We are happy to announce “Forging the Swords,” a solo exhibition for Beijing-based artist Xi Jiu that is rooted in a story by literary figure Lu Xun. The show opens Saturday, February 3.

The eponymous story begins with a young village boy on the cusp of his sixteenth birthday. In the light of dawn, his mother tells him the story of his father’s murder and of two swords forged of invisible iron, setting him on an irreversible path of revenge.

Written in 1926 in the aftermath of a bloody anti-warlord demonstration in Beijing, “Forging the Swords” is a memorable and dark inclusion in Lu Xun’s folio of tales retold from ancient China. Xi Jiu’s richly rendered miniatures present an intimate picture by picture scene, expanding on the tale’s sociopolitical metaphors around class, hierarchy, and sacrifice.