Tracing Forbidden Memories

Drinks Reception 6:30pm
Screening 7:00pm 
Lecture 7:45pm
Close 8:30pm

Tracing Forbidden Memories (2018) / 46 min / In Mandarin with English and Chinese subtitles

Traveling from city to city, digging around old bookstores located in back alleys, artist Xiaoze Xie searches tirelessly to acquire and accumulate hundreds of original publications banned during different eras. Through painstaking research, he systematically photographs ancient titles prohibited throughout various dynasties, yet found in public collections. He interviews scholars, writers, readers and editors who speak about their different perspectives on the subject, with moments of deliberate silence. His documentary, “Tracing Forbidden Memories” (2018) follows Xie’s project that investigates the history of banned books in China. Culminating in a unique exhibition of the project at the Denver Art Museum, the documentary film is a testimony to his intellectual Odyssey, exploring the history of censorship in various social, moral and political contexts in China. Known for his poignant paintings of books and newspapers over the past two decades, Xie will discuss his most ambitious project to date.

Xiaoze Xie received his Master of Fine Art degrees from the Central Academy of Arts & Design in Beijing and the University of North Texas. He has had solo exhibitions at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, AZ; Knoxville Museum of Art, TN; Dallas Visual Art Center, TX; Modern Chinese Art Foundation, Gent, Belgium; Charles Cowles Gallery, New York; Chambers Fine Art, New York; Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco; Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto; China Art Archives and Warehouse, Beijing; Gaain Gallery, Seoul; among others. His work is in the permanent collection of such institutions as the Denver Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, San Jose Museum of Art and the Oakland Museum of California. Xie received the Painters and Sculptors Grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation (2013), the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2003) and artist awards from Phoenix Art Museum (1999) and Dallas Museum of Art (1996). Xie is the Paul L. & Phyllis Wattis Professor of Art at Stanford University.