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CATEGORIES
    • Xu Bing Art Satellite Creative Residency...
    • 卫星上的湖泊
    • "Xu Bing Tianshu" Rocket Crater
  • PRINTMAKING
    • Series of Repetitions
    • Mustard Seed Garden Landscape Scroll
    • Ghosts Pounding the Wall
    • Lost Letters
    • My Book
    • Five Series of Repetitions
    • Bustling Village on the Water
    • Shattered Jade
    • Big Tire
    • Brilliant Mountain Flowers Magazine
  • CHARACTER
    • The Seven-Character Poetry Collection of...
    • The Genetics of Reading Image
    • Tobacco Project I: Miscellaneous Book
    • Tobacco Project I: Match Book
    • Tobacco Project I: Longing
    • Tobacco Project I: Daodejing
    • Silkworm Book: The Analects of Confucius
    • Stone Path
    • Forest Project
    • Book from the Ground
    • Living Word
    • Book from the Sky
    • Square Word Calligraphy
    • Square Word Calligraphy Classroom
    • The Character of Characters
    • Mustard Seed Garden Landscape Scroll
    • Landscript
    • Art for the People
    • The Tide's Story
    • The Glassy Surface of a Lake
    • Bird Language
    • Excuse Me Sir, Can You Tell Me How to Ge...
    • Body Outside of Body
    • Lost Letters
    • Telephone
    • Brailliterate
    • Post Testament
    • A, B, C...
    • Monkeys Grasp for the Moon
  • ARTIST BOOKS
    • The Seven-Character Poetry Collection of...
    • Tobacco Project I: Reel Book
    • Tobacco Project I: Miscellaneous Book
    • Tobacco Project I: Match Book
    • Tobacco Project I: Calendar Book
    • Silkworm Book: The Analects of Confucius
    • Book from the Sky
    • Square Word Calligraphy Classroom
    • The Foolish Old Man Who Tried to Remove ...
    • Body Outside of Body
    • Cultural Negotiations
    • Post Testament
  • ANIMALS
    • Silkworm Book: The Analects of Confucius
    • A Case Study of Transference: Times Over...
    • Phoenix
    • Living Word
    • American Silkworm Series
    • Cultural Animal
    • Bird Language
    • Wild Zebra
    • Panda Zoo
    • The Leash
    • The Net
    • The Parrot
  • INSTALLATION
    • The Wall and the Road
    • The Genetics of Reading Image
    • Gravitational Arena
    • Tobacco Project I: Longing
    • Silkworm Book: The Analects of Confucius
    • A Case Study of Transference: Times Over...
    • Phoenix
    • Stone Path
    • Background Story
    • Book from the Ground
    • Living Word
    • Book from the Sky
    • Square Word Calligraphy Classroom
    • Travelling to the Wonderland
    • Where Does the Dust Itself Collect?
    • Landscript
    • Art for the People
    • Ghosts Pounding the Wall
    • Purple Breeze Comes from the East
    • Ergo Dynamic Desktop
    • The Well of Truth
    • The Glassy Surface of a Lake
    • Bird Language
    • Excuse Me Sir, Can You Tell Me How to Ge...
    • The Foolish Old Man Who Tried to Remove ...
    • Body Outside of Body
    • Cultural Negotiations
    • Brailliterate
    • Post Testament
    • A, B, C...
    • Big Tire
    • Air Memorial
    • Wild Zebra
    • Panda Zoo
    • The Leash
    • The Net
    • The Parrot
    • Tobacco Project III: Richmond
    • Tobacco Project II: Shanghai
    • Tobacco Project I: Durham
    • Monkeys Grasp for the Moon
  • NEW MEDIA
    • Artificial Intelligence Infinite Film (A...
    • Book from the Ground
    • The Character of Characters
    • Nokia: Connect to Art
  • FILM
    • 卫星上的湖泊
    • Artificial Intelligence Infinite Film (A...
    • Dragonfly Eyes
  • SOCIAL PROGRAMS
    • Forest Project
    • Wu Street
    • Ghosts Pounding the Wall
    • A Consideration of Golden Apples
......
PROJECTS
  • The Wall and the Road
  • Xu Bing Art Satellite Creative Residency...
  • Xu Bing Tianshu Rocket
  • Book from the Ground Pop-up Book (2014 E...
  • The Seven-Character Poetry Collection of...
  • 卫星上的湖泊
  • Artificial Intelligence Infinite Film (A...
  • The Genetics of Reading Image
  • Gravitational Arena
  • Where Are We?
  • "Xu Bing Tianshu" Rocket Crater
  • A Case Study of Transference: Times Over...
  • Dragonfly Eyes
  • Phoenix
  • Stone Path
  • Forest Project
  • Background Story
  • Book from the Ground
  • Living Word
  • Book from the Sky
  • Square Word Calligraphy
  • Square Word Calligraphy Classroom
  • Travelling to the Wonderland
  • The Character of Characters
  • Where Does the Dust Itself Collect?
  • Landscript
  • Art for the People
  • American Silkworm Series
  • Cultural Animal
  • Purple Breeze Comes from the East
  • The Tide's Story
  • A Consideration of Golden Apples
  • Excuse Me Sir, Can You Tell Me How to Ge...
  • Telephone
  • Cultural Negotiations
  • Five Series of Repetitions
  • A, B, C...
  • Air Memorial
  • Tobacco Project III: Richmond
  • Tobacco Project II: Shanghai
  • Tobacco Project I: Durham
  • Monkeys Grasp for the Moon
......
Back Home

