Xu Bing (b.1955) Chongqing, Sichuan

After receiving his B.A. in 1981 and his M.A. in 1987 from the print department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Xu joined the department's faculty. In 1985 he participated in the Xinchao (New Wave) of artists working in non-socialist realist styles. In 1988, in the ground-breaking exhibition China Avant-Garde, he exhibited Tianshu-Xi shi jian (A book from heaven-or a mirror for analyzing the world), printed with over 2,000 invented and unintelligible characters. (Fang Lijun, below, also exhibited.) While an honorary fellow in the art department of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, in 1990, Xu began creating a series of large installations using prints, including pages from Tianshu, as assemblage material. He is a member of the councils of the Chinese Printmakers' Association and the Chinese Artists' Association.

43. Two pages from Tianshu -Xi shi jian (A book from heaven-or a mirror for analyzing the world) 1988-1991 Each 32.4 x 47 cm Black and white; shuiyin on Chinese paper Each with seals: "Bing" and "Xu Bing carved it"; only the first page is signed and inscribed by the artist. The only "characters" that can be read on these "pages" are the artist's seals and the page numbers. Each character was carved as an individual cube and then assembled in blocks for printing the pages.       44. Long Picture Scroll Explaining the Brush 1996 55 x 427 cm Black and white; shuiyin on Chinese paper; mounted as a handscroll Signed, title inscribed by the artist: 7/8 The images are in the tradition of Chinese woodblock-pinted manuals for calligraphy and painting that demonstrate how to hold and use the brush; but the elements of the "characters," which look Chinese, are actually Roman letters which, if strung out, spell the English words "holding the brush."