August 7, 2007

Heilongjiang Box

Guang Yu, MEWE, Heilongjiang Box

'The artist Qiu Xiaofei makes paintings of images out of his youth. They look like three-dimensional objects but they are actually painted. So for instance these are not real TV's but they are painted to look like TV's.

The shape of the book is derived from how a students notebook in school looks like. Inside the box there is a collection of personal belongings. There is even a little bit of money inside, 0.5 cents. It should feel like something out of the artists history. It's the treasure of a personal history, although fake, printed in a great amount of copies.The cover is painted by the artist especially for the graphic design. The title refers to the city where the artist was born, Heilongjiang.

The colour of the paper is printed so it looks like old paper, however small boxes of white come through. These details emphasise that the old is overlaid by the new. So the highest technology is used to make it look old'.

Guang Yu, MEWE, Heilongjiang Box