Materials：Book, Silkworm.

Dimension：1.5 (H) x 52 (L) x 42 (W) cm

2020

Exhibition Location: Asia Society Triennial, New York, U.S.A.

Male Feng, MASS MoCA, 2012

2008－2016

The magnificent installation of Xu Bing's Phoenix, a pair of two Chinese phoenixes (feng and huang), is in fact made from thousands of abandoned materials and workers' daily necessities that Xu Bing collected from construction sites in Beijing. While Feng Huang are traditionally associated with rebirth after suffering and rising from ash, Xu Bing's Phoenix can be seen to signify the cycle of the painstaking development and renewal that is inherent in the process of urbanization. Furthermore, Phoenix pays humble respect to the efforts of ordinary workers and draws attention to urban topics such as environmental issues and labor conditions.

When Phoenix traveled to Shanghai (2010), MASS MoCA (2012), New York (2014), and the 56th Venice Biennale (2015), audience from all over the world was not only impressed by the splendor of the two birds but also moved by the countless scars and hopes carried by them.

2001

Materials: Cut and painted acrylic

Location: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., USA

The work is mainly comprised of over 400 calligraphic variants of the Chinese character “niao”, meaning bird, carved in colored acrylic and laid out in a shimmering track that rises from the floor into the air. On the gallery floor Chinese characters in the “simplified style” script popularized during the Mao era are used to write out the dictionary definition for niao. The bird/niao characters then break away from the confines of the literal definition and take flight through the installation space. As they rise into the air, the characters “de-evolve” from the simplified system to standardized Chinese text and finally to the ancient Chinese pictograph hasde upon a bird’s actual appearance. At the uppermost point of the installation, a flock of these ancient characters, in form of both bird and word, soar high into the rafters toward the upper windows of the space, as though attempting to break free of the words with which humans attempt to categorize and define them.

The colorful, shimmering imagery of the installation imparts a magical, fairy-tale like quality. Yet the overt simplicity, charm and ready comprehensibility of the work has the underlying effect of guiding the audience to open up the “cognitive space” of their minds to the implications of, and relationships between, word, concept, symbol and image.

1994

Location: Beijing, China

Materials: Performance media installation with live animal / Live Pig, books, mannequin, wood blocks, ink

This work was created as an extension of an earlier project: A Case Study of Transference. A life-sized mannequin in human form, covered in false-character tattoos, was placed inside an enclosure containing a male pig, similarly tattooed. The intention was both to observe the reaction of the pig towards the mannequin and to produce an absurd and random drama -- an intention that was realized when the pig reacted to the mannequin in an aggressively sexual manner. The entire process was documented and the resulting photographs were exhibited several years after the event, in 1998. 

2003

Materials: Metal cages, motion sensors, fake birds

Location: Beijing, China

Location: Guangzhou, China
Materials: Donkeys

The idea for this installation came from a newspaper article about peasants in Southern China who disguised normal horses as zebras to attract tourism. Xu Bing saw how this story exemplifies the kind of creativity and intelligence brought forth by recent developments in China's economic policies. The installation itself merely re-creates this borrowed wisdom of the masses. Similar to Xu Bing's language-based works, this project deals with the concept of masks. The zebras appear in camouflage, so while the viewer encounters a familiar face, what is perceived is inconsistent with its reality. 

1998

Location：Jack Tilton Gallery, New York, USA

Materials: Mixed medIa installation / Live pigs, bamboo, classical paintings

In this work, Xu Bing created an ersatz "authentic" space for gallery visitors to view a well-known symbol of Chinese culture -- the panda bear. Xu Bing's pandas, however, were actually New Hampshire pigs, a breed with natural black-and-white markings similar to those of the panda bear. The artist doctored their appearance with panda masks and let them wander freely inside an elegant "Chinese" enclosure consisting of a bamboo grove against the backdrop of a traditional landscape painting. 

Like a significant number of Xu's works, Panda Zoo explores the implications of the mask, an exploration that extends to his works of invented calligraphy, which the artist describes as ''masked characters.''

1998

Medium: Site-specific installation

Materials: Iron leash with character links, live sheep

A long iron chain extends from the exhibition hall to the green lawn outside of the museum. A white sheep is leashed at the end. The chain is connected by the words from a poem by John Berger. 

The piece was exhibited at NY PS1 the same year, and the chain of words stretched from the second-floor gallery to the garden on the rooftop.

1997

Location: Tarble Arts Center, Charleston, Illinois, USA

Materials: Mixed media installation / Metal fence, live sheep

The artist has created two versions of this installation. In the 1997 version, two huge nets were constructed of aluminum wire, the "links" of which that had been woven into word shapes. One net was installed at the entrance to the exhibition gallery, effectively blocking it off, and turning the gallery into a kind of giant trap. The second was installed in the middle of the gallery, dividing the space in half. Fenced in on one side were two live sheep, while the audience was fenced in on the other: the two sides were thus forced to stare at each other through a net of words. The content of the nets' "wire words" was comprised of personal observations of the individuals who aided the artist in the net's construction. As for the inclusion of the sheep in the installation, Xu Bing states that he works with sheep because ''I like the way they stare at things.''

The second version of this work was created in 1998. In this case a large square-shaped net was installed outside the exhibition hall. The wire words of the net comprised of the text of the foreword to the exhibition catalogue written by Linda Weintraub, one of the exhibition curators. 

1994

Location: Beijing, China

Materials: Performance, mixed media installation / Live parrot 

For this performance art work Xu Bing trained a parrot to communicate certain sentiments to gallery audiences. For the duration of the exhibition, the parrot sat alone in its cage in the exhibition hall and quoted learned phrases, such as:

You people are so boring!

Modern art is crap!

Why are you holding me prisoner, you bastards!