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CATEGORIES
    • Xu Bing Art Satellite Creative Residency...
    • 卫星上的湖泊
    • "Xu Bing Tianshu" Rocket Crater
  • PRINTMAKING
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    • The Seven-Character Poetry Collection of...
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  • ARTIST BOOKS
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    • Tobacco Project I: Reel Book
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  • ANIMALS
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    • A Case Study of Transference: Times Over...
    • Phoenix
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  • INSTALLATION
    • The Wall and the Road
    • The Genetics of Reading Image
    • Gravitational Arena
    • Tobacco Project I: Longing
    • Silkworm Book: The Analects of Confucius
    • A Case Study of Transference: Times Over...
    • Phoenix
    • Stone Path
    • Background Story
    • Book from the Ground
    • Living Word
    • Book from the Sky
    • Square Word Calligraphy Classroom
    • Travelling to the Wonderland
    • Where Does the Dust Itself Collect?
    • Landscript
    • Art for the People
    • Ghosts Pounding the Wall
    • Purple Breeze Comes from the East
    • Ergo Dynamic Desktop
    • The Well of Truth
    • The Glassy Surface of a Lake
    • Bird Language
    • Excuse Me Sir, Can You Tell Me How to Ge...
    • The Foolish Old Man Who Tried to Remove ...
    • Body Outside of Body
    • Cultural Negotiations
    • Brailliterate
    • Post Testament
    • A, B, C...
    • Big Tire
    • Air Memorial
    • Wild Zebra
    • Panda Zoo
    • The Leash
    • The Net
    • The Parrot
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    • Tobacco Project II: Shanghai
    • Tobacco Project I: Durham
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PROJECTS
  • The Wall and the Road
  • Xu Bing Art Satellite Creative Residency...
  • Xu Bing Tianshu Rocket
  • Book from the Ground Pop-up Book (2014 E...
  • The Seven-Character Poetry Collection of...
  • 卫星上的湖泊
  • Artificial Intelligence Infinite Film (A...
  • The Genetics of Reading Image
  • Gravitational Arena
  • Where Are We?
  • "Xu Bing Tianshu" Rocket Crater
  • A Case Study of Transference: Times Over...
  • Dragonfly Eyes
  • Phoenix
  • Stone Path
  • Forest Project
  • Background Story
  • Book from the Ground
  • Living Word
  • Book from the Sky
  • Square Word Calligraphy
  • Square Word Calligraphy Classroom
  • Travelling to the Wonderland
  • The Character of Characters
  • Where Does the Dust Itself Collect?
  • Landscript
  • Art for the People
  • American Silkworm Series
  • Cultural Animal
  • Purple Breeze Comes from the East
  • The Tide's Story
  • A Consideration of Golden Apples
  • Excuse Me Sir, Can You Tell Me How to Ge...
  • Telephone
  • Cultural Negotiations
  • Five Series of Repetitions
  • A, B, C...
  • Air Memorial
  • Tobacco Project III: Richmond
  • Tobacco Project II: Shanghai
  • Tobacco Project I: Durham
  • Monkeys Grasp for the Moon
......
Back Home

Book from the Ground - Shop

PHOTO|VIDEO

First exhibited: Book from the Ground: From Point to Point, Shanghai Gallery of Art, Shanghai, China, 2012

INSTALLATION

The Character of Characters

Installation view of Character of Characters, Out of Character: Decoding Chinese Calligraphy, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, USA, 2012

Instalation view of The Character of Characters at MASS MoCA (North Adams, MA, USA), 2012

Draft for The Character of Characters, MASS MoCA, 2012

Draft for The Character of Characters, MASS MoCA, 2012

Installation view of Character of Characters, Things Are Not What They First Appear, SCAD Museum of Art Savannah (Savannah, GA, USA)

PHOTO|VIDEO

2012: 17'

2012, 2015: 15'

Materials: seventeen-minute animated film 


This animation is conceived as a study and imagination of a calligraphy masterpiece by Zhao Mengfu (1254-1322) in the collection of Yahoo’s founder, Mr. Zhiyuan Yang. Through the medium of widescreen animation, The Character of Characters reflects on how ways of learning and using the Chinese characters might have influenced the character of Chinese people. Everyone in China who has received basic education must, over the course of years, commit to memorizing and then writing and re-writing thousands of characters. This is the way things have been done over thousands of years. We can imagine how this way of learning the Chinese characters might have influenced how Chinese people see and approach things, their worldviews and concepts of freedom, the Chinese culture of copying (shanzhai), and even the way China is today as a nation. This animation seeks to reveal the relation between Chinese writing and cultural characteristics, the core and energy of Chinese culture, and its advantages and disadvantages for people to continue to build new modes of human civilization.

