BEIJING: A graduation exhibition work at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing has ignited heated debate. The piece, titled Super Beehive and created by a student surnamed Qiao, features a stack of cardboard boxes and a projected image of hands climbing up them. Critics have dismissed it as merely a pile of garbage, while supporters view it as a thought-provoking commentary on consumerism and the transient nature of success and failure.
Super Beehive, also known as “This Too Shall Pass”, includes moving cardboard boxes and a video depicting the lifecycle of a box being made, recycled, and crushed. Projected onto the boxes are images of two hands climbing upwards.
Responding to criticism that her work resembles “a big pile of garbage,” Qiao explained that the piece features a functioning motor and that each layer of cardboard was meticulously cut by hand. She estimated the cost of the project to be between 10,000 and 20,000 yuan ($1,380 to $2,760). “I apologize for the misunderstanding and misinterpretations of contemporary art,” Qiao said.
Qiao described the cardboard box as a symbol of today’s fast-paced consumer society.
“It is often used once and then discarded, recycled, and crushed into new ones, constantly cycling between being needed and abandoned. This impermanence resonates with the current work-life situations of many people,” she explained. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
