Xu Bing: Landscape Landscript
28 February–19 May 2013
contemporary
art. Xu Bing has become one of China’s best known and critically acclaimed
artists,
exhibiting
in solo exhibitions and winning awards around the world. Landscape Landscript
will be the
first
exhibition devoted to his landscapes.
Born
in Chongqing, southwest China, in 1955, Xu Bing grew up in Beijing. During the
Cultural Revolution (1966–76)
he
was sent to the countryside for ‘re-education’ after which he studied
printmaking, becoming successful as both an
artist
and teacher. He left China for the United States in 1990 and in 1999 received
the MacArthur ‘Genius Award’. His
subsequent
awards include the Fukuoka Asian Culture prize (2003) and the first Artes Mundi
prize (2004). In 2008
he
returned to Beijing to become Vice President of China’s foremost art
institution, the Central Academy of Fine Arts
(CAFA).
He has exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC; the New Museum
of Contemporary Art, New
York;
and the Joan Miro Foundation, Spain, amongst other major institutions.
Xu
Bing works in a range of media: print, sculpture, and installations involving
live animals. His international success
has
grown in response to his ability to embed complex ideas about art and culture
within accessible, playful works
which
engage the audience. The work which brought him initial popular recognition, Tianshu or ’Book from the
Sky’ (1987–1991),
a four-volume, stitch-bound book, in the style of classical texts, is filled
with what appear to be
Chinese
characters. The text is, in fact, composed in a script invented by the artist,
printed with over 4000 handcarved
woodblock
characters which have no intelligible meaning. Book from the Ground (2003-ongoing), which
exists
as a website, an installation, a computer programme, and a printed book, is,
conversely, a writing system which
can
be understood by anyone from any culture, literate or not. Drawing on glyphs or
what Xu Bing calls ‘pictograms’
developed
in a variety of contexts over the past half century, from airport signage to
international brand logos and
‘emoticons’,
Book from the
Ground tells the
story of a day in the life of an ordinary man.
Central
to all Xu Bing’s art is the theme of language: its uses and changes;
misunderstandings; and dialogues within and
between
cultures. As a Chinese artist, Xu Bing has focused particularly on the
pictorial quality of the Chinese language
which,
he maintains, lies at the core of Chinese culture. His Landscript series uses Chinese characters for
landscape
features
to compose landscape paintings which have the appearance of traditional Chinese
landscapes, as developed
since
the Song dynasty (960–1279). In this way, characters for ‘stone’ make up an
image of rocks; the character for
‘tree’
makes up trees; and ‘grass’ for grass and so on. Xu Bing has produced four new
pieces for this exhibition which
develop
further his technique of using characters as brushwork. His Landscripts will be displayed alongside his early
landscape
sketches and prints, with more recent works which depart from traditional
landscape styles. He has also
selected
a number of European landscapes from the Ashmolean’s collections in order to
explore how different traditions
interact
and to throw light on the fundamental elements of Chinese culture.
“The
Ashmolean is one of the world’s leading centres for the study of Chinese art –
with collections dating from the
Neolithic
period right up to the present. We are therefore thrilled to present the work
of one of China’s most exciting
and
innovative artists working today to a wide UK audience.”
Dr
Christopher Brown, CBE, Director of the Ashmolean.
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