Xiao Xiao

Günther Uecker’s Artistic Actions: An Intercultural Analysis with the Daoist Terms wuwei, ganying, and ziran

With photos by Lothar Wolleh and an essay by Antoon Melissen

In Volume 2 of the series Notes on Uecker, the art scholar Xiao Xiao examines spiritual concepts from East Asia under the title The Chinese Reception of wuwei, ziran and ganying in the Work of Günther Uecker. The focus of her analysis, an outgrowth of her doctoral dissertation, is on the intriguing affinity between the spiritual notions of “action” in the Chinese Daoist tradition and Uecker’s artistic practice. In her work, Xiao Xiao reveals how the concepts of wu wei [non-doing], ziran [from itself], and especially ganying [correlative resonance] make determinable movements of thought that are also deeply imbedded in Uecker’s creative processes.

Notes on Uecker – Print
Volume 2 · 2023
Deutscher Kunstverlag
ISBN: 978-3-422-80133-2
96 pages, german, english
23 photographs

Authors

Xiao Xiao

Xiao Xiao, born 1983 in Chengdu (People’s Republic of China), holds a doctorate in art history and is an art educator. She studied design in China until 2006 and completed her bachelor’s degree in the same subject in Hildesheim in 2012. She received her Master of Arts degree in cultural mediation and art studies in 2015, and her doctorate in 2022 from the University of Hildesheim with a thesis entitled Philosophy and the Arts of East Asia in the Work of Günther Uecker. She lives and works in Düsseldorf.

Projects

The Reception of Ganying in Günther Uecker’s Perceptual Approach

Xiao Xiao’s research project, entitled The Reception of Ganying in Günther Uecker’s Perceptual Approach, is concerned with philosophical concepts originating in the East Asian region.