Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Water into Wood

Naomi's turn to go on her residential - to Wulingshan, north-east of Beijing; as excited as her big sister. And Liz is off as well, to Shanghai for a couple of nights. So I'm on my tod for a bit.
But no peace for the wicked. Amongst everything else today, we had Michael Craig-Martin in town. He's judging the special UK-China John Moores Paintng Prize in Shanghai but has popped up to Beijing in connection with our Olympic Posters exhibition, interviews and I did a talk wth him at UCCA. Nice guy. He's best known for teaching Damien Hirst and the YBA set at Goldsmiths, but of course has a large body of his own work behind him, starting off with An Oak Tree, which comprises a glass of water on a shelf and some text below - the latter 'proving' that the glass of water is in fact an oak tree. The rest of his work is rather less austere and a whole lot more colourful. One thing I didn't know, however, is the fact that he's quarter-Chinese through his grandmother or great grandmother, I forget which.

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