(Social Justice). Golden Lotus.
Rosendale, NY: Women's Studio Workshop, 2022. 48mo. (10)pp. + two-page pop-up spread. One of 53 copies. Signed and numbered by the artist at the colophon. An intense, expressive, and paradoxically expansive in both structure and content interrogation of the Chinese cultural history and practice of binding girls' feet. Fu begins her text with the aphorism, "If you care not for your daughter, / care not if she suffers in her feet," printed in both English and Mandarin, and ending with the statement that the ideal foot size, called "Golden Lotus," was three cun, or 3.9 inches. At the colophon Fu provides impressive context for the practice, and its economic and social valences. Throughout are photographs taken by the artist in 2014; at the other side of the dos-a-dos binding (an insightful choice for its insinuation of binaries and antitheses) is a lotus constructed from paper, which blooms from its "binding" - at full size it measures roughly the requisite 3.9 inches. Printed on handmade paper from lotus root, kozo, and cotton. Bound in gold silk, evocative of the material and manner of foot-binding. Very fine. Item #32619
Price: $2,750.00