 

Supported by The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation.



CHARACTER NEW MEDIA

Background Story: Water Village

PHOTO|VIDEO

2012


Materials: Natural debris attached to frosted glass panel, 60 x 430 cm

Location: Palace Museum, Beijing, China



INSTALLATION

Background Story: Landscape Painted on the Double Ninth Festival

Mass MoCA, USA, 2012

Mass MoCA, USA, 2012

Mass MoCA, USA, 2012

PHOTO|VIDEO

2012


Materials: Natural debris attached to frosted glass panel, 767 x 256cm

Location: MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts, USA


2015

Location: SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, USA


"In 2004, I was installing an exhibition at the East Asian Art Museum in Germany. During the Second World War, 90 percent of the collection was moved to the former Soviet Union by the Soviet Red Army. Only some photos of the lost artwork are left. I hope to use the large glass showcases surrounding the existing space to create a new work that combines local history and my cultural background. I saw the potted plants behind the frosted glass wall in the office area of the airport during a connecting flight, which looked like a smudged Chinese painting. At this time, I thought of the large glass cabinets of the museum and the missing art pieces and got the inspiration for Background Story."

- Xu Bing

INSTALLATION

Background Story 8

Background Story 8, North Adams, 2012

Background Story 8, North Adams, 2012

Background Story 8, North Adams, 2012

Background Story 8, North Adams, 2012

Background Story 8, North Adams, 2012

Background Story 8, North Adams, 2012

PHOTO|VIDEO

2012


Materials: Natural debris attached to frosted glass panel

Location: Mass Moca, North Adams, MA, USA


"In 2004, I was installing an exhibition at the East Asian Art Museum in Germany. During the Second World War, 90 percent of the collection was moved to the former Soviet Union by the Soviet Red Army. Only some photos of the lost artwork are left. I hope to use the large glass showcases surrounding the existing space to create a new work that combines local history and my cultural background. I saw the potted plants behind the frosted glass wall in the office area of the airport during a connecting flight, which looked like a smudged Chinese painting. At this time, I thought of the large glass cabinets of the museum and the missing art pieces and got the inspiration for Background Story."

- Xu Bing

INSTALLATION

Tobacco Project: Ridgefield

Work in Progress

1st Class

Installation view -- Miscellaneous Book

Light as Smoke

Installation view

Installation view

Installation view

Installation view

Installation view -- Traveling Down the River

PHOTO|VIDEO

Location: The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut, USA

Medium: Mixed media installation/ tobacco leaves, live tobacco plants, various tobacco related materials

INSTALLATION

Forest Project: São Paulo, Brazil

Child drawing, San Paolo, 2012

Children and Xu Bing, San Paolo, 2012

Children creating their own art work, San Paolo, 2012

Children drawing, San Paolo, 2012

Children and Xu Bing, San Paolo, 2012

Children and Xu Bing, San Paolo, 2012

Installation view, San Paolo, 2012

Installation view, San Paolo, 2012

Installation view, San Paolo, 2012

Installation view, San Paolo, 2012

Installation view, San Paolo, 2012

Installation view, San Paolo, 2012

PHOTO|VIDEO

2012


Medium: Mixed media installation / Student drawings, painting, primer, computer (auction website)

Location: Sao Paulo, Brazil (30th Sao Paulo Biennial)


Through art, the internet, culture, education and the involvement of local folks, Forest Project creates a system to facilitate the automatic and uninterrupted flow of funds from developed countries to Kenya, earmarked for the planting of new trees.


WEBSITE

SOCIAL PROGRAMS