Xu Bing
- b. 1955 in Chongqing, China
- Working in Beijing, China; and New York, NY, United States of America
- Showing at Asia Society Museum
- On view October 27, 2020, through February 7, 2021
and
March 26, 2021, through June 27, 2021
Xu Bing’s ruminations on the indelible relationship between language and society have been an ongoing subject of his work since the 1980s. He was first recognized for his now-iconic installation, Book From the Sky (1987-91), which featured more than four thousand nonsensical pictograms resembling the Chinese written language. The artist subsequently created what he calls “square word calligraphy”—a system in which English words are written in a manner resembling Chinese characters. This cross-cultural fusion of language leads viewers to reassess their preconceived notions about written language while it illuminates cultural specificities and commonalities between China and the West. The artist received a BFA and an MFA in printmaking from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, in 1981 and 1987 respectively. In 1999, Xu Bing was the recipient of a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation fellowship, known as the “Genius Grant.”
Silkworm Book: The Analects of Confucius was commissioned for the Asia Society Triennial as part of a special project by guest curator Susan L. Beningson, PhD, entitled We the People: Sun Xun and Xu Bing Respond to the Declaration of Independence. The sculpture was created through the ancient Chinese practice of sericulture to produce a silk-encased copy of The Analects by Confucius, a text that was studied by the founders of the United States, as a means to explore the broad transcultural influences that contributed to the formation and structure of the United States government.
Below: Xu Bing, Silkworm Video: The Analects (excerpt), 2019. Single-channel video. Duration: 3 minutes, 30 seconds. Courtesy of the artist. Video courtesy of Xu Bing Studio