1987－1988

Medium: woodblock print

Dimensions: 22 x 28.5 in. per print

Edition: 50

From 1986 to 1987, Xu became intrigued with the concept of the print as an "indirect" painting, and its special quality of "multiplicity." Five Series of Repetitions, which he started in 1986, took multiplicity as its conceptual starting point. Xu releasd this work, along with the copperplate print Stone Series. Slightly later the same year, he gathered his thoughts and creative experiences on printing in the article "New Explorations and re-recognition of Multiplicitous Painting."

Xu wrote: "Multiple, standardized copies are the key characteristic that sets printing apart from other forms of painting. Only by following this thread can one discover the unique qualities of print art." In his essay, he analyzed Western contemporary art, critiquing, for example, Andy Warhol(1928-1987) and expressing the opinion that "printing has a more intimate, direct relationship with modern art than other categories of painting." Especially when cosidering its "replicability," printing is actucally "a form filled with a modern-feeling cadence."

2010

Materials: Woodblock print mounted as a handscroll, ink on paper

"I created this work upon an invitation from Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. By cutting, reorganizing, and printing motifs from the Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting (1679), I created a handscroll version of the classic manual. I believe that a core characteristic of Chinese painting is its schematized nature, which is reflected in classic literature, theatrical expression, and various methods of social production. The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting is a dictionary of signs for representing the myriad things of the world. Through The Mustard Seed Garden Landscape Scroll, I attempt to investigate and reveal the relation between the Chinese way of thinking and the semiotic and schematized nature of Chinese culture."

                   -- Xu Bing, 2010

1990－1991

Medium: Mixed media installation/ ink rubbings on paper with stones and soil

Dimension: Central part approx. 31(L) x 6(W) m; Side part approx. 13(H) x 14(W) m each

In 1990, Xu Bing decided to realize a longstanding vision: to “make rubbings of some massive natural object.” At the time, he had an idea: any textured object could be transferred onto a two-dimensional surface as a print. After much preparation, in May Xu Bing and some friends, students, and local residents set off for the Jinshanling section of the Great Wall, where they spent a little less than a month making rubbings of three sides of a beacon tower and a portion of the wall itself. This was the last major artwork that the artist started before moving to the United States in 1990, where it was exhibited for the first time. That the work was born “in-transit” gives it an extra layer of meaning: “Those American printers were shocked by the piece’s size,” Xu noted.

The title Ghost Pounding the Wall is translated from Gui Da Qiang (“a wall built by ghosts”), a Chinese aphorism meaning to be stuck in one’s own thinking, refering to a story of a man trapped behind labyrinthine walls built by ghosts. The epithet was hurled at Xu Bing by viewers who found Book of the Sky incomprehensible. Xu Bing had no quarrel with this criticism, and used it as the title of this work—a play on words, as the word for “build” can also mean “pound.” 

1997

Medium: Mixed media installation/ prints of a factory floor on its wall, old printing press.

The site of Berlin’s Asian Fine Art Factory was once used in the early 20th century by the German Communist party as an underground publishing house and gathering place. It was later requisitioned by the Nazis as a holding area for deportees. Type blocks, still embedded in its gallery floors, are here used as the medium of Xu Bing’s Lost Letters. Because these rooms once housed printers, Xu Bing was interested in the historicity of the floors, in how the images they contain might once more be transferred onto paper. The artist used newspaper-sized sheaves of paper to make rubbings of these imprints. These papers were mounted alongside a vintage printing press fitted with intentionally inverted metal type plates, to mimic the effect of the floor prints. The work reflects Xu’s interest in history as palimpsest, its different “versions” overlaying each another, waiting to be discovered.

1992

Medium: woodblock print on paper

35 x 250 cm

My Book is an elaboration of the work A, B, C... in the form of a woodblock print. The image is of a hardcover book, typeset and bound in traditional Western fashion. The book is open to a page that shows a comparison table of the English-to-Chinese transliteration system Xu developed in A, B, C....

In addtion, the words on the page seem to have been formed of a printed script of the Roman alphabet stringly reminiscent of calligraphy, but just like Xu's previous Book from the Sky, the are actually ersatz words. That is to say, the volume Xu calls "My Book," which from the outside seems to be a classic tome, is also empty within, impossible to read or comprehend.