Series of Repetitions

Series of Repetitions-Black Tadpoles, 1987

Series of Repetitions-Haystack Reflection, 1987

Series of Repetitions-Moving Cloud, 1987

Series of Repetitions-Life Pond, 1987

Series of Repetitions-A Big River, 1987

Series of Repetitions-A Place With Mountains, 1987

Series of Repetitions-Black Pond

Series of Repetitions-Field, 1987

Series of Repetitions-Cropland, 1987

Series of Repetitions-Dry Pond, 1987

Installation View at the Reopened MoMA, New York,2019

PHOTO|VIDEO

1987-1988


Field

Ziliudi (Farmland)

Moving Cloud

Life Pond

Black Pool

A Mountain Place

Black Tadpoles

A Big River

Dry Pond

Family Plots

Haystack


Medium: woodblock print

Dimensions: 22 x 28.5 in. per print

Edition: 50th


From 1986 to 1987, Xu Bing became intrigued with the concept of the print as an "indirect painting,” and its special quality of "multiplicity." Five Series of Repetitions, which he started in 1986, took multiplicity as its conceptual starting point. Xu released this work, along with the copperplate print Stone Series. Later in the same year, he gathered his thoughts and creative experiences on printing in the article, "New Explorations and re-recognition of Multiplicitous Painting."


In writing, Xu expresses how “multiple, standardized copies are the key characteristic that sets printing apart from other forms of painting.” According to Xu, by following this thread, one can discover the unique qualities of print art. In his essay, he analyzes Western contemporary art, offering critiques of artists such as Andy Warhol (1928-1987). He believes that printing has a stronger connection to modern art than other painting categories, characterized by its intimacy and directness. Printing, with its replicability, embodies a modern aesthetic.

PRINTMAKING

Mustard Seed Garden Landscape Scroll

Title of the scroll: Mustard Seed Garden Landscape Scroll

Work in progess

Details of Mustard Seed Garden Landscape Scroll

Details of Mustard Seed Garden Landscape Scroll

Details of Mustard Seed Garden Landscape Scroll

Details of Mustard Seed Garden Landscape Scroll

Details of Mustard Seed Garden Landscape Scroll

Details of Mustard Seed Garden Landscape Scroll

Details of Mustard Seed Garden Landscape Scroll

Details of Mustard Seed Garden Landscape Scroll

Details of Mustard Seed Garden Landscape Scroll

Details of Mustard Seed Garden Landscape Scroll

Details of Mustard Seed Garden Landscape Scroll

woodblock

woodblock

woodblock

Xu Bing working on Mustard Seed Garden Landscape Scroll, Beijing, 2010

Work in progress

Mustard Seed Garden Manual

PHOTO|VIDEO

2010


Materials: Woodblock print mounted as a handscroll, ink on paper


"I created this work upon an invitation from Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. By cutting, reorganizing, and printing motifs from the Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting (1679), I created a handscroll version of the classic manual. I believe that a core characteristic of Chinese painting is its schematized nature, which is reflected in classic literature, theatrical expression, and various methods of social production. The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting is a dictionary of signs for representing the myriad things of the world. Through The Mustard Seed Garden Landscape Scroll, I attempt to investigate and reveal the relation between the Chinese way of thinking and the semiotic and schematized nature of Chinese culture."

