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Lost Letters
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Details
- Associated place
- Date
- 1997
- Artist/maker
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Xu Bing (born 1955) (printmaker)
- Material and technique
- multi-block woodcut, printed with oil-based ink
- Dimensions
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sheet 61 x 86 cm (height x width)
print 16 x 59 cm (height x width)
- Material index
- Technique index
- Object type index
- No. of items
- 1
- Credit line
- Purchased, 2007.
- Accession no.
- EA2007.100
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Further reading
Weimin He, and Shelagh Vainker, Chinese Prints 1950-2006 in the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2007), no. 99 on p. 110, p. xiv, illus. p. 110
Location
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- currently in research collection
Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.
Publications online
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Chinese Prints 1950-2006 in the Ashmolean Museum
'Lost Letters' reflects my interest in the markings of the past, relating not only to historical memory but also to my own personal memories and experiences.
Xu Bing grew up in Beijing and graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing in 1981, staying at the Academy as a teacher following his graduation. In 1987 he received a Master’s degree from the Academy and in 1990 he settled in the United States and now he is based in New York. He was internationally acclaimed for his installation Book from the Sky, in which he invented 4,000 unintelligible characters and hand-cut them into wood blocks, then used them as movable type to print volumes and scrolls. His work uses a wide range of media and often questions the idea of communicating meaning through language. He received a MacArthur Foundation ‘Genius’ award in 1999 for his achievement in art.
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