Ever heard k.d. Lang’s album, “Drag”? Every song relates to cigarettes: “Smoke Dreams,” “Smoke Rings,” “Don’t Smoke in Bed,” and so forth. I cranked it up on 10/20/2011 after visiting the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts’ remarkable exhibition, “Xu Bing: Tobacco Project” – an artistic celebration and interpretation of tobacco by one of China’s most important contemporary artists.

The show-stopper is of course the white and orange 50-foot tiger skin rug composed entirely of cigarettes (a half-million of them) – the two colors from the two ends of the cigarettes. Xu Bing’s works are made from cigarettes and from raw tobacco – including the tobacco leaf book (each page 30 x 20”) that features a passage from Ralph Hamor’s 1615, “A True Discourse on the Present State of Virginia.”

One interesting and remarkable thing about the exhibit is that it focuses totally on the good qualities of tobacco – and thus we are free to enjoy the artforms and smell the admittedly very nice aroma without being burdened by politics.