                   -- Xu Bing, 2010


PRINTMAKING CHARACTER

Ghosts Pounding the Wall

Installation view

Installation view

Installation view

Installation view

Work in progress, Wisconsin, USA, 1991

Work in progress, Wisconsin, USA, 1991

Work in progress, Beijing, 1990

Work in progress, Beijing, 1990

Work in progress, Beijing, 1990

PHOTO|VIDEO

1990-1991


Medium: Mixed media installation/ ink rubbings on paper with stones and soil

Dimensions: Central part approx. 31 (L) x 6 (W) m; Side part approx. 13 (H) x 14 (W) m each


In 1990, Xu Bing decided to realize his longstanding vision: to create rubbings of a monumental natural object. It was during this time that he concieved the notio that any textured object could be transferred onto a two-dimensional surface as a print. After much preparation, in May, Xu Bing, friends, students, and local residents set off for the Jinshanling section of the Great Wall. They dedicated slightly less than a month making rubbings of three sides of a beacon tower and a portion of the wall itself. This was the last major artwork that the artist started before reloacting to the United States later that year. The artwork was subsequently exhibited for the first time in the United States, where Xu Bing noted that "Those American printers were shocked by the piece's size." The fact that the work emerged during a period of transition gives it an additional layer of meaning to its significance. 

 

The title Ghost Pounding the Wall is translated from the Chinese aphorism “Gui Da Qiang,” which can be interpreted as “a wall built by ghosts.” This phrase carries the meaning to be stuck in one’s own thinking, refering to a story of a man trapped behind walls built by ghosts. Viewers of Book from the Sky used this epithet to express their inability to comprehend the work. Xu Bing embraced his criticism and appropriated it as the title for his new work—employing a clever play on words where the term “build” can also mean “pound” in Chinese.  

PRINTMAKING INSTALLATION SOCIAL PROGRAMS

Lost Letters

PHOTO|VIDEO

1997


Medium: Mixed media installation / prints of a factory floor on its wall, old printing press

The site of Berlin’s Asian Fine Art Factory was once used in the early 20th century by the German Communist party as an underground publishing house and gathering place. It was later requisitioned by the Nazis as a holding area for deportees. Type blocks, still embedded in its gallery floors, are used here as the medium of Xu Bing’s Lost Letters. Because these rooms once housed printers, Xu Bing was interested in the historicity of the floors, in how the images they contain might once more be transferred onto paper. The artist used newspaper-sized sheaves of paper to make rubbings of these imprints. These papers were then mounted alongside a vintage printing press fitted with intentionally inverted metal type plates, to mimic the effect of the floor prints. This work reflects Xu’s interest in history as palimpsest with its different “versions” overlaying each other, waiting to be discovered.

PRINTMAKING CHARACTER

My Book

PHOTO|VIDEO

1992


Medium: Woodblock print on paper

Dimensions: 35 x 250 cm


My Book expands on the concept of the work A, B, C... in the form of a woodblock print. The image is of a hardcover book designed and bound in traditional Western fashion. The book is open to a page that displays a comparison table of the English-to-Chinese transliteration system which Xu Bing developed in A, B, C… Moreover, the words on the page seem to be printed in a script that resembles calligraphy but is composed of ersastz words using the Roman alpabet. Similar to Xu Bing's previous work, Book from the Sky, these words are illegible and incomprehensible. Thus, although My Book might outwardly appear to be a traditional book, its contents remain impossible to read or unerstand.

The structure of My Book is similar to the earlier woodblock print Five Series of Repetitions, as it repeatedly uses the same block and showcases progressive stages of wood carving. In this instance, the wood block starts with a completely unengraved black panel and gradually reveals the image of My Book in its finished form, where it abruptly stops.

