At the visa office of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, there is a work of art called "Monkey Fishing moon". The word "monkey" in 21 languages, in tandem with each other, hangs from a height of 30 meters and extends to the surface of a pool. This work tells the story of the collaborative process of human beings of different civilizations, as if it were a fable of the Tower of Babel in a new era. People come to the visa office with the purpose of international exchange, stopping in front of the work in between waiting. With the ups and downs of the world situation, this work also reflects different meanings in different eras.
Today, "Monkey Fishing Moon" has come to the exhibition hall of Pudong Art Museum, and together with more than 70 other works, it has formed a large-scale research solo exhibition of "Xu Bing's Language".
Xu Bing is a master of inventing language and writing, from "Heavenly Book", "English Square Characters" to "Earth Book", he takes the deconstruction and construction of words as the concept, and grafts different cultures, which not only shows the ideal of universal tongwen, but also a verification of the culture and ideas represented behind the text. From the perspective of art, he explores the significance and value of Chinese culture in a new international context. He also pays close attention to the cold and warm situation of the times, and uses it as an nourishment for his artistic creation. This exhibition is a comprehensive review of his 40-year artistic career.
Artist who invented language
As early as 1987, Xu Bing, who had just received a master's degree from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, spent four years to create more than 4,000 "pseudo-Chinese characters" with reference to the characteristics of Chinese glyph structure. He used movable type printing to produce books similar to song editions and tens of meters long volumes. In a serious, solemn form, it has no meaning, showing a real absurdity. These "pseudo-scripts" with no communication function at all have become Xu Bing's famous works. "The Book of Heaven expresses my regret for the existing text." Artists used to say this.
Xu Bing then moved to the United States, and at first he felt very misaligned in the use of written language, "Your thinking is adult, but your expression ability is like that of a kindergarten child." In between the two languages, the artist began to generate new thoughts. He staggered every word of the biblical text with the text of the contemporary novel to form a kind of literary and visual experiment (the Book of the Later Testament); he translated a Chinese text into English, French, Russian, German, Spanish, Japanese, and Thai, and then back to Chinese ("Transliteration"),until the "English Square Words", Xu Bing formed a unique "cultural grafting" method.
"English square character" is a new form of writing that resembles Chinese and is actually English. Unlike the "pseudo-script" of the Book of Heaven, it is a "real script" that can be read. Xu Bing interweaved the art of Chinese calligraphy with alphabet writing to derive a new concept of written language. The audience's blockage, doubt, and confusion in reading are relieved in the work by means of a brain teaser-like epiphany.
"When I was in the United States, one of the things I didn't like about contemporary art was that I was too far away from the general audience." Xu Bing said in an interview with First Financial Economics that he has done some interactive works. In the "English Square Character Classroom", the audience can directly participate in the study and practice of English square character calligraphy. Through the "English Square Character Textbook", he introduced this new form of writing to all over the world. This is a familiar and unfamiliar way of transforming, to some extent ," reconciling" the differences between Eastern and Western scripts.
Since the 1990s, Xu Bing has frequently traveled to and from different cities around the world, and he has begun to pay attention to the signs of various airports and airline instructions. In order to be understood by people with different cultural backgrounds and language habits, these instruction manuals are usually based on reading pictures, and simple images illustrate complex things. In 2003, he suddenly realized that he could tell a long story with these logos alone, and the Book of The Earth was born. This set of "hieroglyphs" of the contemporary world transcends regional culture and any knowledge structure, no matter what cultural background or language is spoken, as long as you have contemporary life experience, you can read it. As a novel book that does not require translation, "Book of The Land" has been published and distributed in many countries, Xu Bing keenly captures the value and future of image text and network communication methods, and explores the possibility of communication in addition to traditional languages. In a way, it fulfills the ideal of universal humanity and is also a response to the Tower of Babel problem reflected in "Monkey Fishing moon".
"Words are the most basic element of cultural concepts, touching words is touching the root of culture, and transforming words is transforming the most essential part of human thinking." In Xu Bing's view, the inextricable relationship between Chinese characters and graphics has always affected the way of thinking, cultural personality, and attitude of seeing the world in Chinese, and even the appearance of China today. "In the complex coding system of the world's characters, in the unique characteristics of Chinese characters, what else has yet to be discovered and played a role in the construction of human civilization?" This has always been a topic of interest to me. ”
He often has a sense of strangeness: "We who are entering the cyber and space age are still communicating using pictorial ancient symbols, it is like living in a crossing." In this respect, we are fortunate and special, and my art is guided by it in the dark. ”
Deconstruct Chinese cultural traditions
At the time of 9/11, Xu Bing was in New York, witnessing the entire lower Manhattan being covered in gray-white powder. He silently collected some dust, not knowing what to do at the time, "just thinking that it contained information about life, about an event." It wasn't until two years later that he read Huineng's words and remembered the dust again. The artist sprinkles dust in the exhibition hall, and when the dust sinks to the ground, where it is not covered by dust, it reveals this saying: "There is nothing in the original, where there is dust." ”
This work is not about the special event itself, but about the relationship between spiritual space and matter. What exactly is eternity? What is true power? When this work is exhibited all over the world, every time the dust is recycled, it also brings local spatio-temporal genes, and the dust is still dust, but it is not only the original bag of dust.
