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Censorship and book bans<\/a> are on the rise worldwide, prompting growing concerns about access to information and free expression. Although this trajectory is increasingly worrisome, it isn\u2019t new, as artist Xiaoze Xie<\/a> reflects on his exhibition In the Name of the Book<\/em>.<\/p>\n Comprising paintings and life-sized porcelain sculptures, the show encompasses works made in the early 1990s through the present day, all of which reflect on the vital role books play in cultural, political, and social life. Xie\u2019s practice is largely informed by his upbringing in China\u2014he was born in Guangdong the same year as the Cultural Revolution<\/a>\u2014 and in 1989, he witnessed the deadly Tiananmen Square protests. After moving to the U.S. in 1993, he began to incorporate this history and concerns about such restrictions into his works as a form of protest. <\/p>\n Book banning, particularly in the U.S., can sometimes be framed as a novel issue, and part of Xie\u2019s effectiveness is that he connects the rise in modern-day censorship to what occurred centuries before. The Forbidden Books Series<\/em> interprets classic novels, plays, and more that were prohibited largely throughout the Qing Dynasty<\/a> (1636-1912). Fiction like The Golden Lotus<\/em> and Water Margin<\/em>, for example, were charged with being sexually explicit and obscene, while the Chinese government barred the theatrical production The Peony Pavilion<\/em> from leaving Shanghai for a New York performance<\/a> in 1998 because of its \u201cfeudal, superstitious, and pornographic\u201d qualities.<\/p>\n While these works are well-known cases of censorship, Xie points out that they\u2019re just a sampling of a much larger problem. He writes:<\/p>\n Over the last 2,000 years, the books that have disappeared in China because of prohibition are countless. There is no trace of them anymore; all I have found is a small fraction. All of these old paper stacks, these silent books, consist of thoughts and discourses. These invisible and shapeless things and the stories behind them\u2014the complicated contexts of philosophical, religious, political, historical, social, ethical, and racial issues\u2014are gone. The history of banning books is a process of challenging repeated oppression and control, and challenging it again. It is alongside this back-and-forth repetition, I think, that history slowly marches on.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Preserving their likeness in porcelain with pages splayed out flat is an act of defiance for the artist, as he presents these otherwise concealed texts as permanently open for public consumption.<\/p>\n In the Name of the Book<\/em> is on view through April 17 at Sapar Contemporary<\/a>. Find more from the artist on Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member<\/a> today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Xiaoze Xie Preserves a Growing Collection of Banned Books in Porcelain<\/a> appeared first on Colossal<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Censorship and book bans are on the rise worldwide, prompting growing concerns about access to information and free expression. Although this trajectory is increasingly worrisome, it isn\u2019t new, as artist…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5333\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"an](\"https:\/\/www.thisiscolossal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/xie-2.jpg\")
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