The Absurdity in Poetry: Wang Baoju’s Artistic Creation
Wang Baoju, a self-taught artist, began creating art in 2010. Initially, she experimented with numerous sculptures, installations, and paintings, before venturing into performance art in 2017.
Wang Baoju’s works often observe commonplace scenes in life, subtly and cleverly altering the context to imbue these ordinary events with unexpected meaning. She poetically explores the relationship between the mundane aspects of daily life and spiritual aspirations, as well as the absurdity and meaning of human existence.
“NIGHT SCHOOL NY INSIGHT” Vol. 65
The Absurdity in Poetry: Wang Baoju’s Artistic Creation
Lecture: Baoju Wang
Host：Jody Huang
Feb 3rd, 2026 (Tue)
Sponsor: UP-ON Performance Art Archive
Sponsor: Nongyuan International Art Village
Baoju Wang
Wang Baoju was born in Liaoning Province in 1965. She graduated from the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Nankai University in 1987. She previously served as Deputy Director of the Today Art Museum and Executive Editor-in-Chief of *Today Art*, and also worked as a curator. She has published *Non-Art Interviews* and *Non-Architecture Interviews*, among others.
She began independent art creation in 2010. Through sculpture, installation, and video, she expresses her concerns about women and social issues, exploring the subtle human condition in this world between poetic and absurd, everyday and dramatic. She has held numerous solo exhibitions and has been invited to participate in group exhibitions both domestically and internationally.
In 2016, she founded the Beijing North Sixth Ring Road Art Museum project. In 2025, she initiated the establishment of the Beijing Big Fish Art Museum. She currently resides in Beijing.
Mountains, 2023, Performance video
Wang Baoju and her son sit at a table, cracking sunflower seeds until the shells pile up like a mountain, obscuring each other and making them invisible.
Breathing Out, 2022, Performance video.
In the freezing winter, Wang Baoju huffed on the glass of an office building. Before the breath disappeared, she used her finger to write Borges’ long poem “What can I do to keep you?” on the breath to remember her deceased loved ones.
Planting Seeds, 2022, Performance Video
Wang Baoju cut several poetry collections into strips of paper, rolled them into spherical shapes resembling seeds, and then used an agricultural seeder to scatter these “seeds” across the streets of Beijing.
Recitation of Music Poems: The Wasteland, 2020，Performance Video
The artist stood on a Beijing street, beneath the traffic lights on the sidewalk, and recited T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land in its entirety, synchronized to the rhythmic sounds of the traffic signals. Poetry is rhythmic and emotional, while the rhythm of the traffic lights is dry and mechanical—thus, the emotions are torn apart.
