Oral history interview with Xiaoze Xie

Scope and Contents

An interview of Xiaoze Xie conducted 2010 May 10 and 11, by Mija Riedel, for the Archives of American Art's U.S. General Services Administration, Design for Excellence and the Arts oral history project at Xie's studio in Stanford, California.

Scope and Contents

Xie speaks of growing up in a rural area of southern China; the incorporation of historical events into his work; the development of his series Library in the US and China; his education, including attending graduate school for architecture at the Central Academy of Art and Design in Beijing and at the University of North Texas for painting; the outbreak of the pro-democracy student movement in China in 1989; his first big artwork in the US, Duet; the incorporation of Photorealism in his work; his piece Flags and Banners, which used existing photographs as source images; the process of making his paintings using newspapers as source images; his GSA commission, Iowa Reports; the urgency he felt to create political work after September 11, 2001; comparisons of his work with that of other contemporary American and Chinese artists; and his influences including Gerhard Richter. Xie also recalls Vincent Falsetta, Vernon Fisher, Xu Beihong, Lin Fengmian, Liu Haisu, Wu Zuoren, and others.

Biographical / Historical

Interviewee Xiaoze Xie (1966- ) is a Chinese American visual artist and professor based in Palo Alto, California. Interviewer Mija Riedel (1958- ) is a writer and independent scholar in San Francisco, California.