Material: Ink on Xuan paper

Dimensions variable 

Location: American Academy in Rome

The Wall and the Road is an installation comprising of The Wall (1990-1991) and The Road (2024). The Road was commissioned by the American Academy in Rome during Xu Bing's residency there. The work is a 24-meter long drawing of a section of the Appian Way (Via Appia), produced on site in partnership with the Parco Archeologico dell'Appia Antica in collaboration with students from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma, Nuova Accademia delle Belle Arti, Istituto Europeo del Designas, The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong, and the City University of Hong Kong. The work was realized with the technique of rubbing, for which the process is as followed: apply natural adhesive to the object to be reproduced, cover it with a large sheet of Xuan paper, then "poach" the surface with ink-soaked cotton wads, and lastly, peel away the rubbing from the surface of the object.  The details of the Appian Way stone blocks preserved in the work bear witness to the centuries-old history of this ancient path. Xu Bing has used this technique before in the other work exhibited, The Wall (1990-91), rubbing drawing of a tower of the Chinese Wall. It is the first time that this work is exhibited in Italy. For Xu Bing, the technique of rubbing holds rich historical and philosophical significance: it not only contains traces of the past but also symbolizes revelatory communication that transcends the limits of time and space.

SCA-1 is an art satellite, it has been launched on February 3, 2024.

This satellite is produced by the Xu Bing Studio and Beijing Wanhu Chuangshi Co. Before SCA-1, among the thousands of satellites flying above us today, there are scientific satellites, meteorological, communication, and military ones, but an "art satellite" has been missing.

Xu Bing set the concept of this satellite as follows: "By inviting artists to participate in the Space Art Residency Program, we will share the rights and interests of using this satellite and create our own works.  It is an attempt to build a dialogue between space technology and contemporary art, extending our thinking to a broader space in exploring this highly 'futuristic' field.

Xu Bing Art Satellite Creative Residency Project public email: sca@xubingstudio.cn

2021

Launched by Xu Bing and i-Space, Xu Bing Tianshu Rocket is an invaluable contribution to the evolving realm of space art. This unprecedented “art rocket” pays homage to the achievements of Chinese astronauts and embodies the innovative spirit that resonates in Xu Bing’s works. Painted with invented characters found in the archetypal Book from the Sky (1988), the rocket acts as a vessel that continues to question the arbitrary nature of language and its limitations. 

“After completing the propulsion task, the sub-stage arrow will separate from the load compartment and return to the ground. These ‘pseudo-characters’ [represent] a unique [artistic expression that reconstructs] natural forces such as fire [propulsion], atmospheric friction, and [the descent of the rocket]. [They] challenge the boundaries of human ability and behavior, [while also creating] art." - Xu Bing, April 2021

The “art rocket” was launched into space from Jiuquan, Northwest China on February 1, 2021, venturing into territories of space where humanity’s dominance is absent. Xu Bing has emphasized that the artistic philosophy of Qi Baishi’s work, which revolves around acknowledging the importance of providing space for nature and understanding its role, is intrinsic to the launching of this “art rocket." It is worth noting that the functioning of the rocket itself relies on the interaction between the rocket and the Earth's atmosphere. As such, the “art rocket” becomes a manifestation of this philosophy. Without atmospheric response, Nature’s intervention, the first-stage and second-stage rockets would not have ignited before impact. 

"Launch desire, crisis, and the unknown into outer space." - Xu Bing, April 2021

Related Links: https://www.xubing.com/en/database/writing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1sv6JiKEtA&ab_channel=CGTNLIV

Book from the Ground Pop-up Book is based on Xu Bing’s Book from the Ground: From Point-to-Point, which includes all the classic expression techniques of three-dimensional books, such as turn, rotate, pull rod, shaft rod, etc. The clever combination of emojis and three-dimensional structure, without using a single traditional word, reflects a vibrant interactivity, making this universally readable book all the more fascinating and engaging.

