成都｜徐冰：有问题就有__

徐冰：有问题就有__

Xu Bing: Where There’s a Problem, There’s a Way

展期：2024年12月20日—2025年05月30日

主办：成都市美术馆

策展人：吴洪亮

艺术家：徐冰

地点：成都市美术馆B区（成都市当代艺术馆)｜成都市金牛区金牛坝路388号（天府艺术公园内）

徐冰个展展示其重要作品如《天书》《地书》《凤凰》，颠覆人们想象。Xu Bing’s solo exhibition showcases important works such as “Book from the Sky,” “Book from the Ground,” and “Phoenix,” subverting people’s imagination.

他是中国最重要的当代艺术家之一
作品在世界各大美术馆、博物馆展出/收藏
并被收人多本权威世界艺术史教科书
他的《天书》《地书》《凤凰》等作品
一次次颠覆人们的想象

2024年12月20日，徐冰西南地区首个大型个展徐冰：有问题就有_ 即将在成都市美术馆B馆开启，50年间创作的80余件艺术作品将在超2万平方米的空间里震撼展出。

平行展

徐冰：艺术手制书

主办：白夜·花神诗空间

展期：2024年12月21日—2025年03月16日

策展人：吴洪亮

艺术家：徐冰

地点：白夜花神诗空间｜成都市芳华街28号

2024年12月21日，展览「徐冰：艺术手制书」将在白夜花神诗空间开幕，徐冰艺术家手制书个展拟呈现徐冰自1975年至今创作的20余件艺术家手制书，是徐冰首次将个人的艺术家手制书整理汇总并展出。同时，这次展览也是同期在成都市美术馆举行的徐冰大型个展《徐冰：有问题就有》的同城平行展。展览总策展人为北京画院院长吴洪亮。

2024年12月22日15:00，艺术家徐冰、四川大学教授刘福春、策展人吴洪亮还将在白夜举办一场关于“手制书与文学”的讲座对谈（🔗点此跳转报名页面），欢迎大家报名参加。

本期分享的是徐冰为此次展览所写的前言。

《徐冰：艺术手制书》展小序

我做了许多作品，其中不少都与“书”有关，但这并非计划所为，像是命中注定的，这也许与我的生长环境和版画的专业背景有关。我从小就有很多时间在母亲工作的北大图书馆学系的书库度过，我熟悉各种书的外表，但那时太小，读不懂里面的内容。所以书从开始，对我就是两部分：外表与内容，就像点心与点心盒的关系。在我看来，点心是用来吃的，而点心盒却更有文化含意。艺术家总是注重外表，挖掘文字不善于表述的“外表的内容”。我的书籍作品有的只有书的样子，却不能说它是书，因为没有书的功能；有的书没有一个传统文字，却能阅读；有的看上去是中文典籍，却是一本真正的英文书。这些作品像是用文明代表物的“书”解构和松动它们自己，找点艺术与阅读两者之外的东西。

87年起，我就开始用书的形式做创作，92年在美国时才了解到有“Artist’s Book”（艺术手制书）这种创作类型，从而也开启了我在中国介绍和推动艺术手制书的想法。自古制书就是由手艺人完成，也可以说艺术手制书自古就有，但这一形式天生的跨领域、多媒材和流通性——这些自带的“现代性”，对习惯把艺术样式分类的艺术界，就很难对它做分类与界定，直到上世纪七八十年代才明确了“Artist’s Book”的说法。我们都知道《一沙一世界，一花一天堂》这首诗，却很少有人知道作者威廉·布莱克（William Black）在两百年前就创作了艺术手制书《天真之歌》与《经验之歌》，被后人推为艺术家手制书最具代表性的开创者。布莱克身兼多种身份；诗人、画家、虔诚的基督徒，他以印刷工匠为生，天然具备优秀手制书艺术家的所有条件。手制书艺术介于文字与图像表达之间，自然与文学形成共生关系。这种形式表达的自由、便捷，吸引如毕加索、杜尚、安迪沃霍尔等不少重要现当代艺术家，都创作过艺术手制书作品。其实，手制书艺术在达达主义、激浪派等重要艺术运动中都起到过至关重要的作用。

用概念界定一种生动的事物总是不尽人意，艺术手制书似乎就拒绝被界定，只能被描述。我在策划《钻石之页：全球百年艺术家手制书展》时曾经对它有过一段粗浅描述：“这种创作形式是制作者对“图书空间”的巧思，将文字阅读与视觉欣赏以及物质触感之间自由转换，将其融为一体的艺术；用讲究的手段，将文字、诗情、画意、纸张、手感、墨色的品质玩到淋漓尽致。这种艺术抓住人类自有读物以来就再也挥之不去的对翻阅、印痕、书香的癖好，将书页的翻动空间营造的精彩诱人。”

这也是我首次把我的书的艺术放在一起展出。在白夜这样一个有品位的文化空间展示它们，我觉得很合适。也希望白夜的粉丝们，有空去成都市美术馆看我的大型个展《徐冰：有问题就有__》，了解更多我的艺术与书的关系。

