The Art of Xu Bing: words without meaning, meaning without words / Britta Erickson
Speaker: Xu Bing
Language: English
Date: Thursday, 17 July 2003
Time: 7:15 - 9:00 pm
Venue: 1/F, Main Library New Wing
About the book
-- From Library Journal --
At the culmination of his art career in China, Xu Bing (who now lives in the West) spent months inventing more than 1200 characters that mimic Chinese characters but have no known meaning. At once familiar and strange, they evoke confusion, wonderment, and even hostility in viewers. Xu Bing printed them in books with traditional formats, on wall posters, and on giant billowing sheets, which he installed in exhibition galleries to form a ceiling or sky. He cagily argues that any explanation of his art is superfluous because the books have no meaning. However, while the books themselves may be unreadable, they have a great deal to say about what their creator thought about Chinese art and culture after the Cultural Revolution. Issued in conjunction with his current exhibition at the Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian, this catalog describes the artist's early years in China and his subsequent career in the United States. Erickson, who has taught courses in post-Cultural Revolution art at the University of California and Stanford, offers a clear expository text and excellent photos. A fine introduction to a rising, mid-career artist and MacArthur "genius" Fellow who will, no doubt, have more opportunities to delight and bedevil his audiences. David McClelland, Philadelphia
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
About the speaker
Xu Bing was born in Chongqing, China in 1955 and grew up in Beijing. In 1975 he was relocated to the countryside for two years during the Cultural Revolution. In 1977 he enrolled in the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing where he studied printmaking. He received an MFA from the Central Academy in 1987. In 1990 he moved to the United States and he still lives there today, making his home in Brooklyn, New York.
His work as been shown in the 45th Venice Biennial; MOMA, New York; Museum Ludwig, Koln; The Reina Sofia Museum (Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia), Madrid; V&A, London; Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; Sydney Biennial; Kwangju Biennial, Korea; Johannesburg Biennial, South Africa; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; San Francisco Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA); National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; ICC - International Communications Center, Tokyo; P.S. 1, New York. He has had solo exhibitions at the New Museum of Contemporary art, New York; Joan Miro Foundation (Fundacio Pilari Joan Miro a Mallorca), Spain; ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art), London; National Gallery of Prague; National Gallery of Beijing; the North Carolina Museum of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C..
In July, 1999 Xu Bing won the MacArthur Award by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in recognition of his "originality, creativity, self-direction, and capacity to contribute importantly to society, particularly in printmaking and calligraphy."
Hong Kong University Press and Xu Bing
Hong Kong University Press is honoured that Xu Bing, whose art explores the complex themes of language across cultures, has written the Press's name in his Square Word Calligraphy. This signals our commitment to cross-cultural thinking and the distinctive nature of our English-language books published in China.
“At first glance, Square Word Calligraphy appears to be nothing more unusual than Chinese characters, but in fact it is a new way of rendering English words in the format of a square so they resemble Chinese characters. Chinese viewers expect to be able to read Square Word Calligraphy but cannot. Western viewers, however are surprised to find they can read it. Delight erupts when meaning is unexpectedly revealed.”
- Britta Erickson, The Art of Xu Bing