Book from the Ground Pop-up Book - Day (2014)

Dimensions: 17.9 x 26.2 x 4.1 cm

Book from the Ground Pop-up Book - Night (2014)

Dimensions: 17.9 x 26.2 x 4.1 cm

Material: 128g, 230g specialty paper with non-acid latex

2015

Medium: Clothing label and programming writing

Dimensions of each item: 35.7 x 26.3 x 12 cm

Dimensions of packaging: 41 × 28.5 × 3.5 cm

Exhibition: Museum of Art Pudong, Shanghai, 2021-2022. TOKYO Gallery + BTAP, Beijing, 2021

Starting from 2015, Xu Bing has amassed an extensive collection of clothing brand labels from numerous private enterprises. When brought together, these labels reflect the history of their entrepreneurship, development, bottlenecks, transformations, and acquisitions. Furthermore, we can perceive the brand names as carriers of people’s hopes and aspirations for the future. For this project, a “poem writing software” has been developed. The computer program searches for appropriate words and sentences among fashion label tags to create a Seven-Character Poem which is later compiled into the collection. This process also symbolizes an advancement in the creation of an “artist book.”

Media: Mixed media, Video installation 

Time length: 2'8'' now (work still in progress) 

Exhibition: Red Brick Art Museum, Beijing, 2021-2022. Xie Zilong Photography Museum, Changsha, 2022

By utilizing ground-transmitted images and a self-directed satellite camera, Xu Bing integrates man-made pictures with those captured from an orbit, creating a captivating animation that blurs the boundaries between Earth and space. Imagine the “standard person'' traversing outer space, carrying a bundle in tow while words spill out of their baggage. As the satellite orbits around the earth 15 times each day, the language depicted in the animated spills changes in sychronization with the satellite’s position above certain geographical locations. This work represents far-reaching concepts that shape the existence of humanity such as language, human civilization, and linear time—reminding us to look back at our blue earth in the context of zero-gravity conditions in space, to cherish the only home we know: this one single small blue dot. As the audience witnesses this video within the confines of a gallery, the artwork unfolds simultaneously and ceaselessly in outer space.

2017—

Lead Team: Xu Bing, Feng Yan, Zhang Wenchao, Sun Shining

Medium: Artificial intelligence generated film with variable duration

Time Length: Variable duration

Exhibition: The 5th Pingyao Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon International Film Festival, 2021 Museum of Art Pudong, 2021-2022

This project works closely with artificial intelligence scientists to develop a real-time feature film production artificial intelligence system that involves no human production personnel (directors, screenwriters, photographers, or actors, etc.). In this interactive exhibit, the audience can input their preferred film genre (such as science fiction, crime, romance, etc.) and customize the narrative plot or style of the movie by entering keywords or sentences, resulting in a unique AI-generated movie. This project aims to pursue an element that transcends human creation and fulfills a demand that is absent in traditional film. Its concept emerges from human biases, including narrow emotional perspectives, political and economic interests that breed greed and immorality, as well as limitations in knowledge that impose restrictions. AI suggests the “internal structure” of human life by accumulating various human image materials from a neutral standpoint. This project is largely an experiment of the future possibilities of AI film.

Trailer: https://vimeo.com/823196158?share=copy 

2021-2022

Media: Mixed media

Dimensions: 145 x 100 x 2.4 x 8 cm

Exhibition: Mirroring the Heart of Heaven and Earth—Ideals and Images in the Chinese Study, The Palace Museum Meridian Gate (Wu men)，Beijing

Since 2004, Xu Bing has sought to create a book comprehensible to all human beings using solely public signs. Although it has been more than a decade since the start of this project, it is ever evolving. With the growing globalization of “graphic expression” brought by digital computation, new forms of expressions such as emojis and memes have emerged, particularly popular among young generations. These contemporary signs, seemingly disconnected from ancient traditions, now find their place in the main exhibition hall of the Palace Museum. While the audience may initially struggle to adjust to the translation of  “兰亭集序” in emojis and memes, the resulting sense of alienation produced is essential to this work’s intention—to supply traditional modes of thinking with new “elements”. Through this approach, one may gain a better understanding of both traditional and contemporary cultures.

