Lot 696: Qiu Anxiong , B. 1972 Sealed Cabinet (Set of Twenty-Five) lightboxes

Executed in 2005. Edition: 1/5 lightboxes

measurements note each 23 by 31 by 7 cm.; 9 by 12 1/8 by 2 3/4 in.

Grace Li Gallery, Zurich
Acquired directly from the above by the current owner

Qiu Anxiong is the master storyteller of Chinese contemporary art. Perhaps best known for his historically charged animations which create contemporary mythologies based on canonical texts in a painted language evocative of the landscape tradition (New Classic of Mountains and Rivers, 2006), he has also been known to go for the shock and awe of big-ticket gestures, once reassembling a Mao-era train carriage inside a gallery as a viewing chamber for the visual history of a bygone era (Memory for Forgetting, 2007). But none of Qiu Anxiong's works rival Sealed Cabin (Lot 696) for sheer visual poetry. In this photographic installation of twenty-five compact lightboxes, accompanied by a string of ethereal text, a narrative unfolds in what Qiu calls, in the words of his fictional narrator, "the space between heaven and earth." This space is one well known to the contemporary traveler--the sealed cabin of a Boeing 777. From a seat over the aircraft's right wing, the narrator muses on the indeterminate mental state of the frequent flyer. He surveys the cabin and worries that he has left his cell phone charger behind; he talks to himself as the rattling of the runway gives way in a single second to the uncertain freedom of being aloft. He begins to doubt his affection for his beloved, and to wonder at the divide between heaven and hell. And then, all of a sudden, a swimmer appears on the wing in bathing suit, goggles, and cap, posturing and then diving into the clouds below. The flight progresses as the narrator wonders if this image, so unlikely and yet so seemingly natural, was but a reverie. He surveys the cabin once again, convincing himself that all is normal. The story ends as he looks aimlessly into a cloudless blue sky. Qiu Anxiong is a devout Buddhist, known among his fellow artists for the rigid ascetic standard to which he holds himself and for the ease with which he slips at the dinner table into conversations of great spiritual depth. Even more than in his historical or political works, it is this contemplative sensibility that Qiu puts on display here, combining images of deceptive simplicity with words of elusive beauty. The space of the commercial airliner, so often a symbol of a privileged, transient lifestyle, is transformed into a temple of the ordinary floating between the heavens and the earth. Qiu's narrator is likewise able to negotiate this liminal space, and to engage thoughtfully with an incident that may or may not have happened. Of course the narration occurring here is not merely of a textual nature; the work of telling the story is done mainly through images, a point that becomes clear in the several frames where Qiu includes no text at all. In these moments, Sealed Cabin veers toward the cinematic. At once charming and haunting, Qiu Anxiong's lone lightbox installation elegantly presents the unique vision of a lone individual literally afloat in the space above everyday ruminations and machinations.