Materials：Book, Silkworm.

Dimension：1.5 (H) x 52 (L) x 42 (W) cm

2020

Exhibition Location: Asia Society Triennial, New York, U.S.A.

This is a set of stone chairs carved with Xu Bing’s Square Word Calligraphy that reads an ancient poem “Reflections While Reading” by Zhu Xi (Southern Song Dynasty). “A small square pond, an uncovered mirror where sunlight and clouds linger and leave. I asked how it stays so clear. It said spring water keeps flowing in.” With Square Word Calligraphy, Xu Bing devises a system of writing English words in rectangular arrangements resembling Chinese characters. By intertwining the art of Chinese calligraphy and English letters, Xu Bing invents a new hybrid of language.

Life could only survive on earth once water was brimming in the cracks of the earth, and only when the brush-pen laden with ink roamed in the cracks of the xuan paper, there was the beauty of Chinese ink and wash. Among the high and the great in China, those who best understand how to do things leave some space for the natural and fit in with it, revering nature and acting in accordance with the intentions of heaven.