XU Bing
Book from the Sky to Book from the Ground
P R E FA C E F O R
THE ENGLISH EDITION
This edition of Book from the Sky to Book from the Ground is published by ACC Art Books nearly 8 years after it was first published in Chinese. For eight years, Book from the Sky has been exhibited as an art installation in museums and galleries around the world and has been constantly discussed by scholars as well as the public. The attention it has received may be explained by the fact that Book from the Sky was included in the textbook of Gardner’s Art through the Ages in 2001; or, perhaps, it is because my new artwork Dragonfly Eyes, completed in the form of a parody story film, has caused theorists and art critics to revisit and analyse the relationship between Book from the Sky and this new work. Dragonfly Eyes is a feature-length film with no cameraman or actors, and all of the content was downloaded from public surveillance videos on the internet. In other words, rather than being acted out, every frame of the fictional story has been edited from the lives of unrelated real people. Thus, people associated this work with Book from the Sky, which was made thirty years ago, and realised: “this artist is good at creating so-called reality, but this reality
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is actually an illusion”. In today’s digital age, the boundary between reality and illusion, true and false becomes increasingly blurred and starts to challenge our judgement. As a work of conceptual art, Book from the Ground is always changing and growing. This is because the symbols and emojis used in this book have developed rapidly in recent years. When this graphic novel was first published in 2012, many did not believe that such pictograms could express subtle emotions and complex thoughts. However, as time goes by, many people, especially the new generation, have really come to love this visual and straightforward way of communication. The widespread use of emojis in the public domain and in private messages on mobile phones has accelerated their maturation and enhanced their unique expressive power, evident in people’s love for using emojis. For example, two people might be messaging on WeChat in the evening but they feel too embarrassed to directly tell each other: “It’s getting late, we should stop”; however, if one sends the symbol of the moon, the other will understand immediately. The creative expression of pictograms also has other advantages over traditional writing. As I have mentioned in this book: “Any script maintains a ‘space’ that allows its users to add meaning. (We gasp at the subtleties of Chinese or English expression. However, this ‘subtlety’ has long been present, developed by users of the language in the space that exists between a limited number of symbols.)” In the years since its first publication, more than nine editions
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P R E FA C E T O T H E F I R S T E D I T I O N
Strictly speaking, this is the first book that I’ve written using normal words and it discusses some of the ‘abnormal books’ I’ve made: Book from the Sky, Square Word Calligraphy and Book from the Ground. It comprises four essays about works that are connected to the written word. Book from the Sky was created from ‘false characters’ that I personally carved by hand and then printed into string-bound books. The volumes appear classic and sacred, but nobody on earth, myself included, can read them. Book from the Ground is a book written with ‘symbols’. After almost ten years of collecting materials, applying conceptual scrutiny, testing, revising, adjusting and reworking, it has finally been published as a book with an international standard book number (ISBN). It is a book that even on its copyright page does not use a single traditional word. As such, it is not limited by the reader’s cultural background or level of education; it is a book that can be published anywhere in the world without translation. Twenty years ago, I created Book from the Sky, a book that no
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one can read. Now I have created Book from the Ground, a book that anyone, regardless of their native language, can read. These two books, while completely different, do share one quality: they treat people of all cultures and levels of education equally. Book from the Sky expresses my doubts and sense of alarm at existing forms of writing; whereas Book from the Ground expresses my view of an emerging trend in today’s written communication and the ideal of a universal script. In the course of creating Book from the Sky and Book from the Ground, my various experiments with the written word have led to two groups of work that I believe have value: ‘Square Word Calligraphy’ and the ‘Landscript’ series. ‘Square Word Calligraphy’ is an arranged marriage of the distinct Chinese and English systems of writing. The words appear Chinese but are, in fact, English and something new emerges. I employed this new script to write An Introduction to Square Word Calligraphy, a book that teaches people how to write this ‘language’. The ‘Landscript’ series uses characters to depict the landscape. They can be called paintings, but they can also be called calligraphy or a text. The Chinese people regard writing and painting as the same action. In 1999, I sat in the Himalayas facing a real mountain. As I used characters to ‘write’ and ‘paint’ the mountain, I sensed that I was beginning to touch upon a core aspect of our culture and it helped me understand the personality of the Chinese people and how China came to be the way it is today. A person’s interests are not planned, instead they are destined. Only when I looked back on my works did I discover that I have always
