poor. Phoenix was the response to the unseen labor and harsh working conditions, which he thought were typified in the flawed edges of the sculptures’ forms.

Video: Xu Bing’s artist talk at MASS MoCA

Analysis

After spending numerous years away from his motherland after being born and raised there, upon returning, Xu Bing found a space undergoing rapid change, with most of it driven by toiling migrant workers. Bearing witness to the complex interconnection between labor, China’s history, economic development, and something beyond, he created Phoenix.

The two birds are not separate constructions, but they are linked. They are a linked vision of the renaissance and, at the same time, give an impression of the country’s propelled growth.

The fable of this project is powerful and monumental. It shows self-sacrifice, destruction, regeneration, and hope. It is a beautifully crafted representation of the cultural evolution, history, and modernism of China. It is also a representation of the energy and strength of all those that participated. The main aim of this sculpture was to spur a cultural and architectural change in China.

Phoenix at the Cathedral of St. John the Devine, New York, 2014

In 2004 Phoenix was installed in the nave of Manhattan’s Cathedral of St. John the Devine in New York City. The project was precisely installed, carefully winding through the official openings of the cathedral. This holds the architecture to hold the birds in place. The birds were installed 20 feet above the ground.

Explore nearby
MASS MoCA, Massachusetts