In contemporary language, “Wujing Cuishi” (“a room assembling five classics”) would mean “library”. Ancient Chinese culture adeptly employed images to convey complex ideas, demonstrating that looking at images is akin to reading texts. “Shu Hua Tong Yuan” (“writing and drawing bear the same root”) is less of a commentary on style, but rather a reflection of semiotics. The way in which the Chinese character “shan” (“mountain”) is written is comparable to the way in which one would draw a mountain. Despite the evolution of signification techniques, hieroglyphs, and coreference in modern Chinese, the hieroglyphic constituents still form the genetic core of the language. For instance, when one reads the word “门” (“door”), one sees the image of a door. If one were to bolt the door, adding a rod/stroke on it, then one arrives at “闩” (“latch”). Even when one writes the character “囧” (“undesirable distress”), it resembles the creation of an emoji.

Winessing the continuity of communication through pictures and images, especially in the context of the cyberpunk and space age, is truly captivating. It evokes a sense of time travel, residing in this juncture and perceiving life’s expansion across time and space. To describe this as merely entering the age of images is somewhat inaccurate, as humanity has been immersed in this mode of communication for thousands of years. Today, our daily lives are deeply intertwined with the use of cell phones, which serve as our portable libraries and museums. As soon as we turn them on, our first instinct is to read the signs they present to us. 

Xu Bing’s profound sensitivity to signs stems from the genetic ability of reading images ingrained within us. It is deeply rooted in humanity’s tradition, and its fullest potential is realized when it is activated.

Related Link：https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s__biz=MjM5Njg5ODA4OA==&mid=2247485023&idx=1&sn=25c1441184afa62a0ed683cf264418aa&chksm=a6e372189194fb0e2ff59b461516abdbc915276df0ce2bd8ff3159ec30eb24b74721f64a3a6e#rd

2021-2022

Medium: Mixed media installation

Dimensions: 25.5 x 15.7 x 15.7 m

Exhibition: Museum of Art Pudong, Shanghai

This installation art is founded on the law of perspective, but it does not end with visuality.

Stretched by gravity, this sky-dimming Square Word Calligraphy reaches the ground. While creating a distorted textual space, it simultaneously immerses the viewers into an interplay between “seeing” and “reading”.

The initial challenge of “seeing” arises when viewers position themselves beneath the work. In addition to the reversed text, the contortions and overlaps render the characters in the exhibition hall difficult to read. Simultaneously, the mirror on the floor embeds the text into a warped wormhole model which interconnects the two inverted spaces. While the reversed characters become legible in the mirror image, the audience is still unable to see the work in its entirety. The combination of the installation and the museum space seems to present a theatrically inviting quality. As visitors ascend to higher floors and alter their viewing perspectives, the distorted characters appear increasingly familiar. From the top floor, the viewers can finally see the front of the characters; however, remain unable to read the body of text as a whole. Where lies this work’s ideal perspective?

Fundamentally, the installation can be perceived as an optical illusion. Since people are accustomed to reading words written on a flat surface, words are stretched in space, the ideal viewing perspective becomes non-existent. When the three-dimensional is converted to the two-dimensional, the laws of perspective give rise to a conflicting relationship. The interplay between the artwork’s form and the viewer’s standpoint pushes the ideal viewing perspective to an unattainable height beyond the confines of the museum. This perspective exists solely on a conceptual level.

The law of perspective exists due to the inherent limitation of human vision, which cannot bend. In this work, this very limitation transforms into a unique “material”. The law of perspective functions as a language that we employ to articulate and understand the world. Like any other language, it serves as an intermediary between our thoughts and the external world. Nonetheless, our thinking is inevitably influenced by various languages, resulting in potential blind spots. These blind spots may also exist beyond linguistic demonstrations.

The Square Word Calligraphy contained in this work is transcribed from an excerpt by philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Although it appears to be an analysis of several visual experiments, this passage actually points to a common misunderstanding in human cognition. Wittgenstein argues that people are inclined to summarize concepts with logic, emplying a systematic approach to comprehend the world through clarifying these concepts. In reality, this practice distances us from the genuine aspects of the world, much like the ongoing tensions among civilizations that orignate from disparities and divergent human perspectives. This creates an arena fraught with tensions and gravitational forces. The characters, distorted by space, fall into a chaos of illegibility, with each element pointing to an “ideal perspective” suspended outside the exhibition hall. It is as if all the chaos in the world stems from an unknown purpose—an unseen yet palpable existence.

