id: 372090 accession number: 2019.239 share license status: Copyrighted url: https://clevelandart.org/art/2019.239 updated: 2023-03-16 16:30:16.775000 Mountain Place (from series of Repetitions), 1987. Xu Bing (Chinese, b. 1955). Woodcut print with ink on paper; image: 52.8 x 73.2 cm (20 13/16 x 28 13/16 in.); sheet: 66.7 x 85.2 cm (26 1/4 x 33 9/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Joe and Nancy Keithley 2019.239 © Xu Bing title: Mountain Place (from series of Repetitions) title in original language: 有山的地方 series: series in original language: creation date: 1987 creation date earliest: 1987 creation date latest: 1987 current location: creditline: Gift of Joe and Nancy Keithley copyright: © Xu Bing --- culture: China technique: woodcut print with ink on paper department: Prints collection: PR - Woodcut type: Print find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Xu Bing (Chinese, b. 1955) - artist Xu Bing is one of China’s most outstanding conceptual contemporary artists. He is internationally recognized for using Chinese characters, the written word or character and language to challenge assumptions about human society and communication. He grew up in Beijing, was initially trained in printmaking, and received his MFA from the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing in 1987. Xu moved to the US in 1990 where he lived for 18 years before returning to Beijing. --- measurements: Image: 52.8 x 73.2 cm (20 13/16 x 28 13/16 in.); Sheet: 66.7 x 85.2 cm (26 1/4 x 33 9/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: Signed by the artist: 徐冰 and Xu Bing translation: remark: inscription: Artist's seal: 冰 translation: remark: inscription: Lower margin, in graphite: 30/100 有山的地方; seal; 徐冰 Xu Bing 1988 translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Spotlight on a New Generation: Contemporary Chinese Artists (Chinese art rotation) opening date: 2020-02-06T05:00:00 Spotlight on a New Generation: Contemporary Chinese Artists (Chinese art rotation). The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 6-August 16, 2020). title: Impressionism to Modernism: The Keithley Collection opening date: 2022-09-11T04:00:00 Impressionism to Modernism: The Keithley Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 11, 2022-January 8, 2023). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE (Booklyn, Inc., Brooklyn, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) date: ?–2019 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 2019– footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: While living in the mountains during the Cultural Revolution, Xu was in demand as the village portraitist and calligrapher for weddings and funerals. digital description: wall description: Xu created five Series of Repetitions to explore the process of printmaking. He printed images of the series in different stages, each time carving away a little bit more of the block’s surface. The first print is the darkest; the final one is the lightest with the image being entirely effaced. This print represents a stage in the process when the image was most legible. Some prints show Chinese characters, indications for his later works featuring writing and language called “landscripts”—images made with script.

As a child, Xu had access to a world of books: his mother worked in the library and his father in the history department at Peking University. Toward the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1974, Xu was sent to a rural village north of Beijing for “re-education.” The Cultural Revolution taught him the power of words and text, while the interruption of his formal schooling gave him time to practice writing and teach himself woodcut techniques. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Vainker, S. J., Bing Xu, Judith Goldman, and Peter D. McDonald. Landscape/Landscript: Nature As Language in the Art of Xu Bing. Oxford: Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, 2013. page number: Mentioned: cat. no. 70, pp. 100, 108 url: Von Spee, Clarissa. “Acquisitions 2019.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 60, no. 2 (March/April 2020): 8-11. page number: Reproduced: P. 10; Mentioned: P. 11. url: --- IMAGES