Xu Bing is best known for a set of hybrid characters that’s been christened ‘Square Word Calligraphy’. It is best described as characters that, on the surface, resemble classical Chinese calligraphy that’s often used in seals. However, closer inspection reveals that these characters are actually English words and letters.
Xu developed this unique and exceptional script to express the disorientation that he felt when he moved to the United States from China in 1991 and did not speak a word of English. It has since become a tool to reflect cross-cultural understanding, and the interplay between languages, cultures, identities and prose.
Before relocating to the US, Xu had already established himself as an artist to watch in his home country. In 1987, he received a Master of Fine Arts in printmaking from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. He would later become the school’s vice-president from 2008 to 2014.
In 1988, the artist’s Book From the Sky, an installation displayed at Beijing’s China Art Gallery was deemed controversial – Chinese authorities did not approve the use of 4,000 Chinese characters that did not exist. The piece, however, attracted attention from the Western art world.
Xu’s work has been shown in museums worldwide, including The British Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Asia Society and Museum in New York and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Two of his monumental phoenixes, made from discarded construction materials, were shown at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in 2012, the Cathedral of St John the Divine in Manhattan in 2014 and at the Arsenale for the the Venice Biennale in 2015.
Xu is also a digital artist, sculptor and woodblock carver. He lives and works in Beijing and New York.
