The Importance of Ancient Western Relics
Li Bo
李波
Production date
2007
Object Detail
Media
oil on canvas
Measurements
140 x 240 cm
Notes
Li Bo finds most of the images used as source material for his paintings on the internet. He lines them up in juxtapositions that appear random at first sight, but which create chains of meaning when ‘read’ like a sentence. This work is Li Bo’s reflection on modernisation and urbanisation – the robot or android figure comes face to face with the typical suit-wearing contemporary urban dweller and the watering truck used to clean the city. The soldier and rider reference other ‘types’ in the human population. The large mound in the middle refers to the relics of the ancient city of Loulan in western China. The artist says it is like the corpse of a vanished glorious urban civilization. The scales weigh the cost of modernisation – what is gained versus what is lost. Li Bo says, ‘Once, I returned to my hometown from Beijing. Suddenly, I realized that the green mountain and clean water in my childhood memory seemed all gone. Rivers and soil have all been polluted.’
Accession number
2009.043