XU BING 徐冰
EXPO Chicago 2026 | April 9 – 12, 2026
QUALIA CONTEMPORARY ART
XU BING 徐冰
b.1955, Chongqing, China
Lives and works in Beijing and New York
Historically, calligraphy transforms writing into art, a visual discipline in which meaning is inseparable from brushwork, gesture, and form. Xu Bing’s Square Word Calligraphy unsettles that tradition by shifting attention away from immediate comprehension and toward the visual authority of script itself. This long-running series transforms English words into square configurations that resemble Chinese characters, producing a script that first appears illegible but gradually eveals itself as perfectly legible English. In doing so, Xu estranges both languages at once.
That tension between visual authority and unreadability runs throughout Xu Bing’s practice. He first came to intenational prominence with Book from the Sky (1987–91), a monumental installation composed of thousands of meticulously invented Chinese characters that appear authoritative but cannot be read.
Across his work, Xu returns again and again to systems of language, reading, and translation, treating them as structures that shape how meaning is produced and understood. The result is a practice that stages cultural translation itself, guiding the viewer through confusion, recognition, and finally the pleasue of meaning.
XU BING 徐冰
英文方块字书法:抄赵孟頫语录
Copying Zhao Mengfu's Quotes, 2025
Ink on xuan paper
34 x 61.5 in | 86.4 x 156.2 cm
XU BING 徐冰
英文方块字书法:幸福取决于我们自己
Square Word Calligraphy: Happiness depends upon ourselves, 2025
Ink on paper
15 x 38 3/8 in | 38 x 97.5 cm
XU BING 徐冰
英文方块字书法:卓越不是一种行为,而是一种习惯
Square Word Calligraphy: Excellence is not an act, but a habit, 2025
Ink on paper
15 x 38 3/8 in | 38 x 97.5 cm
XU BING 徐冰
英文方块字书法:每一股风都是 Al 不可企及的
Square Word Calligraphy: Every breath of wind is beyond Al’s reach, 2025
Ink on paper
6 5/8 x 38 1/4 in | 16.8 x 97.3 cm
– Oct 18,
Installation View: At Ease With Hand and Mind (On view Jul 27
2025) | Photo by Glen Cheriton
XU BING
b. 1955 in Chongqing; Lives and works in Beijing and NYC
Selected Public Collections
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, USA
British Museum, London, UK
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ, USA
National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA, USA
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH, USA
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada
National Gallery Prague, Prague, Czech Republic Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2025
Xu Bing in Hong Kong: Square Word Calligraphy, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong 2024
Where There is a Question, There is __, Chengdu Art Museum, Chengdu, China
Xu Bing: Art Satellite — The First Animated Film Shot in Space, Church of Santa Veneranda, Venice, Italy
Xu Bing: Word Alchemy, Asia Society Texas Center, Houston, TX, USA
A Moment in Time: Xu Bing in Rome, American Academy in Rome, Rome, Italy
2021
Xu Bing: Found in Translation, Museum of Art Pudong, Shanghai, China
Xu Bing: Art Beyond the Kármán Line, Red Brick Art Museum, Beijing, China
Xu Bing: Book from the Ground — Pop-up Book, Tokyo Gallery+BTAP, Beijing, China 2019
Background Story: Landscape after Huang Gongwang, Suzhou Museum, Suzhou, China
One: Xu Bing, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY, USA
Xu Bing: Thought and Method, Museum MACAN, Jakarta, Indonesia
World Picture: Xu Bing Dragonfly Eyes, oday Art Museum, Beijing, China
Xu Bing: Art for the People, Centre del Carme Cultura Contemporània, Valencia, Spain 2018
Xu Bing: Language and Nature, INKstudio, Beijing, China
Xu Bing: Thought and Method, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China
Sculpture 21st: Xu Bing. Dragonfly Eyes, Lehmbruck Museum, Duisbug, Germany 2017
Xu Bing, The United Art Museum, Wuhan, China
Language & the Art of Xu Bing, Macao Museum of Art, Macau, China
XU BING
b. 1955 in Chongqing; Lives and works in Beijing and NYC
2016
Xu Bing: Dragonfly Eyes, Frye Art Museum, Seattle, A, USA
Xu Bing: Book from the Ground, Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, London, UK
Xu Bing: Book from the Sky, Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX, USA
2015
Background Story: A New Approach to Landscape Painting, Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, WI, USA
Writing Between Heaven and Earth, Frost Art Museum, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA
Things Are Not What They First Appear, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA, USA
Bird Language, The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK
Phoenix 2015, 56th International Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
2014
The Language of Xu Bing, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Metamorphosis: The Art of Xu Bing, Asia Society Hong Kong Center, Hong Kong
Phoenix: Xu Bing at the Cathedral, Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, New York, NY, USA
Xu Bing Retrospective, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan
2013
Traveling to the Wonderland, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
