Lu Xun (1881–1936) was not the first writer to pen tales in vernacular Chinese, but he spurred the literary form in ways that were unseen before his time. Under his pen (or brush), nothing was sacrosanct, and nobody was untouchable. A group exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, “Tales of Our Time,” took its title from Lu’s last collection of short stories, Old Tales Retold (1936), in which the celebrated author riffed off eight folk myths to critique early 20th-century Chinese society. The show introduced new commissions by seven artists and artist groups from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. With an accompanying catalog that emulated Lu’s prose style, curators Xiaoyu Weng and Hou Hanru paid literary tribute to the father of modern Chinese literature—and made a notable attempt…
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ArtAsiaPacific (Digital) - 1 Issue, Mar/Apr 2017