Xu Bing: Book from the Sky to Book from the Ground

"The written word is the most basic element of human culture. To touch the written word is to touch the essence of culture." - Xu Bing





Book from the Sky certainly seemed to have fallen from the heavens: the text of this installation piece was written in a new language that resembled traditional Chinese. No matter who scours Xu Bing's book for 'meaning', they will only discover a semblance of it: mutated characters that resist interpretation. Carving out approximately four thousand wood ...