PRINTMAKING

Five Series of Repetitions

Five Series of Repetition-Ziliudi (detail)

Five Series of Repetition-Ziliudi (detail)

Five Series of Repetition-Ziliudi (detail)

Five Series of Repetition-Ziliudi (detail)

Five Series of Repetition-Ziliudi (detail)

Five Series of Repetition-Ziliudi (detail)

Five Series of Repetition-Ziliudi (detail)

Installation view at "Three Installation by Xu Bing", Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin, USA, 1991

Installation view at Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin, USA, 1991

Installation View at Museum MACAN, 2019

Installation View at UCCA Beijing, 2018

PHOTO|VIDEO

1986-1987

Medium: woodblock print


Dry Pond, 54.5 x 72.5 x 13 sheets

Ziliudi (Farmland),  55.5 x 72 cm x 12 sheets

Field, 55.5 x 72 cm x 12 sheets

Slope, 53 x 72.5 x 6 sheets

A Place with Electric Wires,  55 x 75 cm x 11 sheets


1987 marks the year Xu Bing’s artistic practice took a decisive turn towards conceptualism. When Xu Bing began his graduate studies, he became interested in printmaking as an indirect form of drawing, as well as the element of repetition that characterizes the medium. For his graduation exhibition, he showed Five Series of Repetitions as well as his “Stone Series” of copperplate prints. Later in the same year, he organized his personal views on printmaking and creative insights into an essay entitled “A New Exploration and Reconsideration of Pictorial Multiplicity.” In it, he wrote, “Multiple, prescribed impressions are the crucial element that differentiates printmaking from other fine arts, and it is only by following this line of inquiry that one can seek out printmaking’s essence.” This set of works represents an experiment in the artistic qualities that make prints unique. He begins by printing an uncut block of wood, making a sequence of prints as he carves until the image is entirely effaced. The entire mark-making process is then transferred onto a ten-meter-long stretch of bark paper. The image thus transitions from a formless solid block of black, and through a complicated process arrives at formless solid block of white, a gesture with a strong Zen Buddhist implication. This progression, from nothing to something to nothing again, anticipates the artist’s desire, stated later in his career, to “make something useless”—to push the medium of woodcutting, and the “usefulness” of figurative arts, into new territory. Five Series also anticipates his later explorations of visual culture and materiality.


PRINTMAKING

Bustling Village on the Water

Bustling Village on the Water, 1980

PHOTO|VIDEO

1980


Medium: woodblock print

DimensionsL 54.5 x 55.4 cm


By the end of 1977, Xu Bing had returned to Beijing and passed China's National Higher Education Entrance Examination, gaining admission to the China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) and entering the department of printmaking. During that time, the department still had renowned woodblock print artists, Li Hua (1907-1994) and Gu Yuan (1919-1996) as instructors, who became important mentors for Xu Bing.


While at university, Xu Bing performed exceptionally well and once won first place in a student art competition. At the same time, he traveled to remote regions throughout China, immersing himself in the lives of the local people and capturing their daily experiences through realistic portraits.

PRINTMAKING

Shattered Jade

PHOTO|VIDEO

1977-1983


Medium: Woodblock print


In 1977, Xu Bing passed his entrance exams to enroll in the Printmaking Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. There, he began a series of woodblock prints based on the theme Shattered Jade. There are around 150 pocket-sized works in this set of woodblock prints. They are characteristic of a certain style in Xu Bing’s early works, and they can be seen as an incipient point in his artistic inspiration. They express a certain nostalgia for his time in the countryside when he was working in the arts community there, for the pure and simple village life.

PRINTMAKING

Big Tire

PHOTO|VIDEO

1986


Materials: Tire, ink, paper


A print can be taken from almost any solid surface. In 1986, Xu Bing and his colleagues made Big Tire, a print of giant truck tire treads. The exhibition of the tire itself, along with the print, marked one of the earliest examples of installation art in Beijing.

PRINTMAKING INSTALLATION

Brilliant Mountain Flowers Magazine

PHOTO|VIDEO

1975-1977


Medium: Mimeograph on paper

Dimension: 27 x 19.5 cm (closed); 27 x 39 cm


After graduating from the Affiliated High School of Peking University, Xu Bing was sent to Huapen Commune in Yanqing, a village outside of Beijing nestled within the Taihang Mountains from 1974 to 1977. This was part of the Cultural Revolution policy that dispatched young intellectuals to the countryside to live and learn there. During this period, Xu and his fellow youth would spend their free time participating in mass arts and literature activities. One such pursuit was Brilliant Mountain Flowers Magazine. This mimeographed publication, published in a limited edition of 500 copies, aimed at the rural community. Its inaugural issue was shown in the “Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius National Exhibition,” a political campaign targeting the ancient philosopher alongside disgraced high-level official Lin Biao. The publication’s layout, font, and illustrations were all designed by Xu Bing, aiming to show the purity and persistence of a life of hardship. Historian regard Brilliant Mountain Flowers Magazine as Xu Bing’s first artwork inspired by the concept of books.

PRINTMAKING