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Artist Books

Xu BingTobacco Project: Red Book

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Library Information and Colophon

Title

Tobacco project : Red Book View record in CONTENTdm

Publication

North Carolina: Xu Bing, 2000

Library Call #

N7433.4.X8 T63 2000 View Reed library catalog record

Description

24 cigarettes in two metal cases; 9 x 10 cm

Colophon/Notes

Numbered and signed by author
Metal cases are red with Chinese characters on outside; inside: "Chunghwa, Shanghai Cigarette Factory, China"
Cigarettes have quotes typed on them in English.

In first case:
On wrapper:
II/X 17 -1
2000
Typed on cigarettes:
“Pay attention to uniting and working/
with comrades who differ with you. This/
should be borne in mind both in the local-/
ities and in the army. It also applies to/
have come together from every corner of/
the country and should be good at uniting/
in our work not only with comrades who/
hold the same views as we but also with”

In second case:
On wrapper:
II/X 17 -2
2000
Typed on cigarettes:
“those who hold different views./
The people, and the people alone, are/
the motive force in the making of world/
history.

‘On Coalition Government’
(April 24, 1945)”

Biography

Xu Bing

(1955- )
Chinese

Xu Bing is a conceptual artist whose work often revolves around language, writing, and books. The book Tobacco Project: Red Book by Xu Bing in Reed’s Special Collections consists of two Chinese tin cigarette boxes each containing 12 cigarettes each with lines from the Communist Manifesto printed on their wrappers.

Xu Bing was born in Chongqing, (Sichuan Province) in 1955 and grew up in Beijing surrounded by books at Beijing University where his parents worked.1 He obtained a BA in printmaking at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), Beijing in 1981 where he then stayed on as an instructor, earning his MFA in 1987. He moved to the United States in 1990 upon invitation of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Bing currently serves as the Vice President of CAFA and lives in New York.2

Tobacco Project: Red Book in Reed’s Special Collections is one piece of many in a project commissioned by Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. This undertaking focused on the university’s historical connection to Tobacco production and marketing as Tobacco products were central to city’s and North Carolina’s economy in the state’s early days. The founders of Duke University, the Duke family, made their fortune in Tobacco, partly from their successful marketing of the product overseas, especially to China.3 The tobacco project also focuses on the impact that Tobacco marketing had on Chinese culture and included a number of site-specific installations on the Duke University campus and in the city of Durham as well as a variety of original artist books, including Red Book, which has quotations from Chairman Mao rubber stamped on Zhonghua cigarettes.

Footnotes

1 Jerome Silbergeld. “Introduction.” Persistence-Transformation: Text as Image in the Art of Xu Bing. Jerome Silbergeld, Dora C.Y. Ching, Eds. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006; 19.

2 “Bio.” Xu Bing Official Website. Web. 4 December 2008. View website

3 “Tobacco Art: Xu Bing’s Tobacco Project.” Xu Bing Official Website. Web. 4 December 2008. View website

References and Links

Chiu, Melissa and Zheng Shengtian. Art and China’s Revolution. New York: Asia Society; New Haven: In association with Yale University, 2008. View Reed library catalog record

Erickson, Britta. The Art of Xu Bing: Words Without Meaning, Meaning Without Words. Washington, D.C.: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery; Seattle: In Association with the University of Washington Press, 2001. View Reed library catalog record

Silbergeld, Jerome. Persistence-Transformation: Text as Image in the Art of Xu Bing. Jerome Silbergeld, Dora C.Y. Ching, Eds. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006. View Reed library catalog record

Smith, Karen. Nine Lives: The Birth of Avant-Garde Art in New China. Zurich: Scalo; New York: Distributed in North America by Prestel, 2006. View Reed library catalog record

Tobacco Project. Duke University for International Studies. Web. 17 November 2008. View website

“Xu Bing.” Art and Culture. Web. 4 December 2008. View website

Xu Bing Official Website. Web. 4 December 2008. View website

Wingfield, Jeremy. The Xu Bing Phenomenon. Reed College Thesis, 2001. View Reed library catalog record

Word Play. Web. 4 December 2008. View website

Other Books in Special Collections by this Author

Title

An Introduction to Square Word Calligraphy View artist book pageView record in CONTENTdm

Publication

New York: s.n., 1994

Library Call #

N7433.4.X8 S77 1994 View Reed library catalog record

Description

2 pts. in portfolio (24 p.; 14, [6] leaves); 42 cm

Notes

Text in English, printed in letters designed to resemble Chinese characters. Pt. 1 is offset halftones printed in black. Pt. 2 is relief printed in red.
Edition of 250 copies, signed in pencil by the artist on p. 1 (1st pt.), numbered and dated 1994.
No. 70 of 250.

Title

 The Post Testament: Connoting Today's Standard Version View artist book page View record in CONTENTdm

Publication

 Madison, WI.: Publication Center for Culturally Handicapped, Inc., 1993

Library Call #

 N7433.4.X8 P68 1993 View Reed library catalog record

Description

 570 p.; 34 cm

Notes

 Heavy metal type on rag paper, leather binding with gold emboss.
Edition of 300.