2017

Video, surveillance camera footage taken from public live-streaming websites

81'

Trailer

I’ve wanted to make a film from surveillance footage since 2013, but I had no access to the necessary resources. Since 2015, surveillance cameras in China have been linked to the cloud database: countless surveillance recordings have been streamed online. So I took up the project again. I collected a huge amount of footage and tried to use these fragments of reality to tell a story.

With no human agency operating them, surveillance cameras produce fascinating footage round the clock. Ineffably silent, these cameras record incessantly. Sometimes they record images that are beyond logical understanding, captured in one mad, fleeting instant. When these seemingly random yet intricately connected clips are assembled, what's the distance between the video fragments of real life and 'reality'?

—Xu Bing

Male Feng, MASS MoCA, 2012

2008－2016

The magnificent installation of Xu Bing's Phoenix, a pair of two Chinese phoenixes (feng and huang), consists of thousands of abandoned materials and workers' tools that Xu Bing collected from construction sites in Beijing. While fenghuang is traditionally associated with rebirth after suffering and rising from ash, Xu Bing's Phoenix can be seen to signify the cycle of the painstaking development and renewal  inherent in the process of urbanization. Furthermore, Phoenix recognizes the efforts of ordinary workers and draws attention to urban topics such as environmental crises and labor conditions.

When Phoenix traveled to Shanghai (2010), MASS MoCA (2012), New York (2014), and the 56th Venice Biennale (2015), visitors from all over the world were not only impressed by the large-scale splendor of the two birds, but also deeply moved by the mélange of scars and hopes they carried.

2008

Materials: Carved Stone

Dimensions: Varies

Location: Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Germany

The Forest Project is an experiment of creating a self-sustaining system that will move funds from wealthy areas to impoverished areas for planting trees. Its feasibility is based on the following principles: firstly, leveraging free online services such as auction and sales hosting, money transfers, and even online teaching to minimize costs; secondly, ensuring benefits for all participants in the project; thirdly, leveraging regional economic discrepancies (for example, the cost of a subway ride in New York, which is $2.50, can plant ten trees in Kenya). 

The Background Story series is constructed of a combination of plants and stones, arranged in a manner reminiscent of a traditional East Asian painting. As visiors move through the exhibition, they may encounter a passageway that offers a glimpse behind the scenes. Here, they can observe dry twigs and branches of pine trees, as well as decorations made from simple materials like modeling clay and cotton wool, held together with adhesive tape and fishing line. 

This behind-the-scenes view allows visitors to witness something that would normally be kept hidden at an exhibition. Behind the walls of the exhibition space, there is a maintenance area with heating pipes and empty shelving. From the outside, only the surface is visible, but upon closer inspection, one can discover the internal workings closely intertwined with the external image.

2003—ongoing

Xu Bing’s Book from the Ground, which he has been working on since 2003, is an ongoing exploration of communication and language. The project involves compiling symbols and pictograms from the public sphere and using them to create a book exclusively written in visual language. 

The uniqueness of Book from the Ground lies in its accessibility to any reader belonging to contemporary society. Regardless of one’s cultural or linguistic background, the book’s material can be interpreted and understood due to the universal nature of its visual symbols. This eliminates the need for translation and can be published anywhere.

For the Book fom the Ground installation, Xu Bing recreates the working environment of his studio. By bringing select materials from his studio, he symbolically suggests the continuous nature of the project as a never-ending exploration of visual communication. 

Furthermore, Xu Bing Studio also created a character database software that corresponds to the language of the book. Users can enter words either in English or in Chinese, and subsequently, the program will translate them into Xu Bing's lexicon of signs. It thus serves as an intermediary form of communication and exchange between the two languages. As personal computers and the internet become increasingly integrated into daily life, the lexicon of digital icons grows accordingly, and the symbolic language of Book from the Ground has been further updated, augmented, and complexified. In response to his own Book from the Sky (1988) whose language is completely illegible, Book from the Ground is contrastingly legible to all. It may be considered an expression of Xu Bing’s long-standing vision of a universal language.