Using the Zen language of the East, Xu Bing's art is understood and disseminated around the world. He also realized that many of the most well-known artists in the West, Duchamp, John Cage, and Andy Warhol, applied the wisdom of Zen to their own artistic creations, subverting the ideas and traditions of Western art with the help of Eastern wisdom.
Xu Bing has repeatedly returned to Chinese culture to seek nourishment, using it as the source of her own artistic creation. In this process, he has always focused on the connotation and essence behind Chinese culture, and is committed to exploring its significance and value in the contemporary world.
On the third floor of the exhibition, there is an exhibition hall area with a strong oriental artistic conception, and the long-scroll aesthetic form is presented in a way that is both traditional and contemporary. After the viewer stops to appreciate the beautiful meaning of the long scroll of calligraphy and painting, turn to the back, and find that this is the effect of Chinese painting by using dry plants, newspapers, plastic bags and other waste behind the rice paper glass, by adjusting the situation of light in the space. What the viewer sees is actually a picture made of light.
"The Story Behind" is not only a spectacle of showmanship, but through this series of creations, the artist leads to the reflection on the special relationship between Chinese landscape painting and nature: a stone represents a mountain, which means all mountains; a branch represents a tree, which means a type of tree. The difference between the techniques of Eastern and Western art and nature is the difference between the cognitive attitudes of the "individual" and "universal" nature of things. In addition, works such as "Mustard Garden Landscape Scroll", "Character Sketching", and "The Character of Chinese Characters" are also deconstructions and analyses of traditional Chinese paintings and calligraphy and characters, respectively.
Xu Bing realized that "symbolism" and "stylization" are the core characteristics of Chinese art. Like calligraphy, the Qing Dynasty's "Mustard Garden Painting Biography" can be said to be a symbol depicting everything in the world and a "dictionary" with partial radicals, and those who learn to paint can express their personal tastes under the premise of following the paradigm, just like the dictionary in poetry. It can be seen from this that in fact, "copy culture" is an important part of Chinese culture. Any tradition must be activated to be easy to use, and the essence of China's ideological methods, cultural attitudes, and world outlook can become nourishment for the progress and development of our thinking logic.
Construct a closed loop of art
While immersed in tradition, Xu Bing also always maintains his attention to the times and reality. In 2008, he returned to China as vice president and professor of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, and immediately created his first large-scale installation "Phoenix" after returning to China.
The first time Xu Bing stepped into the construction site of Beijing's CBD, she was deeply attracted by the original and crude beauty of construction waste and the truth behind high-rise buildings. When he was commissioned to create a work of art for the upcoming mansion to hang in the splendid lobby, he thought of making a giant phoenix out of these building scraps. In his vision, the huge mechanical phoenix with a rough and primitive atmosphere will form a strong contrast with the refinement of modernization and the light of capital, reflecting the reality behind prosperity.
"I want it to be romantic, beautiful, and at the same time fierce, divine, weird and at the same time very realistic. It dresses itself up with a very low material, makes itself dignified, and carries a scarred feeling, which is the touching point of "Phoenix". ”
However, under the financial crisis, "Phoenix" suffered difficult childbirth, and after two years, it appeared at the Shanghai World Expo in 2010 and landed at the Venice Biennale in 2015. "Phoenix" stems from the reflection on urbanization, new workers and capital accumulation, and reflects different meanings as it travels around the world.
In recent years, Xu Bing has begun to make movies. He realized that the ubiquity of surveillance cameras made the world a huge studio. So, he used the material of the surveillance camera to complete an 81-minute feature film with no cinematographer and no actors. "Dragonfly Eye" superficially imitates the plot blockbuster, but the core is to find a working method that matches contemporary civilization.
Today, the rapid development of artificial intelligence, bioengineering and space technology and other fields has made the existing civilization of mankind face a dilemma that is difficult to deal with; on the other hand, the sudden outbreak of the new crown epidemic has made the world experience an unexpected turn. In such an environment, where is the foothold of art? In this regard, Xu Bing never stopped thinking.
When the epidemic came, Xu Bing told First Finance and Economics that he had been sealed in the New York studio for a long time, and for the first time he had the opportunity to calm down, face trivial life, and pay attention to the trees in the yard. In this life, he realized that human beings were too arrogant, "we are just one link in the biological chain." ”
Back in China, he began to create non-stop. In February 2021, a rocket called "Xu Bingtianshu" was launched. The launch failed. A sub-level arrow body fell back to the ground, leaving behind a "crater". This failed launch has brought artists more thinking, "The tentacles of art extend to outer space, in fact, it is still the solution to the earth, and the exploration is still the limitations of man." ”
In the process of more than 40 years of creation, Xu Bing has always maintained a high degree of sensitivity to the era in which he lives, and his works are closely related to the social scene. "In the final analysis, art means that artists have their own words to say in the face of the times, and in order to say them in place and have feelings, they must find new ways of speaking." In his view, what the artist does in his life is actually to build a "closed loop" of his own art, so that each work is complementary and supportive to each other; the old work is a commentary on the new work, and the new work is a rediscovery of the old work.