The structure of My Book is similar to the earlier woodblock print Five Series of Repetitions, in that it also repeatedly uses the same block and reveals the process of carving the wood in stages. In this instance, the wood block itself is completed and printed — from an entirely unengraved black panel up to the image of "My Book" in its completed form, where it abruptly stops.

1986－1987

Medium: woodblock print

1987 marks the year Xu Bing’s artistic practice took a decisive turn towards conceptualism. When Xu Bing began his graduate studies, he became interested in printmaking as an indirect form of drawing, as well as the element of repetition that characterizes the medium. For his graduation exhibition, he showed Five Series of Repetitions as well as his “Stone Series” of copperplate prints. Later in the same year, he organized his personal views on printmaking and creative insights into an essay entitled “A New Exploration and Reconsideration of Pictorial Multiplicity.” In it, he wrote, “Multiple, prescribed impressions are the crucial element that differentiates printmaking from other fine arts, and it is only by following this line of inquiry that one can seek out printmaking’s essence.” This set of works represents an experiment in the artistic qualities that make prints unique. He begins by printing an uncut block of wood, making a sequence of prints as he carves until the image is entirely effaced. The entire mark-making process is then transferred onto a ten-meter-long stretch of bark paper. The image thus transitions from a formless solid block of black, and through a complicated process arrives at formless solid block of white, a gesture with a strong Zen Buddhist implication. This progression, from nothing to something to nothing again, anticipates the artist’s desire, stated later in his career, to “make something useless”—to push the medium of woodcutting, and the “usefulness” of figurative arts, into new territory. Five Series also anticipates his later explorations of visual culture and materiality.

1980

Medium: woodblock print

54.5 x 55.4 cm

By the end of 1977, Xu Bing had returned to Beijing and passed China's National Higher Education Entrance Examination, gaining admission to the China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) and entering the department of printmaking. The most representative woodblock print artists of 1930s and 1940s Li Hua(1907-1994) and Gu Yuan (1919-1996) still taught at the department at that time, they become important mentors of Xu Bing.

While at university Xu Bing performed exceptionally well and once won first place in a student art competition. At the same time he traveled to remote regions throughout China, getting involved in the ;ife of the people at many levels in the capacity of an artist, and producing many realistic portraits of daily life.

1977－1983

Medium: woodblock print

In 1977, Xu Bing passed his entrance exams to enroll in the Printmaking Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. There, he began a series of woodblock prints based on the theme Shattered Jade. There are around 150 pocket-sized works in this set of woodblock prints. They are characteristic of a certain style in Xu Bing’s early works, and they can be seen as a starting point in his artistic inspiration. They express a certain nostalgia for his time in the countryside when he was working in the arts community there, for the pure and simple village life.

1986

Materials: Tire, Ink, Paper

A print can be taken from almost any solid surface. In 1986, Xu Bing and his colleagues made Big Tire, a print of giant truck tire treads. The exhibition of the tire itself along with the print marked one of the first examples of installation art in Beijing.

1975－1977

Medium: Mimeograph on paper

Dimension: 27 x 19.5 cm (closed); 27 x 39 cm

After graduating from the Affiliated High School of Peking University, Xu Bing was sent to Huapen Commune in Yanqing, a village outside of Beijing nestled within the Taihang Mountains from 1974 to 1977. This was part of the Cultural Revolution policy that dispatched young intellectuals to the countryside to live and learn there. During this period, he and his fellow youths would spend their free time participating in mass arts and literature activities. One such pursuit was Brilliant Mountain Flowers Magazine. This mimeographed publication was published in an edition of 500, aimed at the rural community. The first issue was shown in the “Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius National Exhibition,” a political campaign targeting the ancient philosopher alongside disgraced high-level official Lin Biao. The publication’s layout, font, and illustrations were all designed by Xu Bing, aiming to show the purity and persistence of a life of hardship. Historians believe that Brilliant Mountain Flowers Magazine can be seen as Xu Bing’s first artwork inspired by the concept of books.