2001

Materials: Cut and painted acrylic

Location: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., U.S.A.

The work is mainly comprised of over 400 calligraphic variants of the Chinese character “niao”, meaning bird, carved in colored acrylic and laid out in a shimmering track that rises from the floor into the air. On the gallery floor Chinese characters in the “simplified style” script popularized during the Mao era are used to write out the dictionary definition for niao. The bird/niao characters then break away from the confines of the literal definition and take flight through the installation space. As they rise into the air, the characters “de-evolve” from the simplified system to standardized Chinese text and finally to the ancient Chinese pictograph hasde upon a bird’s actual appearance. At the uppermost point of the installation, a flock of these ancient characters, in form of both bird and word, soar high into the rafters toward the upper windows of the space, as though attempting to break free of the words with which humans attempt to categorize and define them.

The colorful, shimmering imagery of the installation imparts a magical, fairy-tale like quality. Yet the overt simplicity, charm and ready comprehensibility of the work has the underlying effect of guiding the audience to open up the “cognitive space” of their minds to the implications of, and relationships between, word, concept, symbol and image.

1987－1991

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

Produced over the course of four years, this four-volume treatise features thousands of meaningless characters resembling Chinese. Each character was meticulously designed by the artist in a Song-style font that was standardized by artisans in the Ming dynasty. In this immersive installation, the artist hand-carved over four thousand moveable type printing blocks. The painstaking production process and the format of the work, arrayed like ancient Chinese classics, were such that the audience could not believe that these exquisite texts were completely illegible. The work simultaneously entices and denies the viewer’s desire to read the work.

As Xu Bing has noted, the false characters “seem to upset intellectuals,” provoking doubt in established systems of knowledge. Many early viewers would spend considerable time scrutinizing the texts, fixedly searching for genuine characters amidst the illegible ones.

Xu Bing has designed a calligraphic system known as Square Word Calligraphy in which English words come to resemble Chinese characters. Like a linguistic breeder, the artist combines Chinese calligraphy with English writing to create a new “species”. However, it is different from the nonsensical characters in Book from the Sky which breed feelings of suspicion and confusion in the viewer. Upon reading Square Word Calligraphy, these conflicts are resolved with the immediate revelation that the work contains “real” text. Through this praocess, Xu Bing has introduced a novel Eastern art form into the Western cultural sphere. It transcends established notions of Chinese and English, reshaping perceptual norms and challenging the very foundation of cognition.

After developing this lettering system, Xu Bing created a new installation piece modeled on adult literacy classes within the exhibition space. He also added a textbook, an instructional video, and a practice sheet just like those used in classroom settings. When the audience goes into the gallery, it is as if he or she enters a study space.

1994－1996

Materials: Mixed-media installation; instructional video, model books, copybooks, ink, brushes, brush stands, blackboard

The intention of this installation is to simulate a classroom-like setting modeled on adult literacy classes, within a gallery or museum space. Desks are supplied 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, 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 seated at the desks, the audience is instructed to seize 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 participants attempt to recognize and read the words,their ingrained thinking patterns are challenged. Accordingly, the artist strongly believes in the significance of disrupting habitual thinking. 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.

2004

Material: Dust

In this installation Xu Bing uses dust that he collected from the streets of lower-Manhattan in the aftermath of September 11th. In the work, Xu Bing references the fine whitish-grey film that covered downtown New York in the weeks following 9-11, and recreates a field of dust across the gallery floor that is punctuated by the outline of a Zen Buddhist poem, revealed as if the letters have been removed from under the layer: 

As there is nothing from the first,

Where does the dust itself collect?

In the work Xu Bing discusses the relationship between the material world and the spiritual world, exploring the complicated circumstances created by different world perspectives. The dust was applied to the floor with a leaf blower and allowed 24 hours to settle. 

The work won the inaugural Artes Mundi Prize, the Wales International Visual Art Prize in 2004 and was later shown at various venues across the world. 

