 Since 1980s, Mr. Xu Bing has always stood
at the forefront of the avant-garde art scenes in China, thereby contributing
to and boosting the international acclaim of contemporary Asian art.
Mr. Xu Bing was born in Chongqing, Sichuan province, in 1955, and grew in up
Beijing from 1957. During the Cultural Revolution, which began in 1966, he was
sent to labor in a farming village in Northern China. After the end of the Cultural
Revolution in 1977, he enrolled in the Central Academy of Fine Arts where he
studied printmaking.
Beginning in 1987, he devoted
four years on creating more than four thousand "fake"
Chinese characters (radicals of the Chinese characters were recomposed to construct
non-existent fake Chinese characters). The resulting work, "An Analyzed
Reflection
of the World-The Book from the Sky", in which he woodblock-printed these
characters, was presented in a first major group exhibition of contemporary art
in China,
"China/Avant-Garde," in Beijing. His concept caused a sensation by
shattering the conventions of those with a background in Chinese characters,
and even aroused
a fierce debate known as the "Xu Bing phenomenon." This work also marked
the full-fledged beginning of installation art in China. The great achievement
that
was marked by his "fake Chinese characters" holds a legendary presence
today.
Since his move to the United
States in 1990, his realm of influence extended beyond to the West and other
parts of Asia through numerous participations in
important international exhibitions. His representative work from the 1990s,
"The New English Calligraphy", presented "English/Chinese characters" that
are
composed of English alphabet letters. Infused with an open approach to which
an audience was invited to take part, the work won international acclaim from
a wide group of people, ranging from professionals to the regular viewer. "The
New English Calligraphy" is an innovative work in which the walls between Eastern
and Western culture, and the notion of contemporary art as being unapproachable,
were overcome.
In the past few years, Mr.
Xu Bing's work of involving texts and letters has seen further development, as
seen in works such as the landscape painting composed
of Chinese characters. His artistic stance, which is deeply rooted in his own
culture and yet always infused with the possibility for creative leaps, has become
a guiding force to his fellow contemporary artists in Asia. The great influence
and contribution that Mr. Xu Bing has delivered through his art makes him a worthy
laureate of the Arts and Culture Prize of the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prizes. |
Lecture Archive
