From Rubble to Regality: Xu Bing's Phoenixes By Rebecca Wnuk

From Rubble to Regality: Xu Bing's Phoenixes By Rebecca Wnuk

            You won't see two glowing hundred-foot-long phoenixes floating in the air when you enter Building 5 of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, but the birds are there. It seems impossible to miss such large pieces, but viewing them requires walking through a mini maze of  bulky cardboard boxes stacked high enough to mask the avians' presence from unsuspecting viewers. The birds, hung from the ceiling, are part of Chinese artist Xu Bing's exhibit- appropriately titled Phoenix- and will be on display at Mass MOCA through October 2013. Together, they are a twenty-ton amalgamation of scrap metal and cultural vestiges created over a three-year period.

            The pieces are assembled from trash and debris found in building sites in Beijing, telling a story of China's never-ending development. The sheer volume and variety of individual parts used to make each bird is incredible: thousands of metal beams make up the birds' bodies, layered lines of rusty shovels give the impression of feathers, and carefully placed yellow hard hats add detail to the heads and feet. Each avian is also lined with small bulbs whose light creates a vivifying silhouette against the gallery's white interior.

            Despite the dirty, rigid, inorganic nature of the elements used to construct them, Xu Bing somehow manages to make the pair of phoenixes seem elegant and resolute. The wires that suspend them in midair are just long enough to let the birds dangle a few feet above viewers' heads, allowing for walking underneath them. Standing directly under such a massive work of art simultaneously instills feelings of extreme insignificance and unbridled vitality, leaving viewers with a vaguely perplexing aftertaste in their mouths.

            To call Xu Bing's phoenixes simply "sculptures" or "installations" would be to cruelly understate the rich cultural narrative embodied within them as well as their provocative, transcendental presence. The birds are visual mantras of China's continual development, tributes to a society of relentless progression. They are undoubtedly the most poignant works in all of Mass MOCA, and with more pieces being added to the show in April, Xu Bing: Phoenix is not an exhibit to miss.