Landscript, as the title suggests, is “pictures” that Xu Bing intentionally made with “script.”  This project started when the artist went to the Himalayas in Nepal in 1999 and sketched “scenes” with Chinese characters. China has had a longstanding tradition that emphasizes the interconnectedness of calligraphy and painting, considering them to have shared origins. Xu Bing’s Landscript, a landscape-in-script artwork, transforms visual images of landscapes into linguistic forms. Through this, viewers are prompted to reassess the distinctiveness of Chinese culture hidden within traditional landscape paintings and offers a unique approach to “reading a scene."

1999

Materials: Mixed media installation; 

Dimension: 36 x 9 ft (1097.3 x 273.4 cm)

Location: Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1999; Victoria and Albert Musum, London, 2001

Commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, this work was created for the Museum's ''Project Series,'' a group of monumental banners designed by international artists to be displayed outside the entrance to the museum. Xu emblazoned his eye-catching red-and-yellow banner, measuring 36ft x 9ft, with the slogan ''ART FOR THE PEOPLE: Chairman Mao said'' inscribed in his own invented system of ''Square Word Calligraphy'' -- English words deconstructed but then re-configured into forms that mimic the square structure of Chinese characters. With its prominent display above the museum entrance, the banner and its slogan served both as a motto for the museum and as a public airing of one of Mao Zedong's most fundamental views on art. Reflective also of the artist's personal conviction that Mao's concept of art for the people is universally relevant; the work exemplifies the way in which Xu integrates his particular cultural background and life experience into the international context of contemporary art. 

1994

Location: Beijing, China

Materials: Performance media installation with live animal / Live pig, books, mannequin, wood blocks, ink

Cultural Animal was created as an extension of an earlier project titled A Case Study of Transference. In this work, a life-sized mannequin covered in false-character tattoos is placed inside an enclosure containing a male pig, also tattooed. The objective at play is to observe the pig’s reaction towards the mannequin and to create an absurd and unpredictable drama. The unexpected outcome occurs when the pig exhibits aggressive sexual behavior towards the mannequin. The entire process was documented and later exhibited through photographs in 1998. 

2011

Location: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia, USA
Medium: Mixed media installation/ Tobacco leaves, live tobacco plants, various tobacco related materials

As an extension of the ongoing Tobacco Project series, which explores the long and entangled relationship between humans and tobacco, Xu Bing embarked on a site-specific endeavor.

After executing the project in Durham (2000) and Shanghai (2004), Xu Bing chose Richmond, Virginia as the next significant city associated with tobacco. Richmond is home to Philip Morris, the parent company of the famous Marlboro cigarette brand. During his residency, Xu Bing studied tobacco's intimate relationship with the American continent, as well as its historical ties to early immigrants. In addition to Tobacco Book, Traveling Down the River, 1st Class (another "tiger-skin carpet" composed of over 500,000 "first class" brand cigarettes), and various works created during the initial phases of the Tobacco Project, Xu Bing expanded his art project on tobacco to include print works. These works raise profound questions about history and reality, global capital, cultural immersion, and labor market.

Selected work description: 

Backbone, 2011

It is a book composed of early tobacco brand designs that Xu Bing collected in Virginia. He then asked his friend Rene Balcer, a writer, director, and filmmaker, to write a blues poem incorporating tobacco brand slogans. It is titled Backbone after an early brand of tobacco. 

Location: Shanghai Gallery of Art, Shanghai, China
Medium: Mixed media installation / Tobacco, found objects

A site-specific continuation of the Tobacco Project series, a project investigating the long and entangled relationship betwene human and tobacco. In preparation for the inaugral exhibition at Duke Univeristy, Durham, North Carolina, in 2000, Xu studied many archival materials and discovered the relationship between the Duke family and China – they were the first to import tobacco-rolling technology to Shanghai. This inspired him to bring the project to Shanghai. In 2004 he released Tobacco Project: Shanghai, curated by Wu Hung.

It featured the Shanghai versions of Tobacco Book, which were first shown in Durham, and also new artworks specific to the materials and venue, broadening the dimensions of his Tobacco Project in terms of history, geography and reality. Through tobacco, the project raised profound questions about history and reality, global capital, cultural immersion, and labor market.

