Provenance
Acquired directly from the artist
Exhibited
Beijing, China Art Gallery, Exhibition of Prints by Xu Bing, October 1988; Beijing, China Art Gallery, China/Avant-Garde, February 1989; Tokyo, Tokyo Gallery, Book from the Sky, 1991; Madison, Elvehjem Museum of Art, Three Installations by Xu Bing, November 30, 1991 – January 19, 1992; Venice, 45th Venice Biennale, 1993; Madrid, Museum National Center de Art Reina Sofia, Cocido y Crudo, 1994; Albany, University Art Museum, Xu Bing: A Book from the Sky, 1996; Albany, Albany State University, Xu Bing Book/Ends, 2000; Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Word Play: Contemporary Art by Xu Bing, January - May 2002; Princeton, The P.Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art at Princeton University, Book from the Sky, 2003 (other examples exhibited)
Literature
V. Doran (ed.), China’s New Art, Post 1989, Hong Kong, 1989, p. 198; Elvehjem Museum of Art, ed., Three Installations by Xu Bing, Madison, 1991-1992, pp. 2, 10-17 (illustrated); H. Wu, “A ‘Ghost Rebellion: Notes on Xu Bing’s ‘Nonsense Writing’ and Other Works,” Public Culture 6, no. 2, Winter 1994, pp. 411-417; C. Clunas, Art in China, Oxford, 1997, pp. 220-221 (illustrated); Sonje Museum of Contemporary Art, In Between Limits, Seoul, 1997, pp. 72-73 (illustrated); S. Abe, “No Questions, No Answers: China and A Book from the Sky,” Modern Chinese Literary and Cultural Studies in the Age of Theory: Reimagining a Field, Volume 25 Number 3, Autumn 1998, pp. 169-192; M. Gao ed., Inside Out: New Chinese Art, San Francisco and New York, 1998-1999, p. 56 (illustrated); B. Erickson, “Evolving Meanings in Xu Bing’s Art: A Case Study of Transference,” chinese-art.com, Volume 1 Issue 4, 1999 (illustrated); J. Goodman, “Xu Bing at Jack Tilton and the New Museum,” Art in America, January 1999; E. Heartney, “Children of Mao and Coca-Cola,” Art in America, March 1999, p. 44; S. Abe, “Reading the Sky” in W. Yeh, Cross-Cultural Readings of Chineseness: Narratives, Images, and Interpretations of the 1990s, Berkeley, 2000, pp. 53-79; A. W. Lloyd, “Binding Together Cultures With Cords of Wit,” New York Times, June 18, 2000, p. 35 (illustrated); R. Thorp and R. E. Vinograd, Chinese Art & Culture, New York, 2001, p. 413-414 (illustrated); H. Lu, An Analysis of Conceptual Art 1979 – 1999, Hubei, 2001, p. 11 (illustrated); N. Eickel, ed., The Art of Xu Bing: Words without Meaning, Meaning without Words, Washington D.C., 2001, p. 33-57 (illustrated); H. Cotter, “Calligraphy, Cavorting Pigs and Other Body-Mind Happenings,” New York Times, January 25, 2002 (illustrated); H. Hou, On the Mid-Ground, Hong Kong, 2002, p. 41 (illustrated); M. Koppel-Yang, Semiotic Warfare: The Chinese Avant-Garde, 1979-89, A Semiotic Analysis, Beijing, 2002, p. 3 (illustrated); Centre Pompidou, ed., Alors, La Chine?, Paris, 2003, p. 252 (illustrated); B. Xu, Xu Bing, Taipei, 2003, pp. 10-18 (illustrated); O. H. Ho, The Influence of the West on Chinese Modern Art, Chinese Cross-currents, July – September 2004, Volume 1 Number 3, p. 27 (illustrated); Z. Zhang, Xu Bing and Cai Guo-qiang: Where Heaven and Earth Meet, Beijing, 2005, pp. 6, 16-17 (illustrated); J. Silbergeld and D. Ching, eds., Persistence/Transformation: Text as Image in the Art of Xu Bing, Princeton, 2006, pp. 19-21, 25-57, 99-103 (illustrated)
Catalogue Essay
Xu Bing’s iconic installation Book From the Sky is arguably the artist’s most famous work. The entire work consists of an installation comprising books, scrolls, and paper, all printed with Xu’s imaginary, 4000-character language. Xu invented a vocabulary of four thousand 'false' Chinese characters inspired by Song Dynasty calligraphy and then painstakingly hand-cut each one onto wooden printing blocks. The characters are made up of Chinese-language radicals but are entirely imaginary and thus meaningless. Xu’s invented Chinese script, which required years of painstaking labor to complete, challenges and revolutionizes the history of Chinese calligraphy and language.

When Book from the Sky was first exhibited at the China Art Gallery in 1988, it drew both elated praise and official scorn. The highly influential curators Li Xianting and Gao Minglu re-exhibited the work as a centerpiece of the “New Wave” movement in their historic China/Avant Garde exhibition a year later. Critics believed the meaninglessness of this “bourgeois liberal” work concealed subversive intent. Yang Chengyin of the Ministry of Culture delivered a severe reprimand in the Wenyi newspaper, likening the piece's ambiguity to a character in an old Chinese folk tale who wanders aimlessly, searching for his way home like a “ghost pounding on walls.”

