Beijing

Xu Bing is one of China's biggest names in the western world. Living in the U.S. since 1990, Xu explores man's relation to language in different cultural contexts. His fascination with the perplexity and unique features of different languages has led him to create a language that communicates to people from different linguistic backgrounds. The common denominator different people find in his unique calligraphy is at times a result of total obscurity like in his 'Book From the Sky' where he invented thousands of unintelligible characters printed on wood which at first glance look like normal Chinese script . At other times Xu communicates his message through an integration of English and Chinese, the two languages he lives in and probably the two most widespread spoken languages in the world. In his 'New English Calligraphy' there is a fascinating cultural interplay where Chinese people find the visual appearance of the characters very familiar and known but can't read them, while the English speaking audience find them rather complex and visually strange, but to their surprise, they slowly discover that they contain readable English which is systemized into a coherent work of Calligraphy. Through Xu's bilingual calligraphy the western spectator can also appreciate the beauty of Chinese calligraphic strokes, calligraphic motion, inner depth and access the once impenetrable world of Chinese characters. In his famous 1994 instillation, 'A Case Study of Transference', two pigs with unintelligible English and Chinese script printed on their body, fornicate on top open books. Again, meaning, cultural differences and language converge into a thought provoking piece of art.

Xu Bing was born in Sichuan in 1955 and grew up in Beijing. He studied Printmaking in the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. He lives and works in New York.

>Link Partners             >Contact Us      

- The World of Chinese Art (tm) -