Interview with Xu Bing

Xu Bing, one of the most prominent contemporary Chinese artists today, creates
subtle and complex works that defy easy interpretations. His works often deal with
questions of tradition and the (im)possibility of knowledge, and are marked by a serious,
technical dedication and a sharp focus, though the many layers at play can be elusive at
first sight. The art critic Alice Yang sees a fundamental tension in Xu Bing’s works; for her,
Xu Bing “simultaneously mourns and embraces the loss of meaning and the instabilities of
knowledge. In this way, he returns again and again to the topos of a culture on the brink
between ruin and regeneration.”1

Born in Chongqing, China, Xu Bing spent several years during the Cultural
Revolution working (and being educated) in a village—of which he has fond memories—
and later completed a degree in Traditional Print-making at the Beijing Central Academy of
Fine Arts. His exhibition, “A Book from Heaven” (Tianshu), provoked such controversy in
China after the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident that he emigrated to the United States.
Based now in New York, he has produced numerous works, such as “A Case Study of
Transference” (1993), “Introduction to New English Calligraphy” (1994), “Tsan
Series” (1995), and “Living Work, Monkeys grasp for the Moon” (2001). Xu Bing currently
has a full exhibition —the first ever for a living Chinese artist—at the Sackler Gallery at the
Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C.

For more information on Xu Bing’s works, please go to www.xubing.com

A BOOK FROM HEAVEN

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Xu Bing spent several years carving 4000 characters—the number required for functional
literacy in Chinese—and printed them in a book. But the characters are all fake, invented
by Xu Bing himself. Hundreds of identical books, all with the same fake characters, are
opened up to different pages, while a giant scroll version of the book is hung from the
ceiling and posters of these fake characters are affixed to the wall. Tianshu (“A Book from
Heaven”) refers to patterns on the skin of a poor soul struck by lightning; the original title
was “Fenxi Shijie de Shu” (“A Book That Analyzes the World”), but everyone referred to it
as Tianshu.

1 Alice Yang, “Xu Bing: Rewriting Culture,” Why Asia? 24-29.

The characters lie on the cusp of legibility for Chinese readers, and this vague sense of
familiarity creates a feeling of the uncanny among viewers. The art critic Alice Yang notes
that Xu Bing “stages the reappearance of the Chinese tradition....[His work] does not entail
the reinvention of tradition as such, but rather the recognition of the impossibility of such a
project.”2

Carving these pseudo-characters gave Xu Bing great satisfaction and provided relief from
the intellectual turmoil in 1980s China. As he said in an interview with Simon Leung, “I
was like a hungry person who, when he has the chance to eat, eats too much and gets
nauseous.” He also emphasized that he “wanted there to be a tension between the
seriousness of the execution and the presentation of the underlying absurdity that animates
the project.”3

NEW ENGLISH CALLIGRAPHY

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“New English Calligraphy” is a writing system invented by Xu Bing whereby alphabetic

elements of English words can be written with a brush and stacked up together; an English
word then takes the form of a pseudo-Chinese character. Each English letter is changed
into a Chinese calligraphic form and grouped together into word-characters according to
Chinese principles. This script appears “Chinese” (though the principle is remarkably
similar to the Korean hangul script), and yet is entirely legible—after some practice—for
English speakers.

Xu Bing has applied New English calligraphy extensively for recent works. A whole
instructional book has been printed, entirely in New English, for the original installation,
“Introduction to New English Calligraphy.” For “Your Surname, please,” Xu Bing prepared
the New English equivalent for all the names of inhabitants of two cities in Spain and
Japan, and allows them to print their names out in New English. Xu Bing has also explored
writing calligraphy in New English, using Chinese and English poetry.

2 Alice Yang, “Beyond Nation and Tradition: Art in Post-Mao China,” Why Asia, 107-118.
3Leung, Simon, and Janet A. Kaplan, ‘Pseudo-Languages: A Conversation with Wenda Gu,
Xu Bing, and Jonathan Hay’, Art Journal 58, no. 3 (1999), 86-99.
HIMALAYAN JOURNAL
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In depicting the Himalayas in “Himalayan Journal,” Xu Bing plays on the remarkable

visual correspondences between writing and visual reality in certain Chinese characters.
For example, rivers are “painted” with the ancient form of the Chinese character for
“water” and forests drawn with the respective character for “tree.” These painting-writings
can be seen/read, blurring the distinction between image and symbol—which was in fact
an ideal that has obsessed Chinese thinkers.

INTERVIEW WITH XU BING:

Daniel Ho: “A Book from Heaven” (Tianshu) is a very complicated work, with a very
difficult relationship with culture and tradition. How comfortable are you seeing yourself
as part of a tradition? Or do you think you are trying to create a new tradition?

