Xu Bing: Landscape Landscript

The Ashmolean's 2013 exhibition programme opens with the Museum's first major exhibition of contemporary art. Xu Bing has become one of China's best known and critically acclaimed artists, exhibiting in solo exhibitions and winning awards around the world. Landscape Landscript will be the first exhibition devoted to his landscapes.

Born in Chongqing, southwest China, in 1955, Xu Bing grew up in Beijing. During the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) he was sent to the countryside for 're-education' after which he studied printmaking, becoming successful as both an artist and teacher. He left China for the United States in 1990 and in 1999 received the MacArthur 'Genius Award'. His subsequent awards include the Fukuoka Asian Culture prize (2003) and the first Artes Mundi prize (2004). In 2008 he returned to Beijing to become Vice President of China's foremost art institution, the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA). He has exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC; the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; and the Joan Miro Foundation, Spain, amongst other major institutions.

Central to all Xu Bing's art is the theme of language: its uses and changes; misunderstandings; and dialogues within and between cultures. As a Chinese artist, Xu Bing has focused particularly on the pictorial quality of the Chinese language which, he maintains, lies at the core of Chinese culture. His Landscript series uses Chinese characters for landscape features to compose landscape paintings which have the appearance of traditional Chinese landscapes, as developed since the Song dynasty (960–1279).