2011

Medium: Tobacco leaves, paper, cardboard, rubber-stamped with passge from A True Discourse on the Present State of Virginia by Ralph Hamor (1615)

Dimensions: 53 3/4 x 39 3/4 x 3 7/8 in

Exhibition: Tobacco Project 3, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia, USA, 2011

2011

Medium: Hinged wooden box with rubber-stamp printing, double cigarettes, foil, and five trade cards by Xu Bing

Size: Box (closed): 7/8 x 7 9/16 x 7 3/16 in

Exhibition: Tobacco Project 3, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia, USA, 2011

2011

Medium: Branches, red match-head paste, vase

Size: Approx. 60 in

Exhibition: Tobacco Project 3, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia, USA, 2011

2011

Medium: 440-lb. compressed block of tobacco with raised text: Light as Smoke
Size: 24 x 43 x 26 in

Exhibition: Tobacco Project 3, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia, USA, 2011

2011

Medium: Bound book, printed in offset lithography on cigarette paper

Size: 11 1⁄2 x 13 in, 158 pages

Exhibition: Tobacco Project 3, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia, USA, 2011

2011

Medium: 500,000 "1st Class" brand cigarettes, adhesive, carpet

Size: Approx 480 x 180 in

Exhibition: Tobacco Project 3, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia, USA, 2011

2011

Materials: Natural debris attached to frosted glass panel, 430 x 200 cm

Location: British Museum, London, United Kingdom

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. 

2011

Materials: Cut and painted acrylic 

Location: The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, USA