Xu Bing: Landscape Landscript, Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Nine Deaths, Two Births: Xu Bing’s Phoenix Project, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA
Living Word, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore
2012
Xu Bing: Phoenix, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA, USA
Book from the Ground: From Point to Point, Shanghai Gallery of Art, Shanghai, China
Xu Bing: Book from the Sky to Book from the Ground, Eslite Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan
Xu Bing: Square Word Calligraphy, Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY, USA
Tobacco Project 4, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, C, USA
2011
Square Word Calligraphy Classroom, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
Where Does the Dust Itself Collect?, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York, NY, USA
Tobacco Project 3, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, USA
Living Word 3, The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY, USA
Background Story 7, British Museum, London, UK
Selected Group Exhibitions / Museum Presentations
2025
Line, Form, Qi: Calligraphic Art from the Fondation INK Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, LA, CA
2024
Distant Now, The National Art Center, Tokyo, Japan
Shanshui: Echoes and Signals, M+, Hong Kong
2023
Fantastic Creatures: Mythological Beings and the Chinese Imagination, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
Time Gravity: 2023 Chengdu Biennale, Chengdu Art Museum, Chengdu, China
XU BING
b. 1955 in Chongqing; Lives and works in Beijing and NYC
Selected Group Exhibitions / Museum Presentations (cont.)
2023 (cont.)
Writing Systems of Tomorrow, National Museum of World Writing, Incheon, South Korea 2022
Mirroring the Heart of Heaven and Earth: Ideals and Images in the Chinese Study, Palace Museum, Beijing, China
Hawai‘i Triennial 2022, Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu, HI, USA 2021
Art for the People, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA Toward Common Cause: Art, Social Change, and the MacArthur Fellows Program at 40, Smart Museum of Art, Chicago, IL 2020
Dreamers of Dreams, Long Museum, Shanghai, China
Real Life, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL, USA 2019
Collection Exhibition, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA 2015
All the World’s Futures, 56th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy 2013–2014
Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA 2012
Print/Out, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA
The Imminence of Poetics, 30th São Paulo Biennial, São Paulo, Brazil 2002
Biennale of Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia
The First Guangzhou Triennial, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China 1999
Projects 70, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA
Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin, 1950s–1980s, Queens Museum of Art, Queens, NY, USA 1998
Inside Out: New Chinese Art, Asia Society Museum and P.S.1, New York, NY, USA 1997
2nd Johannesburg Biennale, Johannesburg, South Africa
2nd Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea
1993
45th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
China’s New Art, Post-1989, Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hong Kong
1989 China/Avant-Garde, National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China
XU BING
b. 1955 in Chongqing; Lives and works in Beijing and NYC
Selected Awards and Honors
2015 U.S. Department of State Medal of Arts
2010 Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
2006 Southern Graphics Council Lifetime Achievement Award
2006 International Association of Art Critics Award, “Best Installation or Single Work of Art in a Museum, New England”
2005 The Youth Friends Award, New York City
2004 Artes Mundi Prize
2004 American Academy in Berlin Coca-Cola Fellowship
2003 Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize
1999 MacArthur Fellowship
1998 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Prize
QUALIA CONTEMPORARY ART
Praised by renowned art historian Alexander Nemerov as “a hidden gem in Silicon Valley,” Qualia Contemporary Art presents a diverse program of emerging and established artists working across a wide range of media and is dedicated to facilitating dialogue between Asian and international contemporary practices.
Since opening in Fall 2020, the gallery has mounted over 30 exhibitions: highlights from these presentations include the U.S. debuts of Pan Hsinhua, Lyu Peng, and Xu Hongming; local artists like Younhee Paik, Stella Zhang, Nick Dong, and Joe Ferriso; and internationally-recognized artists including Paul DeMarinis, Guillermo Galindo, Yang Jiechang, and Wang Tiande.
The gallery has also collaborated with leading Chinese artists such as Xu Bing, Wang Dongling, Gu Wenda, and Gu Gan, as well as with prominent scholars including Alexander Nemerov, Richard Vinograd, Ouyang Jianghe, and Xie Xiaoze.
