Material: Ink on Xuan paper

Dimension: 187.6 x 99 cm x 2 / 73.9 x 39 in x 2 

Location: "Xu Bing: Word Alchemy," exhibition in 2023 at Asia Society, Texas. 

Inspired by the song "Deep in the Heart of Texas," the song considered to be the anthem of the state of Texas, Xu Bing made Square Word Calligraphy: Deep in the Heart of Texas.  

Materials: Mixed materials consisting of birch multilayer board, carbon fiber board, photosensitive resin material, and black paint for wood.

Languages used for the word “Monkey”: Indonesian, Russian, Braille, Italian, Hindi, Afrikaans, Chinese, Korean, Persian, Lao, Urdu, Thai, Turkish, Japanese, German, Spanish, Swahili, Hebrew, Arabic, and English.

The concept of the artwork originates from a Chinese idiom, "monkeys grasp for the moon," alluding to an ancient tale: a group of monkeys, perching on a tree branch, caught sight of the moon’s reflection in a pond below, thinking that is the real moon; attempting to touch their “real moon,” the monkeys decided to link their arms and tails together, only to disrupt the reflection when touching it. This tale is also an allegory of the reality/illusion matrix.  

The 2023 edition of Monkeys Grasp for the Moon consists of 21 monkey-characters, each formally morphed from the word “monkey” in a specific language. While styling the words to be representational of actual monkeys, Xu Bing engages his visual interpretation of cultures, dwelling in corresponding languages, in his word design. For example, the monkey in English has graffiti motifs, and the one in Japanese echoes the brushwork of shodō.