Phoenix Art from the Artist Xue SongShanghART Gallery

This book accompanies artist Xue Song’s solo exhibition at the Long Museum, Shanghai, China. After a big fire in his studio, Xue began to use collage techniques to re-construct the burned print fragments for his paintings. His works blend traditional and modern, Eastern and Western elements.

In the design of the cover, laser ablation is used to create irregular cuts; colour white, orange and blue are applied to indicate the gradation of flame; heat press is employed to uncover the orange layer through transparent characters, which creates a visual effect that first suppresses and then rises. Corners of each inner page feels like being burnt. The way of binding, punching and threading by hand, mirrors the temperament of Chinese landscape painting, calligraphy and other elements in Xue’s practice. It also creates a space inside the book to accommodate a 100-page booklet (it includes 100 paintings under the theme “family names”, which were presented in the exhibition as a map of China.)