The art of Xu Bing : words without meaning, meaning without words / Britta Erickson.

Format:

Book

Government document

Author/Creator:

Erickson, Britta.

Contributor:

Xu, Bing, 1955-

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (Smithsonian Institution)

Series:

Asian art & culture (Unnumbered)

Asian art & culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Xu, Bing, 1955---Exhibitions.

Xu, Bing.

Xu, Bing, 1955-.

Genre:

Exhibition catalogs.

Physical Description:

84 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 29 cm.

Place of Publication:

Washington, D.C. : Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution ; Seattle : University of Washington Press, [2001]

Summary:

Xu Bing (born 1955) stands out as a leading figure in the international art world. His works and installation pieces, including Ghosts Pounding the Wall (an actual rubbing of the Great Wall done at Jinshanling in 1990) and Wu Street (1993), and his ongoing exploration of language have brought worldwide attention to this unassuming provocateur.

As a teenager in China during its Cultural Revolution, Xu Bing experienced the emotional and social upheavals that marked this tumultuous time. He was removed from his "reactionary" parents in Beijing and sent to the provinces to work in a small farming commune as part of Mao Zedong's "rustication" program in 1974. His forced participation in the revolution led him to question and reexamine all he had known, from the meaning and appearance of Chinese characters to the purpose of the Great Wall of China and the value of art and culture.

An accomplished calligrapher, printmaker, and art teacher, Xu Bing turned his simultaneous interest in and mistrust of language into an extended examination of Chinese characters. The result was the Book from the Sky, a powerful installation of books, scrolls, and panels for which Xu Bing invented hundreds of new characters in the late 1980s. This uneasy play between the familiar and the unknown -- these words without meaning -- caused an uproar in the Beijing art community and led the Chinese government to censor Xu Bing and his art. The artist emigrated to the United States in 1990.

Featuring works in Square Word Calligraphy, his whimsical, invented style of writing, The Art of Xu Bing traces the calligrapher's career and provides illustrations and in-depth descriptions of his works, which have been shown from Finland to Australia and the United States. Author and art historian Britta Erickson leads this insightful look into Xu Bing's development as a significant international artist, and Xu Bing himself contributes a fascinating chapter on his life and work.

Contents:

The Living Word / Xu Bing, translated by Ann L. Huss 13

1 The Quiet Iconoclast 21

2 Mistrust of Language and the Book from the Sky 33

3 Language as Intellectual Game 47

4 To Be Human 59

5 Serve the People 67.

Notes:

Published to coincide with an exhibition at the Sackler Gallery.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 78-80) and index.

ISBN:

0295981431

OCLC:

46909489