Tate Liverpool
Dialogue
1989, remade 2015
Xiao Lu
“Dialogue is an installation that comprises two life-size aluminium alloy telephone booths, a mirror, a pedestal, a red telephone and cement paving stones. On the left phone booth, an image of the back of a female figure holding a receiver is silkscreened over the glass, and on the right phone booth the back of a male figure is depicted. In the middle of the two phone booths is a red telephone on a white plinth, with the receiver dangling down. Behind the phone is a mirrored panel with two bullet holes referencing an action carried out by the artist when the work was displayed in the exhibition China/Avant-Garde at the National Art Gallery, Beijing in 1989. The sculpture is raised on cement paving stones, and purposely resembles the public phone booths found on the streets of China in the late 1980s.”