"I often remind myself that with the change of the times, this 'closed loop' will always reveal a gap, and more effective 'materials' need to be found to make up for it." In this way, artistic creation is a continuous growth thing. ”
CBN: "Monkey Fishing Moon" is a work that is loaned to the visa office of the U.S. Embassy, what do you think is the meaning of the work in that environment?
Xu Bing: The U.S. Department of Foreign Affairs has an arts office that specializes in cultural projects for U.S. embassies around the world. At that time (2008), it was the honeymoon period between China and the United States, and I did a project at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., called "Purple Gas Coming East". At the same time, at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, they also invited some of the more important artists to participate in art projects. They learned about "Monkey Fishing moon" and wanted me to lend it to them.
Originally created at the end of the last century in a special space at the Sackler Museum of Art in Washington, D.C., this work is composed of the word "monkey" in 21 different languages, and it explores how our different civilizations work together. "Monkey Fishing Moon" itself has its own meaning, and in different eras, it will also inspire new meanings. Especially now that the conflict of values is becoming more and more intense, we should think more about how human beings work together.
The piece was lent to the U.S. Embassy for 15 years and hung at their visa office. I think this is also very good, there are thousands of people waiting for visas every day, waiting for nothing to do, they will be there to see, how each word is going, it is still very meaningful.
CBN: In the central exhibition hall of the Pudong Art Museum, you will create a piece of "The Gravitational Force of Civilization" next April, can you introduce your ideas? Now this space is Cai Guoqiang's work, how do you see his work?
Xu Bing: Cai Guoqiang and I often do exhibitions together around the world, and this time we overlap here, which I think is very good. His work is very different from my style, but both have one thing in common: there is a special affinity for the general public, a means of welcoming everyone in.
The central exhibition hall is a special space, from the first floor to the fourth floor, which can be seen from each floor. Because of this particularity, I designed a work called "The Gravitational Force of Civilization.". In the form of English square characters, a passage from Heidegger was transcribed to explore this entanglement between civilizations, because there are different judgments about the world because of the different perspectives of looking at things.
This passage cannot be seen from below, because it is stretched. As space rises, this information becomes more accurate and clear. Go to the top floor and look back, and you will find that this is actually a Heidegger text, which is presented in the form of English square words. I haven't used this technique before, and it's still very interesting.
CBN: There is also an English square character classroom in this exhibition, can the audience also go in to learn?
Xu Bing: When I was in the United States, one of the problems I didn't like about contemporary art was that it was too far away from the general audience, so I did some interactive works. At the Pudong Art Museum, the audience can also participate, they can go in and write. There is also a teaching documentary that the audience can learn on their own.
In this process, let alone adults and children, I think it will really have an effect on their thinking. On the surface, although it is traditional calligraphy, here, our traditional cultural concepts begin to work, and they will be intercepted and challenged. Because our thinking is lazy, you can't judge such calligraphy by the concept of what you are in English and what your Chinese is. Without a ready-made concept, you have to find a new point of support for thinking, and that's when art comes into effect.
CBN: The world has undergone many changes in the past two years, and now it is equivalent to entering the post-epidemic era. In the process, do you have some new ideas, or artistic plans?
Xu Bing: Because the epidemic is happening, it is a little too close. But its impact on humanity was so great that it was many times greater than 9/11, and it changed the way we humans survive. How art can cope with such an event, I think is not a simple matter.
I was actually locked up in my New York studio for a long time and couldn't do anything. At that time, everyone didn't know how powerful this thing really was, it was all this trivial life, with family, I think it's good, you can really have a very quiet period of time, real life.
We have a small yard with a lot of trees, and because of the epidemic, we really have the time and energy to pay attention to these trees. In the past, no one had cleaned up this yard at all, because it was busy to death. When you really pay attention to these trees, you find that even this tree is remarkable. The channels through which they communicate with each other, their neural networks, the way they transmit information, the way they protect themselves, and after doing some research, I find that these trees are really remarkable.
At that time, I began to realize that human beings were too arrogant and thought that the world was human-centered, but that we were just one link in the biological chain. These are all reflections in the midst of the pandemic.
I also found out later that this coronavirus is quite similar to the nature of contemporary art. Coronavirus forces humans to develop rapidly biologically, and in order to survive, the coronavirus also mutates, becomes stronger or weaker, and finally coexists with humans. Contemporary art is also the same, it invests in the cultural ecology something that did not exist in the past, and it is a process of loosening the order and knowledge. In order to survive, in order to adapt to the cultural ecology, in the end it has to mutate. No matter how great the artist's stuff is, over time it becomes popular art, and finally it becomes service art.