A Book from the Sky
_by_Xu_Bing.jpg)
A Book from the Sky (simplified Chinese: 天书; traditional Chinese: 天書; pinyin: Tiānshū) is a book produced by Chinese artist Xu Bing in the style of fine editions from the Song and Ming dynasties, but filled entirely with meaningless glyphs designed to resemble traditional Chinese characters.[1] The book, which consists of four volumes totaling 604 pages, was printed in a single print run of 126 copies between 1987 and 1991,[2]: 61 and was first publicly exhibited in October 1988, in Beijing's China Art Gallery.[3]
The work was originally titled Mirror to Analyze the World: The Century’s Final Volume (simplified Chinese: 析世鉴－世纪末卷; traditional Chinese: 析世鍳－世紀末卷; pinyin: Xī shì jiàn—Shìjì mòjuàn), a title which "evokes the trope of the book as jian 鍳 or mirror in the venerable tradition of imperial historiography".[4]: 67 However, the artist eventually felt that this title was "cumbersome" and "heavily influenced by Western forms and the current cultural climate",[2]: 57 and decided to adopt the name that was already in popular use, Tianshu. In Chinese, the term tian shu (“divine writing”) originally referred to certain kinds of religious texts, but is now used to mean "gibberish"; it has thus been suggested that nonsense writing would be a more appropriate translation of the title.[5]
Production
The book is composed using a set of 4,000 characters, as this is roughly the number of characters in common usage in modern written Chinese. These characters were designed on the basis of the
The characters were carved into individual pieces of
Reactions
Critical reactions to A Book from the Sky were initially dismissive. In 1990, an article in a Beijing newspaper,[6] said to have been authored by an agent of the Ministry of Culture, described it as “ghosts building walls” (simplified Chinese: 鬼打墙; traditional Chinese: 鬼打牆; pinyin: guǐ dǎ qiáng), i.e., obfuscation for the sake of obfuscation.[5] Meanwhile, “New Wave” artists found it too “traditional and academic”.[2]: 63 Nevertheless, the 1988 exhibition of the book at the China Art Gallery attracted a broad audience that included not only artists, but also professors and editors, some of whom visited the exhibition repeatedly in an attempt to find even a single real Chinese character.[2]: 58 Later critics viewed the work more positively.[7]
A Book from the Sky is considered to be a representative of the “1985 Fine Arts New Wave” (
Notes
- ^ Two of the characters were later found by Charles Stone to coincide with attested Chinese characters; however, one of these was itself a 9th-century forgery Hung 1994
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Xu Bing (2009). "The Making of Book from the Sky". In Spears, Katherine (ed.). Tianshu: Passages in the Making of a Book. Translated by Drew Hammond. London: Quaritch. pp. 51–63.
- ^ Xu & Cayley 2009, p. 163.
- ^ a b Liu, Lydia H. (2009). "The Non-Book, or the Play of the Sign". In Spears, Katherine (ed.). Tianshu: Passages in the Making of a Book. London: Quaritch. pp. 65–79.
- ^ a b c Hung 1994
- ^ Yang Chengyin (June 2, 1990). "An Essential Critique of 'New Wave' Art". Literature and Art Newspaper.
- ^ Xu & Cayley 2009.
- ^ Cayley, John (2009). "His Books". In Spears, Katherine (ed.). Tianshu: Passages in the Making of a Book. London: Quaritch. pp. 1–37.
References
- Xu, Bing; Cayley, John (2009). Spears, Katherine (ed.). Tianshu: Passages in the Making of a Book. Bernard Quaritch Limited. ISBN 978-0955085291.
- Hung, Wu (1994). "A 'Ghost Rebellion': Notes on Xu Bing's 'Nonsense Writing' and Other Works". Public Culture. 6 (2): 411–418. .