Xu Bing

, in Art, Installation, Printmaking (0 Comments)

Xu Bing was born in Chongqing, China in 1955. In 1981 he received his BA in Printmaking at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing (CAFA) and earned his MFA in 1987. He moved to the US in 1990 and returned to Beijing in 2007 to serve in his current position as the Vice President of CAFA in Beijing. Xu received grants from the Pollock Krasner Foundation and was awarded the prestigious MacArthur genius grant in 1999. He is an internationally acclaimed artist based between Beijing and New York, most renowned for artist explorations of text, including the ‘Book from the Sky’ and his ‘square word calligraphy’. His work is exhibited internationally in major art institutions and biennales and featured in prominent private and public collections, including the British Museum, Museum of Modern Art New York, Los Angeles Contemporary Art Museum, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, and the National Art Museum of China.

Post-Testament (1993)后约全书
Printed leather-bound book with religious and secular texts
34 x 25.5 x 5.5 cm / 13 2/5 x 10 x 2 in.
Edition of 300

Copyright Xu Bing Studio, Courtesy of Booklyn Artists Alliance
Post Testament is an specially printed and bound book that appears like a weighty tome of literary significance. However the artist has created a strange hybrid text by merging the King James Version of the New Testament with that of a trashy contemporary novel, alternating each word of both texts. As a result, the only way to read the complete text taken from either book is to skip every other word. Regardless of which narrative the reader focuses on, the visual presence of the other narrative cannot be avoided, creating a strong visual impact on the reader. This abnormal reading pattern creates a third narrative that limns the border between avant-garde literature and visual art. In keeping with the exploration of text in his art, Xu Bing creates a humorous, slightly deviant, book that generates a new social connotation for the original heavily charged texts.

The book was relief printed in Beijing using zinc plates and was also bound in China using Mongolian cow leather. The paper for the book was scavenged by Xu Bing from the Chung Wa Printing House also near Beijing. It is from a huge batch of paper that was made for translations of Mao Zedong destined for international distribution.