Xiaoze Xie's "forbidden" sculptures and library paintings debut at Sapar Contemporary

Sapar Contemporary is presenting the gallery’s first solo exhibition by Xiaoze Xie. The exhibition is titled In the Name of the Book and draws from the artist’s long standing “Library” series of paintings and his research-based “Forbidden Book.” Life-size porcelain sculptures of the books from the Forbidden Books project will be shown in NYC for the first time. The recent work of Guangdong-born artist Xiaoze Xie pertinently, alarmingly mirrors current headlines. Both timely and urgent, it is merely the tip of similarly themed projects that have consumed Xie for decades, centered on the crucial role of books as the guardians of free expression and the repositories of civilization’s accumulated knowledge. At the heart of this ambitious and singular practice (it’s a conception of protest art that is not only politically pointed but also pictorially elegant) are two series of works, the “Library,” which he began in 1993,