At other times the random mixing of words regained a kind of normalcy and coherence. Art Since 1945 Midterm 104 Terms. 1955). “Tobacco Project” is an extended project that collects and organizes materials related to tobacco that cannot be easily defined as art or sociology. After settling in the United States … The artist attempts to experiment with the relation between avant-garde literature and visual art. Art historical scholarship depends greatly on the broad experience, intuitive judgment, and critical sensitivity of the scholar in making correct attributions . Xu Bing is interested in reflecting on the problems and weaknesses of humanity by exploring the long and entangled relationship between humans and tobacco. Mixed-media installation. The Art of Travel. When Xu Bing began making artwork while living in the West, he discovered that the work of the contemporary artist was not unlike scientific discovery—they both require originality and must benefit humanity. The epithet was hurled at Xu Bing by viewers who found Book of the Sky incomprehensible. Xu Bing is a contemporary Chinese installation artist and one of China’s best-known creative figures. This installation is comprised of 300 specially printed and bound volumes titled “Post Testament.” The content of the books is a strange, hybrid text. The characters that have been chosen are such that, when pronounced, render sounds equivalent to the Roman letter they represent. Saved by PBS. In the work, Xu Bing references the fine whitish-grey film that covered downtown New York in the weeks following 9-11, and recreates a field of dust across the gallery floor that is punctuated by the outline of a Zen Buddhist poem, revealed as if the letters have been removed from under the layer: In the work Xu Bing discusses the relationship between the material world and the spiritual world, exploring the complicated circumstances created by different world perspectives. 48-98; AP® Art History (vol. This activity may begin with a becoming logic, but ultimately it leaves its subject, transliterated language, virtually meaningless and almost ridiculous. Arriving at the last screen, the characters reassemble into ordinary English script, revealing a text-book conversation beginning with the phrase ''Excuse me sir, can you tell me how to get to the Asia Society? During the same period, Xu personally carved (in reverse) the pear-wood type from which he eventually hand-printed his «Tianshu» or «Book from the Sky». The number of artists we already analyze is quite large, please narrow your search via the options in the "Select Artist Criteria" button. the installation of the work. The colorful, shimmering imagery of the installation imparts a magical, fairy-tale like quality. When at last they touched the moon, it vanished in the ripples of the water. No matter who scours Xu Bing's book for 'meaning', they will only discover a semblance of it: mutated characters that resist interpretation. A book without words, recounting a day in the life of an office worker, told completely in the symbols, icons, and logos of modern life. Experienced within the specific environs of the so-called ''Asia Society New York,'' Xu's work plays with the concept ''I am within you, you are within me'' - the same concept explored in his ''English Square Word Calligraphy. As Xu Bing has noted, the false characters “seem to upset intellectuals,” inspiring doubt in received systems of knowledge. and3wn. As people attempt to recognize and write these words, some of the thinking patterns that have been ingrained in them since they learned to read are challenged. 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