Kuang Niu 狂牛 (Mad Cow)

Qiu Anxiong, artist

born 1972

Kuang Niu 狂牛 (Mad Cow), 2008

Portfolio/Series title: Xin Shanhai Jing 新山海经 (New Book of Mountains and Seas)

Where object was made: China

Material/technique: rice paper; woodcut

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 420 x 500 mm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 16 9/16 x 19 11/16 in
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 497 x 577 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 19 9/16 x 22 11/16 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 32 x 24 in

Credit line: Museum purchase: R. Charles and Mary Margaret Clevenger Art Acquisition Fund

Accession number: 2009.0111.02

Not on display

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Label texts

Temporal Turn: Art and Speculation in Contemporary Asia

This print portfolio suggests a traditional Chinese book, but depicts the fantastical creatures featured in chapter one of Qiu Anxiong’s video trilogy The New Book of Mountains and Seas. Each of the bizarre creatures is accompanied by an inscription using archaic terminology and composed in classical Chinese that simulates the Shanhai Jing, a second-century geographic text describing strange creatures in distant lands, upon which the name of the video trilogy is derived.
Mad Cow (狂牛, Kuang Niu)
In the Buliteng [British] Isles of the Western Ocean [Atlantic Ocean], there are cows and horses that eat the internal organs of their own kind. After several years, these cows became “mad.” People who ate the cows also went “mad” and then died. The citizens of the Isles burned these cows but could never eradicate them. Other countries do not ever eat cows from this country.

Exhibition Label:
"Qiu Anxiong: New Book of Mountains and Seas," Feb-2010, Kris Ercums
Inscription:
There is a cow in the British Isles in the Western Ocean. Its food is like viscera [the innards of animals] and it has been crazy for many years. If they eat this cow, humans become insane and die. The Islanders burn them without exception. Other kingdoms have stopped eating the cattle from that land. It is called the Mad Cow.