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.

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

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.  

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.