Selected work description:

Honor and Splendor, 2004

Xu Bing used 660,000 cigarettes to compose a giant "tiger-skin carpet." With a soft and luxurious appearance, the "carpet" is a massive display of desire, seduction, and danger – ideas that have been long associated with tobacco but also predominant in the human history. The title not only hints on the brand of cigarettes being used, "Wealth" brand, which is ironically one of the cheapest cigarettes in China, but also alludes to what the "carpet" represnts: desire for wealth and status. 

Traveling Down the River, 2000-2004

A long uncut cigarette burned on a reproduction of a famous Chinese handscroll painting, Along the River during the Qingming Festival by Zhang Zeduan (1085-1145). Zhang's painting depicts the scenary of the peak of Chinese people's commercial life in Song dynasty. The long river embodies a sense of history. The burning cigarettes marks the passage of time, leaving a kind of "emptiness" that is the ultimate destiny of tobacco.

Prophecy, 2004

Out of the entire Tobacco Project series, Prophecy least resembles an artwork. It comprises six texts related to tobacco. The first is a document concerning the investments and commercial activities of the British-American Tobacco Company in China. The second is a ledger of the British-American Tobacco Company’s cigarette sales in China, revealing exhorbitant sales figures for the month of October 1919 in Shanghai. The third records the profits of the British-American Tobacco Company in China between October 1918 and June 1919. The fourth document describes how the British-American Tobacco Company transferred a portion of their Chinese profits to America to fund Trinity College (which later became Duke University). The fifth is from July 1998, the budget and check stub from when Duke University invited and sponsored Xu Bing to make “Tobacco Project: Durham.” The sixth and final one is from August 2004, the receipt for the purchase of a portion of “Tobacco Project: Durham” by an American non-profit. A hundred years of prophecy, this work serves to outline the entirety of the Tobacco Project.

2000

Location: The Duke Homestead & Tobacco Museum, The Perkins Library Gallery, Duke University, and Pack House at Duke Homestead, Durham, North Carolina, USA
Medium: Mixed media installation / tobacco and tobacco related objects

In 1999, Xu Bing accepted an invitation to deliver a lecture at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and serve as artist-in-residence. Upon his arrival in Durham, he could immediately smell the tobacco in the air. He soon learned that the Duke family had their origins in farming tobacco, which had established Durham as a renowned "tobacco town." Interestingly, Durham was also home to Duke Medical Center, a prominent institution recognized for its cancer research, making the town a hub for medical treatment. Xu Bing was intrigued by the ironic coexistence of these contrasting identities. Perhaps not coincidentally, Xu's own father tragically died of lung cancer as a result of his years-long smoking habit. This personal connection added a poignant layer to Xu's exploration of tobacco and its profound impact on individuals and communities.

Through expeditions to farms, factories, and historical sites, coupled with archival research and literature study, Xu came to understand the intricate relationships between the people, the industry, the Duke family, the university, and the city of Durham. Based on his research and personal experience, he created a variety of objects related to tobacco that compose Tobacco Project I: Durham.

2001, 2008

Materials: Lacquer on baltic birch wood (2001)

                  Lacquer on fiber (2008)

Location: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., USA (2001)

                U.S. Embassy, Beijing, China (2008)

The idea for this installation originated from a Chinese idiom, "monkeys grasp for the moon," which alludes to an ancient folktale. The tale narrates the story of a group of monkeys who, perched on a branch of a tree, catch sight of the reflection of the moon in a pool of water below. In an attempt to touch what they perceive to be the real moon, the monkeys decide to link their arms and tails together. When at last they “touch” the moon, it vanishes as ripples disrupt its reflection in the water. This fanciful yet thought-provoking tale reminds us that what we strive to achieve may sometimes prove to be elusive illusions.

Xu Bing's own work, Monkeys Grasp for the Moon, presents a chain of monkeys formed wholly out of word shapes. Each link in the chain is the word for "monkey" in a different international language, including Hindi, Japanese, French, Spanish, Hebrew and English. These words are stylized to resemble monkeys themselves. Monkeys Grasp for the Moon extends through the heart of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery's main staircase, suspended 90 feet from the skylight at the top of this atrium to a reflecting pool on the lowest floor of the gallery.