Introduction to new English calligraphy 1994-96
Installation comprising mixed media/class room, study materials, monitor
Dimensions variable
Collection: The artist

Silk worm project 1998-99
Installation comprising pedestal, table cloth, vase, mulberry branches, 500 silk worms
Dimensions variable, components:
Pedestal: 150cm high
Vase: 127cm high
Collection: The artist

New English calligraphy signage 1999
Installation comprising internal and external Gallery signage in 'New English calligraphy' text
Dimensions variable
Collection: The artist

Xu Bing’s large-scale banner presents the exhibition title in New English Calligraphy – a style of calligraphy created by the artist, using the English language. While at first the marks appear to be Chinese characters, upon closer examination English letters can be discerned within the calligraphic forms. Xu Bing has developed this form of calligraphy over the last three years, presenting it in a number of permutations. His works explore the linguistic and semiotic components of language in relation to artistic practice and cultural identity. Visitors to APT3 are invited to learn Xu Bing’s invented calligraphy in his classroom installation, New English calligraphy classroom (located in Gallery 3), where students’ works will be exhibited alongside work by the artist.

A self-statement of my script:

My greatest enjoyment is staying at home, writing in my own script and reading calligraphy copybooks by previous calligraphers. If it were not for those frequent exhibitions I have to cope with, I would live my life like a calligrapher, just writing and receiving people who knock at my door to ask for my script. Indeed, since I started writing these strange but recognizable English alphabets, more and more people have approached me for my script. Apart from writing as calligraphy art works, I have been invited to write signs for organizations, titles for books, picture albums and exhibitions, even advertisements. I feel these phenomena particularly interesting because in the West there was no such a concept as "ti zi", meaning inviting famous or important people to write titles of books or signs of buildings for commemoration.

As in recent years I have 'borrowed' treasured places such as art galleries and TV stations to impart my new English alphabet calligraphy to local people, I frequently receive letters written in this calligraphy or letters telling me what they have written and learned their calligraphy drills. My friends tell me that I am almost running a correspondence course. I tell them this is exactly what is supposed to be like. Art is for the masses. It comes from everyday life, goes beyond everyday life and should return to everyday life. This is Mao Zedong's viewpoints. It is also the view of art I was first taught. Today I still believe it is reasonable. It is particularly true when we think of the drawbacks and defects of contemporary art at present. Nowadays there are too many contemporary art works which are standard, perfectly made, but incomprehensible to people. I think there is no need for me to do any works of this kind. I hope my works are friendly and approachable, are beneficial to society and unique. I hope my works will help people to accept their extraordinary inner elements in an ordinary and gentle way.

In a sense I prefer to say that my creation of new English alphabet calligraphy is a font designer designing new fonts for the English alphabet, as well as an educator universalizing education. This is the most interesting part of these works. You might say that I have deviated from the realm of contemporary art. But I feel I am looking for a way out for this seemingly boring realm. Perhaps the farther I deviate from a system, the closer I am to the true objectives of art.

To work out a liable rule for a new font system so that every single letter is arranged beautifully, conforming to the standard and easy to understand, it needs not only new ideas, but also down-to-earth work. This is because our predecessors did not leave us any copybooks of such calligraphy such as 'Lan Ting Xu' or 'Duo Bao Ta' for us to refer to. Last year, during a session at Taipei Biennial I was criticized by an elderly gentleman. He said, 'That calligrapher's handwriting is so ugly. How could it be put on for exhibition?' I think this is because he was not used to my way of writing yet as there is no copybook script there to compare. Then I told him jokingly that after years of practice, so far I am the one who writes the best in that script in the world, but in the future, there will be people who write better than me and there will be many people who write in that script.

'Illegible Writing', which was completed over ten years ago, and 'New English Alphabet Calligraphy' are like brothers with the same father but different mothers. They look similar, but completely different. Every letter in 'Illegible Writing' is a face familiar to us, but we can't tell its name. They treat everyone equally without any "cultural discrimination" because no one, including myself, understands them. Strictly speaking, we can't call them "writing" or "script". They have the most ordinary and normal appearance of "writing", but they do not have the essence of writing, which is conveying messages through meanings of words. 'New English Alphabet Calligraphy' is real writing. But they have been disguised. Their inside and outside are not at all in agreement. Their appearances are Eastern from head to foot but their contents are out-and-out Western. Their outward appearances and essence are against each other, which makes us difficult to decide their identity. They look familiar but strange; they are strange but look familiar. When we are writing them we cannot tell which language we are writing.

This "writing" with a mask and these words which cannot be called words are like computer viruses. They cause effects in our mind. They break our innate and familiar thinking models. They create obstacles to connection and expression. Familiarized concepts and models result from laziness. Sometimes they need to be destroyed and reconstructed so that more spaces which have never been touched will be opened, so that we can find the origin of our mind and cognition.

Xu Bing