Italian show celebrates strength of Chinese characters

For the first time in Italy, the strength of Chinese characters in the works of a leading artist was central to an exhibition that kicked off on Saturday at the Palazzo dell'Arte (Palace of Art), the headquarters of the Triennale art institution.

Xu Bing, born in Chongqing city in 1955, is one of China's most acclaimed living artists. His Character of Characters, a video animation illustrating the birth and relation of Chinese characters with human history, was the starting point of this project aimed at making the excellence of Chinese art known to a Western audience, curator Hans de Wolf said at the exhibition preview.

"The idea to make this exhibition occurred a couple of years ago, when I saw for the first time this absolute masterpiece of Xu Bing at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing," De Wolf recalls. "For me it was a moment of inspiration. I understood immediately the extreme quality of this artwork."