Even with the wealth of art coming out of China this century, historians are determined not to forget the cultural output of the 20th. In this vein the digital book publisher Mapp Editions has launched 'Passages in the Making of a Book', a chronicle of one of China's most important contemporary art installations: 'Tian shu (Book from the Sky)' by the artist Xu Bing.
Xu Bing's original artwork was a sensation when it was unveiled in 1988. Having painstakingly designed 4,000 characters that resembled Chinese script but were in fact devoid of any meaning, the artist hand-printed reams of unintelligible text, which hung from the walls and rafters of the National Art Museum of China in Beijing. The clever wordplay drew attention to China's troubled relationship with the written word and the subversion of vital texts by the authorities.
The newly launched ebook seeks to celebrate Xu Bing's feat and discuss its continued relevance. Images of the epic work and the original hand-carved wood printing plates are interspersed with essays by a handful of art scholars, who offer their revelations, plus observations from the artist himself. In Xu Bing's own commentary he writes of spending 'four years of my life making something that says nothing' and describes his artistic process of printing a Song-style book using moveable type.
Though rare-book publisher Bernard Quaritch printed a version of 'Passages in the Making of a Book' in 2009, Mapp's new digital version is the most comprehensive text to date, with searchable text, a character dictionary and zoom functions on the intricate images.
A printed version was published in 2009 by rare-book publisher Bernard Quaritch
But the digital version has supplemental tables of Chinese characters and their corresponding Roman sounds
Plates from the original artwork
The digital contents pages
Xu Bing assembling the rubbings taken from a section of the Great Wall of China, 1991
Mapp's new digital version is the most comprehensive text to date, with searchable text, a character dictionary and zoom functions on the intricate images
A spread from Bernard Quaritch's printed version detailing some of the original content from Xu Bing's 'Tian shu (Book from the Sky)'
Xu Bing's installation in three parts is seen clearly in this 1991 installation view of 'Tian Shu' at the Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Xu Bing's notes from 1987 at left, and images from the installations in China (1988) and Canada (1998)
Original bound copies of the 'unreadable books'. Quaritch
A blue plate from the original artwork is featured in the Mapp Editions ebook
A spread from the book detailing the process of collating and binding leaves of Book from the Sky at Hanying village, 1989
An installation detail from the work on show at Madrid's Reina Sofia in 1994
'Passages in the Making of a Book' essentially celebrates Xu Bing's feat and discusses its continued relevance
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