Xu Bing
Xu Bing (b. 1955, Chongqing, China) is most known for his printmaking skills and installation pieces, as well as his artistic use of language, words and text and how they affect our understanding of the world. Years after studying printmaking at Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, Xu Bing served as its vice president from 2008-14. He is well known for his landmark work “Book from the Sky,” an installation in which he invented 4,000 characters and hand-carved them into wood blocks, then used them as movable type to print volumes and scrolls. In 2008, Robert Harrist Jr., professor of Chinese Art History at Columbia University, began teaching a graduate seminar titled “The Art of Xu Bing.” Xu Bing lives and works in Beijing and New York.
Awards and honors
- MacArthur Fellowship
- Fukuoka Prize
- Lifetime achievement award from Southern Graphics Council
On the Web
Education
Bing earned B.F.A. and M.F.A. degrees in printmaking from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing. He was awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters by Columbia University.
Notable exhibitions
Solo
- Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C.
- New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York
- Joan Miró Foundation, Barcelona, Spain
- National Gallery in Prague, Czech Republic
- Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kansas
Biennials
- 45th and 51st Venice Biennales
- Biennale of Sydney
- Johannesburg Biennale
Publications
- Gardner’s Art Through the Ages
- Oxford History of Art
- Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin 1950s-1980s
- “Persistence/Transformation: Text as Image in the Art of Xu Bing” published by Princeton University Press