Upon Xu’s move to the United States in 1990, Book from the Sky received a markedly different reception. “Transferring the debate concerning Xu Bing’s work to the West has altered the works’ meanings in ways he could not have predicted. With Book from the Sky, the Western audience did not expect to be able to read the invented characters, and therefore missed the central experience of the Chinese audience in the frustrated impulse to read the language.” (B. Erickson, “Evolving Meanings in Xu Bing’s Art: A Case Study of Transference,” chinese-art.com, Volume 1 Issue 4, Spring 1999).
The artist reflects on his work:

“I began working on Book from the Sky at a time when I was constantly in a very anxious and confused mood… During (the Cultural Revolution) I read so much and participated in so many cultural activities that my mind was in a state of chaos. .. Looking back, the process of creating Book from the Sky helped to clear my head of these discomforts, but the work itself only created more confusion.

People have too many perspectives on Book from the Sky because the work itself is empty. The work does not present any clear message. I very seriously labored for years on something that says nothing… By being completely serious to the degree of earnestly believing the pretense as real, true absurdity emerges. I used every possible method to force people to believe in the legitimacy of the work, while at the same time extracting all content completely.” (B. Xu, “An Artist’s View,” in Persistence/Transformation, Princeton, 2006, pp. 99 and 103)

Xu Bing received the MacArthur Fellowship in 1999. He lives and works in Brooklyn.

510

Xu Bing

Book from the Sky

1987 – 1991
Four hand-made books of paper and ink and one wooden case.
Box: 19 3/8 x 3 3/4 x 13 1/8 in. (49.2 x 9.5 x 33.3 cm); Book: 18 x 11 3/4 x 3/4 in. (45.7 x 9.5 x 1.9 cm) each.
Signed “Xu Bing [in Chinese and English]” and numbered of 100 on the inside front cover of first book. This work is from an edition of 100.

Estimate
£35,000 - 45,000 ‡

China Avant-Garde: The Farber Collection

The Farber Collection
13 October 2007, 7pm
London

501
Wang Guangyi
Great Criticism – Warhol
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502
Chen Zhen
Un Village Sans Frontières (A Village Without Borders)
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503
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504
Yue Minjun
Terracotta Warriors No. 6
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505
Cai Guo-Qiang
Skybound UFO and Shrine
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506
Ai Weiwei
Slanted Table
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507
Zhang Xiaogang
Bloodline Series
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508
Wang Guangyi
Frozen Northern Wastelands Series - Big Dolls
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509
Wang Guangyi
Great Criticism: Coca-Cola
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510
Xu Bing
Book from the Sky
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511
Wang Guangyi
Mao AO
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512
Wang Guangyi
Post-Classical Series: Madonna & Child
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513
Wang Guangyi
Little Criticism: Fruit
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514
Liu Wei
No Smoking
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515
Wang Qingsong
Past, Present, Future
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516
Gu Wenda
Mythos of Lost Dynasties G8
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517
Geng Jianyi
The Second State: Big Red Double Happiness
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518
Zhang Peili
X?
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519
Zhang Peili
Continuous Reproduction 25 Times
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520
Zhou Xiaohu
Utopian Machine
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521
Zheng Guogu
Computer Controlled by Pig's Brain! Number 19
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522
Hong Hao
Selected Scriptures I: Drawing of a Revolutionary Modern Opera
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523
Huang Yong Ping
House of Oracles (study for installation)
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524
Yang Shaobin
Untitled (Head No.10)
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525
Zeng Fanzhi
Xiehe Hospital Series Triptych
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526
Zeng Fanzhi
Dusk No. 1
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527
Zeng Fanzhi
Artist and Model
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528
Zeng Fanzhi
Untitled
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529
Wang Qingsong
Can I Cooperate with You?
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530
Zhang Hongtu
Long Live Chairman Mao Series, #29
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531
Lin Tianmiao
Bound and Unbound (Teapots)
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532
He Sen
The Girl Biting her Hand
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533
Wang Jinsong
Modern Crowds
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534
Hai Bo
They No. 3
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535
Zhu Fadong
Person for Sale
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536
Zhuang Hui
Group Photograph of Military Officers and Soldiers, PLA Regiment 51410, Fourth Artillery Squadron, Hebei Province, Handan City, June 23, 1997
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537
Ma Yunfei
Zhuang Hui: Look Out! Don't Move
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538
Wang Jinsong
Parents
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539
Feng Zhengjie
Bubble No. 3
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540
He An
15 Reasons for Fashion: Hurt
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541
He An
15 Reasons for Fashion: Showoff
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542
Liu Rentao
Listless
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543
Zhang Dali
Dialogue
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544
Li Wen
Cut in Half
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545
Ye Yongqing
Untitled
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China Avant-Garde: The Farber Collection

The Farber Collection 13 October 2007, 7pm London

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Exhibited

Literature

Catalogue Essay

510

Xu Bing

Book from the Sky

China Avant-Garde: The Farber Collection

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The Farber Collection
13 October 2007, 7pm
London