Xu Tan was born in Wuhan, Hubei Province in 1957 and currently lives in Guangzhou. Since the early 1990s he has been part of “Big Tail Elephant Group”, an experimental art team in Guangzhou. Xu Tan has insisted on his lifestyle as “outcast”, maintaining sensitivity to the changes in social life and culture, and questioning the boundary of contemporary art. Over the years this has led his working style to appear more like that of a social theorist than a purely visual artist. His work has been shown around the world, including at the 50th Biennale di Venezia, the Berlin Biennial, the Gongdong Triennial etc.

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The "Keywords School" is a project based on the continuous investigation and research of "keywords" by the Chinese artist Xu Tan since 2006. Through interviews and discussions, he is persistently "searching for keywords" among people from different fields and backgrounds, then reinstalling them into new conversation context. - "Keywords School" is a new public space aiming at the stimulation of such communication.

There are no set goals in the "Keywords School". Through the guidance of Xu Tan and participation of every member, every "keywords" serves as a medium to intriguing different individuals to actively take part in certain conscious activities. The public flow of consciousness with such interweaving contemplations and perception inspired by the "keywords" constitutes the main content of this "Keywords School". Thus, the "Keywords School" is continuously creating contents concerning the "post-Keywords School". Here, the "school" serves as a metaphor which leads us to dive into the deep ocean of life and social development.

If society is an university, why can't "keywords" constitutes a school?

Regarding Searching for Keywords
A dialogue between Hu Fang (HF) and Xu Tan (XT)

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