EUGENE–Acclaimed contemporary/experimental Chinese artist Xu Bing, whose works have been condemned by critics and banned by the government in China, will give a lecture on his ink rubbing of a section of the Great Wall of China that is part of the current exhibition at the University of Oregon Museum of Art for the museum’s MusEvenings! program on Wednesday, Aug. 18.

The free talk will begin at 6 p.m. at the Museum of Art, 1430 Johnson Lane. It is offered in conjunction with the exhibition, "Transience: Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the Twentieth Century," which will be on display at the art museum through Sept. 12.

With a crew of students and peasants, Xu Bing labored for 24 days to make ink rubbings from a 30-meter-long section of the wall. Never able to show the resulting work, "Long Wall," in China, Xu Bing first presented it to a foreign audience after he emigrated to the United States in 1990.

His emigration followed a brief showing of another work, "Heavenly Book," a monumental series of prints composed of thousands of contrived and meaningless characters, at the National Gallery in Beijing that resulted in the banning of his work by the Chinese government.

One mainland Chinese critic condemned this work as "gui da qiang," a folk idiom meaning a wall (qiang) built (da) by a ghost (gui) to encircle a night traveler. No matter how fast the traveler runs, he is actually going in circles within the wall’s invisible confines.

This analogy inspired Xu Bing to entitle his work now appearing in the "Transience" exhibition "Ghosts Pounding the Wall," a 108-inch by 204-inch ink rubbing.

Currently working and living in New York, Xu Bing was among the 1999 recipients of so-called "genius grants" from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Curated by Wu Hung, an eminent historian and scholar of Chinese art, the "Transience" exhibition is organized by the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago. It is made possible by the Smart Family Foundation, Inc.; the Lannan Foundation; the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; and the Nathan Cummings Foundation, with the support and encouragement of Beatrice Cummings Mayer, Mary and Roy Cullen and the John Nuveen Co.

Accessible to people with disabilities, the UO Museum of Art is open from noon to 8 p.m. Wednesday and from noon to 5 p.m. Thursday through Sunday. Special admission for the "Transience" exhibition is $5, which includes other museum galleries. Suggested general admission for the museum alone is $3, except on Wednesdays when the MusEvenings! program offers free extended viewing hours from 5—8 p.m. Museum members, students, UO employees and children are admitted free to the "Transience" and other museum galleries at all times.

For information, browse http://uoma.uoregon.edu or call (541) 346-3027.

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