Artist feels honored to have anniversary exhibit

A collection of his work titled "The Living Word" is currently on exhibition at the Morgan Library and Museum, and a separate collection called the "Tobacco Project" is on display at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts through December.

"Xu Bing is very important, not just as a Chinese artist but as an artist of his generation," said Herb Tam, the curator for the Museum of Chinese in America.

"What separates him from other artists in the Chinese avant-garde movement is that he still maintains touchstones of traditional Chinese art. Even though this 9/11 piece doesn't overtly mark itself as being Chinese, it does connect to a deep spirituality that can be interpreted as Asian. [Xu] maintains a provocateur sensibility in the same way that other artists have done, but he's also much more tied into and captivated with the traditional Chinese-ness of where his work comes from."

Mike Fu, the Events Program Coordinator for Columbia University's Weatherhead East Asian Institute, attended the reception because he was familiar with Xu's work.

"What he does is so provocative and interesting," he said. "He's incredibly influential and well-connected in the art world. I think that his work really forces you to reevaluate your assumptions about culture." The exhibition also attempts to recognize the effects of the tragedy on Manhattan's Chinatown, said Nicola Salvage, director of marketing and communications at lower Manhattan council.

"I think that people generally focus more on the perspective of the families who were affected by 9/11 directly, and that's understandable," she said. "But people forget that there were many other communities that were affected by the tragedy. Chinatown is such a small, tightly knit community, and the effects on tourism and the lives of the people who live there were underrepresented in the mainstream media."

In addition to Xu's exhibition, lower Manhattan council is hosting an initiative titled "InSite: Art + Commemoration," featuring free arts events and a multimedia web site honoring the 10-year anniversary, Salvage said.

The New York City government recently gave Xu Bing a piece of 9/11 debris, he said. He hasn't decided what he will do with the piece yet.

"But first, I plan to bring it back to China," he said. "Over a hundred Chinese people died on 9/11, and they also deserve to be honored."