Artists' Books, Altered Books, & Book Art (Tri-Co): Bing, Xu

The calligrapher and book artist Xu Bing has been called the most innovative Chinese artist of our time. As a citizen of both China and the United States and the first Asian-American artist to win the prestigious MacArthur Foundation "genius award," Xu Bing has fascinated and challenged audiences around the world with his imaginative textual art. From his 4,000 unreadable Chinese-looking characters, which unite Asian and Western audiences alike in an egalitarianism of induced illiteracy, to his invention of a "square words" language that makes "Chinese" readable by anyone at all, Xu Bing's use of language is at once artistically brilliant, highly entertaining, and profoundly subversive--a sharp-witted, masterly word-play that, in his own words, "strikes at the very essence of culture." This volume presents the first multidisciplinary study of Xu Bing's art and its intellectual implications. BMC Copy

2004 exhibition catalog BMC Copy

"Published in conjunction with an exhibition on the making of Book from the Sky at Bernard Quaritch March 18th-April 17th 2009"--T.p. verso. BMC Copy