Xu Bing: In the end, everything is a new tradition. What we do now will, in the future,
be a tradition. My work does have a very special relationship with tradition; it is
revolutionary from inside the tradition, though on the outside it looks very traditional.

“A Book from Heaven” has many layers, many covers. I like giving people a false image; I
like using masks and covers. “New English Calligraphy” is a case in point: it has a Chinese
face but it really doesn’t have much to do with Chinese culture. The outside and the inside
are entirely different. The outside looks real, but it is fake; the inside, on the other hand, is
empty. I like this confusion.

My works present a lot of contradictions, paradoxes; I often take two opposing concepts,
and between the two is where my works lie. “Tradition” and “modernity,” for example, are
always used to talk about my works, but you cannot just approach them in a two-
dimensional way, either one or the other. It just doesn’t work. For me, “tradition” and
“modernity” are mutually penetrating: in the one is the other, and in the other is the one.
There is not just one “tradition” or one “modernity.” Another analogy: they are like the two
opposite ends [of the floating needle] of a compass, always in opposition but always in
motion—and in fact part of the same needle.
DH: You have said before that whenever people interview you, you think of the myth of
Cang Jie from Huainanzi. Do you think of culture as a burden?

[Note on the myth from Huainanzi: the mythical four-eyed sage, Cang Jie, invented
Chinese characters for the Chinese people. This event shook the heavens and the earth:
the heavens rained down grain and millet, fearing that people would abandon farming and
devote themselves to idle pursuits and mutual deception, while the ghosts howled, afraid
that people would start recording them and thereby control them.]

XB: Not really a burden but a bit of a problem. I think people aren’t too clear about the
problematic aspects of culture. There is so much belief—too much and too trusting. I like
the Huainanzi myth because there is a remarkable clarity in its view of culture.

DH: Has the classical tradition been influential in your life? I am thinking especially
about the Daoist tradition.

XB: Well, certainly by my generation, people in China weren’t educated in the classical
way. No Laozi, no Zen Buddhism. Mao changed everything of course, even the stories and
philosophy that were carried over into Mao’s China. So the culture I was growing up with
was really “Cultural-Revolution” culture. But I think that many Asian people, almost in
their blood, have a strong sense of Zen Buddhism. This is by nature, by blood, not really
by education.

In fact, after the Cultural Revolution, when we finally had a chance to read, I read David
Suzuki’s book on Zen Buddhism – Introduction to Zen Buddhism, I think. It is just a small,
thin book, but it is amazing. Clear and beautiful. I always read this book, a bit like [how I
used to read] Mao’s Little Red Book. But on reading Suzuki, I didn’t feel that I had
really learned anything from the book; I only felt that I had thought like that for a long
time. He articulated clearly what I have felt.

DH: How would you characterize the audience’s relationship with “A Book from
Heaven”?

XB: I think the moment the audience walks into the gallery, they are really attracted to
the work. The book is beautiful, serious-looking with serious information. It looks
important with important lessons to tell. They are urged to read, and so they walk closer.
But once in, they are stuck, they are pushed away.
DH: It confuses people, certainly. But there is also a deep sense of fun and of absurdity.

XB: Yes, you really cannot say my work itself is serious; it is a big joke. But I always take
my work seriously. I like to think that this makes the piece strong, because there are too
many contradictions. Really, it is unbelievable that one person spent several years just to
make a joke. The power coming from this, though, is great. This is something that runs
through my work—working seriously at something that really doesn’t seem to say anything
or to have anything inside. This is how I engage with the audience. (....)

“A Book from Heaven” really bothered many Chinese intellectuals in Mainland China and
in Taiwan. They felt very uncomfortable in front of the work; it made them a bit crazy—so
many books, so many characters, and not one that they could understand. They had never
really had that sort of experience.

DH: Do you think Westerners who understand Chinese have the same sort of
experience?

XB: No, I don’t think so. The reason is that there is a profound cultural difference
between those raised in a culture based on Chinese characters [hanzi wenhua; Chinese-
character culture] and those raised in another kind of culture. Those who don’t understand
Chinese characters don’t really seem to see the significance of “A Book from Heaven.”

On the other hand, Westerners seem to see something else. When I emigrated to the West,
I was very worried that people would not like “A Book from Heaven”; in fact, people
loved it. I was quite surprised, I couldn’t really understand why they loved it so much. In
China, the fake characters of “A Book from Heaven” affected Chinese people too much; it
shook their ways of thinking and their views on culture and language. Here in the West,
people just feel that the work is beautiful. (...) Westerners miss parts of “A Book from
Heaven,” but they also gain another part that people in China have ignored. And vice
versa.

