Xu Bing, a Chinese artist whose frequently subtle engagement with opacity I admire, has installed a piece at Artes Mundi, an exhibition at the National Museum in Wales, made of dust the artist collected on September 11th in lower Manhattan.
Xu scattered the dust across the gallery floor and wrote a Zen poem in it with his finger,
"As there is nothing from the first,
Where does the dust collect itself?"
Several years ago at P.S. 1, Xu placed a giant vase of mulberry branches in the lobby, which were eaten by silkworms, whose cocoons gradually replaced the leaves.
Artes Mundi opens Saturday, (as) if you're in Cardiff. They're giving a big prize in order to get press coverage. Read Maev Kennedy's profile of Xu in the Guardian .