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been interested in the written word. Now it is up to the theorists or even me to find the reason, because, in the end, everything has a cause. I wrote a brief essay in 1998 that discussed the unique relationship that my generation and I have with the written word. People within the Sinosphere shared a deep reverence for the written word. The written word was a sacred object that could ‘reveal all the world’s phenomena’ and no sheet of paper bearing script could be desecrated. Instead it had to be collected and taken to a Wenchang pavilion where it was ‘nullified’. This practice of ‘cherishing scripted paper’ is revealing. In China, every person on their path to being civilised must first take a few years to memorise thousands of written forms without error and must further be able to write them neatly and beautifully. Every educated person has used copybooks as a method of practising calligraphy. This is a significant fact, for not only does this practice teach a person writing, but it also acts as a means of cultivating cultural etiquette. This is a unique relationship that people within the Sinosphere share with the written word. I started primary school when the movement to simplify characters was sweeping through China. New characters were announced in batches; old characters were abolished; new characters were further modified or abolished, and old characters were brought back into use again. It confused us. Buried within our earliest conception of the written word is this peculiar genetic material, that the written word can be ‘played’ with. It is a relationship to the word that is unique to our generation. My mother worked in the department of library sciences at Beijing University. Very busy with work and frequently in meetings, she would
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shut me away amongst the stacks of books. Growing up in a book-based work environment, I became familiar with all kinds of books from a young age. But because I wasn’t able to read them yet, books remained like strangers to me. By the time I learned to read, casual reading was not allowed: Chinese citizens were only allowed to read The Little Red Book. After the Cultural Revolution I returned from the countryside to the city. Then I used my parents’ work as a means to pore over every kind of book in the library’s holdings. After excessive reading, however, my thinking became clouded. I felt that I had lost something, like someone who has been starved and then binges, only to feel sick and disgusted by food. This abnormal relationship with ‘the book’ is unique to me. The written word is the most basic element of human culture. To touch the written word is to touch the essence of culture. Rulers have always known that to reform the written word is to reform the most essential aspect of people’s thinking. From Qin Shi Huang to Mao Zedong, the first thing one sets out to do in the course of establishing political power is to reform and unify a single system of writing. This kind of reformation is carved into the bones and etched into the hearts of the people; this is what can aptly be called a ‘cultural revolution’. I have, in fact, made many works that relate to the written word. The written word usually has the effect of transmitting meaning, aiding expression and communication. My ‘written words’, however, affect people’s thoughts by misleading, confusing and interrupting communication. These systems of writing are camouflaged: they hide in ambush between the lines. Sometimes they present you with a familiar face, but you remain unable to call them by their name. I
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have always said that my ‘words’ are not an easy-to-use font set, that they more closely resemble a computer virus that affects the human brain. In the moment of transitioning between legibility and illegibility, in this conceptual upending, our habitual modes of thinking are thrown into confusion; interconnection and expression are obstructed and the inertia of our thinking is challenged. In the process of seeking a new basis and new pathways, our minds are opened and expanded into areas that have never been touched upon and we regain the origins of thought and understanding. I would like to express my gratitude to publisher Mr Robert C.Y. Wu, Ms Emily Chao of the Eslite Gallery, Ms Lianying Wang, Ms Jian Feng and all those who contributed to the realisation of this book.
Xu Bing
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An Introduction to Square Word Calligraphy, 1994 – 1996
Woodblock hand-printed book and ink rubbing with wood cover; water-based ink on grass paper, 39×23×2.7 cm (closed)
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Square Word Calligraphy.
Quotation from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Elegiac Verse” (1882) in calligraphy. 1994
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Square Word Calligraphy Classroom
Mixed media installation – desk/chair sets, copy and tracing books, brushes, ink, video; dimensions variable. Exhibition and audience participation view at Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China, 2018
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Book from the Ground – Interactive software installation (detail)
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2007
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"The written word is the most basic element of human culture. To touch the written word is to touch the essence of culture." Xu Bing
ISBN: 978-1-78884-062-0
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£30.00/$45.00
www.accartbooks.com