Pictured above:
Tent, 2006
Newspaper, iron wire, steel, silicone building sealant, latex, furniture wax
H1000 x W2500 x D2300 mm

Dragon 4, 2007 H1000 x W1550 x D1000 mm

Xue Tao’s works are very much the product of the experience of living in China now. They are a response to the constant barrage of information and the rapid social changes that young people are experiencing. His works are archives of sorts and the handicraft aspect of his technique and his choice of material contrasts with the internet and television media that characterise our age. Xue Tao’s sculptures become disjointed from the real world, trapped somewhere between tradition and the present. This contradiction reflects the struggle to make sense of the contemporary world – a struggle that everyone in China is experiencing with the country’s dramatic modernisation.

In a nation that throughout its cultural history has used prized materials such as bronze, gold or jade, it is interesting to see work by an artist who uses newspaper, a medium that does not have great intrinsic value. For a Chinese audience this is something difficult to get the measure of. How can an object made of nothing special be of value? Why is it interesting? To a western audience who may be aware of the legacy of arte povera this is not so much of a problem as to whether or not Xue Tao’s sometimes-functional objects should be regarded as art or design. China has traditionally had a broader view of creativity that does not make such hierarchical distinctions.

Xue Tao has come to international attention recently with the acquisition of his work by the Vitra Design Museum in Germany, one of the leading design museums in the world and an acknowledged barometer of what is interesting and relevant in the field of international design today. His work has also been selected to feature in the exhibition CHINA POWER STATION II slated for Autumn 2007, an exhibition intended to show the most significant art currently being produced in China. Here he is in the privileged position of being endorsed by both the design and art worlds. Xue Tao is one of a young generation of artists who are unconcerned with the category in which people wish to place them, preferring to work unconstrained, between disciplines. He leaves the decision of whether his works are to be viewed as art or design to the viewer.

Stool 1, 2007 H550 x W950 x D500 mm