感谢白夜·花神诗空间对此展的完美呈现，也感谢所有为此展实现做出贡献的机构与个人。

徐冰

2024.11.30 成都

White Night, Preface to Xu Bing: Artist Book

Among the many works I have created in my artist career, quite a few are related to “books.” This is not planned; it is more like fate. Perhaps this is influenced by my upbringing and my background in printmaking. When I was young, I spent a lot of time among the book stacks at the Library Science department of Peking University, where my mother worked. I became familiar with the covers of various books, but I was too young at the time to understand their content. From the beginning, a book, to me, consisted of two parts, the cover and the content, much like the relationship between sweets and the sweets box. In my view, sweets are meant for eating, while the sweets box carries deeper cultural significance. Artists often focus on the forms of things, exploring “the meanings of forms” that words cannot easily express. Some of my artist’s books resemble books, but they cannot be defined as books because they lack function; some of the books do not have text in a tradition sense but can still be read; some of the books may look like Chinese classicals, yet they are actually in English. These works deconstruct and loosen the definition of a book, which a symbol of civilization, in order to find something beyond art and reading.

Since 1987, I have been creating works inspired by the format of a book. In 1992, while in the U.S., I learned about the concept of an artist’s book. This inspired me to introduce and promote the idea of an artist’s book in China. Since ancient times, books have been made by craftspeople. Therefore, one can say that artists’ books have existed for a long time. The medium is inherently cross-disciplinary, multimedia, and easy to distribute, carrying a sense of “contemporality.” Therefore, it was difficult for the art world, which is accustomed to categorizing artistic mediums, to come up with a definition for it. The term, an artist’s book, was only clearly appointed in the 1970s and 80s. Many of us are familiar with the poem “Auguries of Innocence” by William Blake, yet few know that the poet created artist’s books Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, which are considered among the most iconic works in the history of artists’ books. Blake was a poet, painter, devout Christian, and worked as a master printer. He possessed all the skills of an excellent book artist. An artist’s book exists between words and images, producing a symbiotic relationship between nature and literature. This form of expression embodies a sense of freedom and accessibility, and has attracted many important contemporary artists, such as Picasso, Duchamp, Andy Warhol, all of whom have created artists’ books. In fact, artists’ books have played a crucial role in many important art movements, such as Dadaism and Fluxus.

It seems always unsatisfactory to shape a living phenomenon into a concept. An artist’s book resists being defined and can only be described. When I curated Diamon Leaves: Brilliant Artist Book from Around the World, I gave it a brief description: “this art form is the maker’s thoughtful exploration of ‘the space of a book.’ It allows the reader to move between reading, enjoying the images, and feeling the tactility of the pages, while unifying all these experiences. Through refined techniques, the artist exploits the potential of the text, poetic expressions, imagery, paper, tactility, and ink to their fullest. Since the invention of books, humans have been obsessed with the enticing experience of reading—the turning of the pages, the traces of the printing process, and the fragrance of books.”

This is also the first time that I am exhibiting all of my artist’s books together. Displaying them in a space as tasteful as White Night feels very appropriate. I hope that the fans and visitors of White Night will also visit my major solo exhibition Xu Bing: If There is a Question, There is __ at the Chengdu Art Museum to learn more about the relationship between my art and books.

I am grateful to White Night for their perfect presentation of this exhibition, and I would also like to express my gratitude to all the organizations and individuals who contributed to making this exhibition possible.

Xu Bing

November 30, 2024

徐冰

艺术家，中央美术学院教授。他被广泛认为是当今重要的概念艺术家，特别在语言学和符号学领域，始终以极具突破力的艺术创作拓展着艺术的边界。

其作品曾在中国美术馆、大都会艺术博物馆、纽约现代艺术博物馆、古根海姆美术馆、大英博物馆、英国V&A博物馆、西班牙索菲亚女王国家美术馆、美国华盛顿赛克勒国家美术馆、加拿大国家美术馆、捷克国家美术馆及德国路维希美术馆等艺术机构展出；并多次参加威尼斯双年展、悉尼双年展、圣保罗双年展等国际展。

1999年，因其在“原创性、创造能力、个人方向和对社会，尤其在版画和书法领域中作出重要贡献的能力”, 获得美国创造性人才最高奖“天才奖”。

2003年，“由于对亚洲文化的发展所做的贡献”，获得第十四届日本福冈亚洲文化奖。

2004年，获得首届“Artes Mundi国际当代艺术奖”，评委会授奖理由：“徐冰是一位能够超越文化界线，将东西方文化相互转换，用视觉语言表达他的思想和现实问题的艺术家。”

2006年, 由于“对文字、语言和书籍溶智的使用，对版画与当代艺术这两个领域间的对话和沟通所产生的巨大影响”获美国“版画艺术终身成就奖”。

2010年，美国哥伦比亚大学授予徐冰人文学荣誉博士学位。

2018年，获得中央美术学院“徐悲鸿艺术创作奖”。

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