From 65438 to 0984, Bing Xu obtained a master's degree from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, during which he read many books. He said: "In the 1980s, I read many books and participated in many cultural discussions. I feel sick, just like a hungry person eating too much. At this time, I became disgusted with the so-called culture. Cultural discussion is like a game machine. You can't stop when you get on it. Finally, the original clear things are also confused. This thing called' culture' always has an inappropriate relationship with us. At that time, I felt that I had to publish my own book to express this feeling. "

From 65438 to 0987, Bing Xu began to carve his own works of more than 4,000 words with unique patience and skills in a room of more than 0/0 square meters in the Central Academy of Fine Arts. None of these words are readable, that is, they are meaningless. When these words are printed by block printing and bound into thread-bound books, they show their modernity-they are meaningless in a serious and solemn form, and these particularly decent "pseudo-words" have no communication function at all. This is Bing Xu's famous book "An Analysis of the World-A Book of Heaven".

This work has been the object of heated discussion since it was first exhibited in 1988. It is said that an old gentleman in the Commercial Press read it, but he couldn't recognize a word. "This made him very angry." . Readers who are experienced in modern art say, "This work is a warning to his cultural dependence." Bing Xu himself commented on gobbledygook, saying, "This is a book that attracts you to read, but at the same time refuses you to enter. It has the appearance of the most complete book. It is complete because it says nothing, just like a person has done a meaningless thing seriously and seriously for several years. " The gobbledygook is full of contradictions.

Try to transfer the three-dimensional object to the two-dimensional plane, so that the printed matter is no longer limited by the plate or size.

-The ghost hit the wall

Bing Xu described this work based on the Great Wall as follows: "I was born in printmaking, and I always wanted to try to transfer three-dimensional objects to two-dimensional planes, so as to gain a brand-new concept of transformation, so that printmaking is no longer limited by edition or size. 1990 In March, I worked hard on the Jinshanling Great Wall with some classmates, friends and a dozen farmers for nearly a month. Completed the outdoor rubbing work of this hand-made print that can be said to be the largest in the world (of course, size is not the key to art). I have been addicted to it for many times. A truck of rubbings was transported back to the Academy of Fine Arts from the mountain. Went to America in July, 1990. In order to prepare for an exhibition, this pile of semi-finished products was also transported there. In a big workshop, I worked with several assistants for more than half a year, splicing and mounting. The first exhibition is in the Avram Museum in America. The appearance of this thing shocked the conservative American printmaking community. I have never seen such a large and special printing. "

Starting with graphic symbols, we seek the ideal of universal communication.

-The Book of the Earth

Contrary to gobbledygook, gobbledygook is a book that everyone can read. Bing Xu said, "The two books look completely different, but they have something in common. No matter what language you speak or whether you are educated or not, they treat everyone in the world equally. " "gobbledygook" expresses my regret for the existing words; And the earth book expresses the ideal I have been looking for. "

The Book of the Earth was inspired by airports and airplane cabins. Bing Xu noticed that airport signs and airline safety instructions are designed with very simple graphics, which can basically convey complex contents to passengers who speak different languages without language, which is equivalent to an "international reader". Starting from 1999, Bing Xu began to collect and sort out various signs from all over the world, and soon collected tens of thousands of graphic signs. Bing Xu hopes that "Dishu" is an open work. He plans to build a website for "Dishu", in which everyone can participate and add their own figures and characters. But he also believes that writing has been established: "all I do is collect and sort out, and I don't want to make up a set of writing myself."

If the judgment of morality and interests is too strong, we can't see the truth and value of matter.

Tobacco plan

The tobacco project started in Durham, USA in 2000, and continued to Shanghai, China in 2004. It consists of a series of tobacco-related works. For example, a big book printed with tobacco leaves was eaten into a pile of bread crumbs by tobacco bugs in the exhibition; A 10-meter-long cigarette slowly burns on the riverside scene during the Qingming Festival, leaving traces on the long scroll. In the old tobacco warehouse at Huangpu River pier, a large device is made of neon lights and clouds. The huge tiger skin carpet made of countless cigarettes exudes a strong smell of tobacco ... The whole plan constitutes an in-depth exploration of the complex relationship between people and tobacco, as well as related topics such as history and reality, international capital, cultural infiltration and labor market triggered by tobacco.

Bing Xu said: "Only when smoke is regarded as an attribute-free substance can the tentacles of thinking expand infinitely and rare things be discovered. If you always have a strong moral and interest judgment, you will not see the truth and value of these materials. In fact, artists don't need to worry about the correlation between artistic works and social content at all, let alone tobacco, which solves this relationship itself. "

9. 1 1 Dust and warning of the event

-Where's the dust?

This work was first exhibited at the National Museum of Wales in 2004. Bing Xu blew the dust collected in September 1 1 into the exhibition. Twenty-four hours later, the poem of the sixth ancestor Huineng was displayed on the floor of the exhibition hall: "There was nothing, where did the dust come from?" There is a set of photos at the entrance of the exhibition hall, describing the process of the author bringing dust from new york to Wales. The exhibition hall is covered with frost-like gray dust, which has a quiet and solemn beauty, but it gives people a deep tingling and nervous and fragile feeling. Even a breeze can change the status quo.

Bing Xu said: "Dust is the most basic and constant state of matter, and nothing can be changed. Why did the World Trade Center suddenly turn to the ground and return to the original form of matter once it lost its balance? Because there are too many people who shouldn't be gathered on it. The cause of such incidents is often due to the imbalance of political relations, but the root cause is the violation of natural forms. So 9. 1 1 is a warning to human nature. "

To break the boundaries of art, it is useless to consider the problem only from the angle of art.

-Mullin Sen Project

In 2005, the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art and three other institutions jointly initiated and planned a project to raise awareness of protecting natural and cultural heritage. As one of the eight invited artists, Bing Xu chose Kenya in East Africa and designed a plan for Kenya to raise funds to restore forest greening. That is, Kenyan children are invited to create and combine pictures of "trees" with characters and symbols invented by human ancestors according to the method in the textbook compiled by Bing Xu for this project, and then they are auctioned and purchased online at the price of 30 dollars each through the Internet and art galleries, and the proceeds are used for afforestation in Kenya. Two dollars can only buy a subway ticket in the United States, but you can plant 10 trees in Kenya. At the same time, everyone involved in the plan has their own gains. In Bing Xu's view, this is the reason why Mulin Sen can be circulated for a long time. In 2008, after his second trip to Kenya, he copied and combined the trees painted by children into a large forest landscape painting.

"Mulinsen" project cannot be simply defined in any artistic way, such as installation, painting, sculpture or behavior. Some people say that "disappearing" works have become public participation projects, and artistic boundaries have been broken. Others regard it as a social project that integrates environmental protection, education, art and many other contents. Bing Xu said: "If an artist only considers the problem from the angle of art, I think he is definitely not a promising artist."