DH: You have said that when you were carving the characters for “A Book from
Heaven” (and also when you were sent to a village during the Cultural Revolution), you
felt very at ease. You have called it “washing your mind.”

XB: What I meant was that the mind is sometimes clouded after reading and absorbing
too much. When I carve, I focus intensely on a very basic kind of movement. I feel like I
am talking to nature, and my mind becomes clearer, sharper, and more sober.
What “A Book from Heaven” reflects on is how much “culture” is a great big game
machine. Once you are in this game machine, you can’t quit. You feel tired. What’s ironic
though is how “A Book from Heaven” in turn caused so much discussion, debate, and
dispute.

DH: For “A Book from Heaven,” you mentioned that you didn’t want to do calligraphy,
that it is too personal and too expressive. Yet now with “New English Calligraphy” and
“Himalayan Journal,” you have been doing a lot of calligraphy. Is this a shift in thinking?

XB: Not really. I had a specific aim in “A Book from Heaven.” With calligraphy, a bit of
my personal emotions would have seeped in and there would be an accessible “inside,” or
meaning, to the work. I wanted to cut off any meaning from the work; I wanted it to be
empty.

DH: You said that “New English Calligraphy” is about misunderstanding. But don’t you
think there is a possibility of understanding?

XB: Oh, misunderstanding...that’s just an old hobby of mine. Of course, New English
can be used in real life, whereas the fake characters of “A Book from Heaven” do not
constitute a system and do not have a principle of correlation between word and reality—
there is just nothing. But I think that New English and the fake characters do have a family
resemblance, “with the same father but different mothers” (tongfu yimu).

Writing (or script; wenzi) has dignity and honour. Normally, however, writing is used
everywhere, on the streets, in the markets, and it loses its dignity and honour. You can use
it anyway you want and you can even choose not to use it; because of this, you have
control over writing. In “A Book from Heaven,” I cut off this common, pedestrian part of
writing and left only the part with honour and dignity. Now this is something you can
aspire to, but inside there is nothing.

With “New English Calligraphy,” there is a regular writing system, so you can use it. The
system isn’t very efficient, and you can write words in many different ways. But they do
have a personality.

DH: On the other hand, you, as the artist, have no control over New English.
XB: Right. New English is like a cell that reproduces on its own but is uncontrollable. I
feel very happy about this; I have started a cell and now this cell will turn into something
else. New English is living. Already there is a phenomenon with New English: many
teachers are interested in it as an educational tool to teach children about a foreign
culture. Some others have made advertisements with New English – one of them was for a
London dealer of antique Asian furniture. I also have New English T-shirts, sold in
museums with exhibitions of my work.

DH: Lots of people have tattoos in Chinese characters. Any in New English yet?

XB: Actually, yes, in Spain mainly. I always thought that New English would be great for
tattoos. There is a superficial sense of Chinese-ness and yet it is understandable. New
English can also be used for the traditional Chinese seals that Westerners are so fond of
buying. I believe that a Japanese company is working on this.

Currently I am collaborating with a Japanese computer programmer to create a computer

typeface for New English. This has taken a lot of time, but when it’s done, I plan to
produce a newspaper in New English.

DH: You had a plan earlier to publish “A Book from Heaven” in book form, complete
with an ISBN. Is that still in the works?

XB: Yes, I really want to do this. My idea, my dream at the beginning was to make a real
book with an ISBN. That way, it could be collected by libraries and sold in bookstores and
thus reach a widespread audience. Exhibiting “A Book from Heaven” and circulating it in
book form would, I feel, have the same effect. The concept is open to repetition. And more
people will feel the sense of unease and confusion.

DH: Having lived in the U.S. for over ten years now, do you feel that you are losing
touch with what inspires your work—Chinese culture?

XB: Not at all. It is all too easy to be sensitized to Chinese culture instead.

DH: You take your work very seriously. Do you think you put your work ahead of your
life?

XB: Life, enjoyment....I feel that what I do is living; your life is what you do. Of course, my
work comes with perks that I do enjoy very much, such as travelling. But right now, there
is a lot that I don’t like, such as going to the museum to argue with the curator about the
material, budget, or something else. I always have to explain my work. And I have to be on
good terms with too many people—it gets complicated. Sometimes you do your work
well, but the budget is limited. You want to attain what you have conceived, but all that
arguing is really too tiring. Of course you want to be without limits and deadlines. But you
need a clear idea of what you are doing.

I do feel satisfied, very happy actually. Doing what I think is worth doing gives me great
pleasure. Overcoming the limitations, focusing hard—this is real work, this is enjoying life.
But whenever I finish a work, I am not proud at all; I feel tired, almost daunted. It is only
when working on a project—carving characters or doing something else—that I am the
happiest. Once the work is done, I am back to the beginning again, faced with limits and
deadlines.