Editing Xu Bing (section)

===Installation pieces===

====''A Book from the Sky''====
Xu Bing's ''Tianshu'' ("[[Book from the Sky]]") is a large installation featuring precisely laid out rows of books and [[hanging scroll]]s with written "Chinese" texts. Even so, this work challenges our very approach to language because of the unique nature of the text written on the paper. First presented in Beijing in 1988, the learned élite felt slighted by the artists' bold move to design and print over 4,000 characters that looked Chinese but were completely meaningless according to standard Mandarin.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Silbergeld |first=Jerome|title=Book from the Sky: A work by Xu Bing|year=2003|publisher=[[Princeton University Art Museum]]|pages=2}}</ref> Xu infuses his work with meaning by stirring confusion and discomfort in his audience, mostly due to the fact that the [[Chinese characters]] used in these texts are not "real" characters.

This piece was well received in China until 1989, whereupon the social and political drama of the [[Tiananmen Square protests of 1989|Tiananmen Square protests]] led the government to look askance at Xu’s ''Tianshu''.<ref>{{Cite book|last=De Kloet|first=Jeroen|title=Cosmopatriots: On Distant Belongings and Close Encounters|editor=Edwin Jurriëns|year=2007|publisher=Rodopi B.V.|location=Amsterdam|pages=141}}</ref> Leaving China in 1991 for the United States, Xu Bing continued to explore and express his thoughts on deconstructing language to challenge our most "natural" cultural assumptions. His thought-provoking work enticed Western audiences, and he soon became one of the leading artists in the modern Chinese art scene.

====''Ghosts Pounding the Wall''====
Using his background in print-making, in May and June 1990 Xu Bing and a team of art students and help from local residents began a monumental project: creating a rubbing from a section of the [[Great Wall]] at [[Jinshanling]]. In order to create the rubbings, Xu Bing used entirely traditional Chinese methods and materials for [[stone rubbing]], including rice paper and ink. Measuring 32m x 15m, the resulting installation piece consists of 29 rubbings of different sections of the Great Wall.

As in the case of many of his works, Xu directly related his colossal piece, ''Ghosts Pounding the Wall'', to the political situation in China. While surveying his work while installed at Elvehjem Museum of Art, Xu said that his Great Wall represents "a kind of thinking that makes no sense and is very conservative, a really closed-in thinking that symbolizes the isolationism of Chinese politics."<ref>{{cite book|last=Erickson|first=Britta|title=The Art of Xu Bing: words without meaning and meaning without words|year=2001|publisher=Smithsonian Institution}}</ref> The prints of the Great Wall rise up on either side of the exhibit, making the viewer seem small and insignificant in comparison to the massive, looming representations of solid stone walls.

====''Square Word Calligraphy''====

[[File:EnglishChinaWriting.svg|200px|thumb|right|An example of Xu Bing's 'Square Word' calligraphy, combining Latin characters into forms that resemble Chinese characters. The word is '[[wiki]]'.]]

From 1994 he started a new project, in which he adapted [[Latin alphabet]]s into the shape of ''hanzi''. He called this ''New English Calligraphy'', and gave lessons in how to write the characters.<ref>{{cite web|last=Xu|first=Bing|title=Square Calligraphy Classroom|url=https://www.xubing.com/en/work/details/209?year=1996&type=year|access-date=2024-01-21}}</ref> <!-- see also https://www.xubing.com/en/work/details/198?year=1994&type=year https://www.xubing.com/en/work/details/204?classID=10&type=class -->

====''Background Story''====
In his series ''Background Story'',<ref>{{cite web|last=Xu|first=Bing|title=Background Story 6|url=http://www.xubing.com/index.php/site/projects/year/2010/background_story1 |access-date=2012-04-27}}</ref> Xu Bing uses unusual materials in order to create a deceptively typical [[Chinese Scroll Painting]]. From the front, the piece very much resembles a traditional [[Shan Shui]] (Landscape) scroll painting, with images of mountains, trees, and rivers. However, when seen from behind, the viewer is surprised to find that the beautiful "painting" is in fact created by using the shapes and shadows of random natural plant debris. Once again, Xu challenges his audience's basic assumptions and shows them that everything is not always as it first seems. In 2022, Xu created a version of ''Background Story'' for Cornell University's [[Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art]] based on a [[Ming dynasty|Ming Dynasty]] work in its collection, ''Woodcutter in Winter Mountains'', by Yang Xun. Through his reconsideration of the earlier landscape painting, the artist practices ''fang,'' a traditional form of artistic imitation.<ref>{{Cite web |date=8 October 2022 |title=Xu Bing: Background Story |url=https://museum.cornell.edu/exhibitions/xu-bing-background-story |access-date=14 October 2022 |website=Johnson Museum of Art}}</ref>

====Phoenix project====
In 2008, after returning to China to take the position at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Xu Bing was asked to create a sculpture for the atrium of the World Financial Center, which was then being developed in Beijing. He was shocked by primitive working conditions he saw at the construction site, later saying that they "made my skin quiver." He was inspired to construct two large sculptures in the form of birds that are made largely out of construction debris and tools that he salvaged from the site. The larger sculpture, {{convert|100|ft|m|abbr=off|sp=us}} long, is identified as a male and named Feng in accordance with the Chinese [[fenghuang|phoenix]] tradition. The smaller one is {{convert|90|ft|m|abbr=off|sp=us}} long and is a female named Huang. Originally planned to take four months, the sculptures ultimately took two years to build; by that time the developers of the complex had decided the sculptures did not meet their needs. They were displayed at the [[Today Art Museum]] in Beijing and at the [[Shanghai World Expo]] before coming to the United States in 2012. After a year at the [[Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art]], they were then moved to the [[Cathedral of St. John the Divine]] in [[New York City]], where they were unveiled to the public on 1 March 2014. They were suspended from the ceiling of the nave, where they are now expected to spend about a year.<ref name=NYTPhoenix>{{cite news|last=Vogel|first=Carol|title=Phoenixes Rise in China and Float in New York|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/15/arts/design/xu-bing-installs-his-sculptures-at-st-john-the-divine.html|access-date=2 March 2014|newspaper=The New York Times|date=14 February 2014}}</ref> The Phoenix sculpture is the subject of the documentary ''Xu Bing: Phoenix'' by Daniel Traub.