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Artist Gong Yuebin grew up during China's Cultural Revolution and it shows. His piece "Site 2801," on display at Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, Calif., reflects a re-imagined terra cotta army -- 200 warriors interspersed with 10 modern-looking soldiers, symbolizing an unchanged feeling of militarism. Spencer Michels reports.
SPENCER MICHELS (Newshour): Half-a-mile from California's state capitol, in a storefront studio in Sacramento, a 52-year old artist from China has replicated 2,200-year-old-warriors discovered in an ancient tomb.
Gong Yuebin, who came to the U.S. in 2004 speaking no English, has fashioned a exhibition that uses the past to comment on the future. Those ancient terra-cotta soldiers, 8,000 of them, were discovered by farmers in China in 1974, buried in the tomb of China's first emperor in 210 B.C. and meant to protect him in the afterlife.
The carefully-crafted army, including horses and chariots, has drawn thousands of tourists to the site, and some of the objects themselves have been exhibited in America and elsewhere.
Gong Yuebin was a teenager when the soldiers were discovered. And their large military presence inspired him even then.
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