A monograph on one of China’s most accomplished and daring artists, this volume follows the transformation of Xing Danwen’s career from 1989 to the present. Since 1989, when she began photographing the lives of artists squatting on the fringes of Beijing, Xing Danwen has forged a significant identity in the Chinese art world. The exhibition and its accompanying catalogue, Captive of Love, focus on Xing’s relationship to Beijing and feature works from all of her major series - Wall House, Urban Fiction, Thread, Because I am in the mountain, disCONNEXION, A Personal Diary, Sleep Walking, and Scroll. Recalling several threads from Jean Genet’s final book, Prisoner of Love, which provides a prism for considering Xing’s artistic practice, this wide-ranging monograph reveals Xing has never stopped developing as an artist. In every image she creates, Xing reconstructs reality, as if driven by a compulsive desire to be at the centre of the incident, approaching her characters with a marked sensuality. Through photographs, installations, and videos, Xing positions herself inside the event as a subject, a model, or a critical eye, creating a visual language that is both subversive and poetic. AUTHOR: Tarek Abou El Fetouh is an independent curator. His projects include the 2009 Sharjah Biennale; Home Works 6 , Beirut, 2013; Lest the Two Seas Meet , Museum of Modern Art Warsaw, 2015; and The Time is Out of Joint , Sharjah and Gwangju, 2016. Born in Cairo, El Fetouh currently lives and works in Brussels. SELLING POINTS: . First monograph: This is the first monograph about Danwen. . Popular artist: Danwen is a popular artists in the US and in China who has been featured in Art in America and China Vogue. . Permanent collection: Danwen is in the permanent collection of Whitney Museum of American Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, among others. . Award winning artist: Xing Danwen has won the ING Real Photography Award, best publishing project at Les Recontres d'Arles and was an Asia 21 Fellow of the Asia Society in 2009. 200 colour illustrations
