Existing comment:
"In & Out - a personal experience of library in China 1970s" , Knowledge Exile, 2009
Knowledge Exile is the multi-part sculpture installation located throughout the interior and exterior plazas of the library created from bronze, resin, glass, stone and mixed media. This portion of the installation is based on the rare collection books of the Marriott Library, the less important books in our lives and artist created books to incorporate many media and forms.
For Suikang Zhao, "a library has two complete opposite metaphors: one represents knowledge and freedom, the other is a rigid grid system and institutional enclosure." The artist explains these views were partially formed during his secretive and unauthorized visits to the library during the Cultural Revolution of the People's Republic of China. The artist realized, while creating this work, a complex set of emotions between gaining knowledge as part of free thought, his love of books and struggling with the structure of the institution that houses that knowledge. These experiences of his youth and this work made him confront his urges to deform, de-institutionalize, or simply run away with the books. |