1987－1991

Medium: Mixed media installation/ hand-printed books and scrolls printed from blocks inscribed with ''false'' characters

This four-volume treatise, produced over four years, was made with thousands of meaningless characters that look like Chinese, each designed by the artist in a Song-style font that was standardized by artisans in the Ming dynasty. For the immersive installation, the artist hard-carved over four thousand moveable type printing blocks. The meticulous, exhaustive production process and the work’s format, arrayed like ancient Chinese classics, were such that audiences could not believe that these exquisite texts were completely illegible. The work simultaneously invites and denies the viewer’s desire to read the work.

As Xu Bing has noted, the false characters “seem to upset intellectuals,” inspiring doubt in received systems of knowledge. Many early viewers pored over the artwork, obsessively looking for real characters. 

1994－1996

Materials: Mixed media instaltion; instructional vidio, model books, copybooks, ink, brushes, brush stands, blackboard

The intention of this installation is to simulate a classroom-like settingm modeled on adult literacy classes, in a gallery or museum space. Desks are arranged with small containers of ink, brushes and a copybook with instructions on the basic principles of ''New English Calligraphy,'' a writing system invented and designed by the artist. A video titled ''Elementary Square Word Calligraphy Instruction,'' is played on a monitor in the exhibition space, capturing the audience's attention and inviting them to participate in the class. Once they are seated at the desks, the audience is instructed to take up their brushes and the lesson in New English Calligraphy begins. 

Essentially, New English Calligraphy is a fusion of written English and written Chinese. The letters of an English word are slightly altered and arranged in a square word format so that the word takes on the ostensible form of a Chinese character, yet remains legible to the English reader. As people attempt to recognize and write these words, some of the thinking patterns that have been ingrained in them since they learned to read are challenged. It is the artists' belief that people must have their routine thinking attacked in this way. While undergoing this process of estrangement and re-familiarization with one's written language, the audience is reminded that the sensation of distance between other systems of language and one's own is largely self-induced.

2001

Medium: mixed media installation/ silkworm

Location: Eslite Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan

1992

Medium: mixed media installation/ books bound in traditional Chinese and in Western way, tables, chairs

An investigation of the cultural function and meaning of language, this installation combines 300 volumes each of books previously fabricated by Xu Bing. Dubbed ''problem books'' by the artist, these encompass the works Post Testament bound in classical Western style, and Book from the Sky bound in a traditional Chinese manner. While both sets of volumes appear to be traditional, in fact each is a contemporary text designed to be incomprehensible by the reader. The 600 volumes are piled on an enormous reading table measuring 56ft x 12ft, serving as fractured emblems of two cultured systems of knowledge. On the wall above the table is a large sign reading ''QUIET.'' The audience is invited to sit at the table and peruse the books. The contrast of the ordered public reading space, presided over by the warning of QUIET, with the chaos of the information-less books laid on the table in a scattered and turbulent fashion evokes strong cultural implications.