The exhibition A Moment in Time: Xu Bing in Rome is a newly commissioned show of the artist Xu Bing (2024 Resident) at the American Academy in Rome. It features artwork created in its entirety during his residency at AAR.

A Moment in Time aims to explore central themes of Xu Bing’s oeuvre, including language, nature, civilization, and semiotics, while also challenging fundamental conceptions of Chinese culture and incorporating the city of Rome in the making of the show. By juxtaposing Eastern and Western objects from ancient civilizations with Xu Bing’s own creations, the exhibition seeks to question conventional notions of history and knowledge.

Xu Bing’s research often prompts viewers to reconsider their perceptions of so-called “straightforward communication,” offering alternative ways of seeing and understanding. By embracing a broad perspective on contemporary artistry, the exhibition underscores Xu Bing’s significance and relevance as an artist capable of transcending both Western and Eastern tenets and conventions.

Take a virtual tour of A Moment in Time: Xu Bing in Rome.

A conversation between Xu Bing and Davide Quadrio, Director of the Museo d'Arte Orientale in Turin.

Davide Quadrio: From From Book from the Sky to your emoticon writing, much of your work is related to communication and archaeology, between the tension of tradition and innovation. Compared to your previous works, how do you position this newly commissioned work you created in Rome?

Xu Bing: I am currently on the Via Appia. Our rubbing work had to stop because of the scorching sun or rain. Thus, I have the opportunity to answer your questions. Just like you mentioned, the writings in Book from the Sky and Book from the Ground are all related to communication. The actualization of human culture revolves around communication. In other words, it is a history of communication. Book from the Sky stimulates the mind through non–communication, and thereby achieves a new way to communicate. Book from the Ground uses a new wave of hieroglyphs (signs) to rethink the new demands around human communication, technology, and global integration. At the same time, it experiments with the possibility of more efficient ways of communicating.

My work includes meanings related to archaeology. For example, Book from the Ground brings the initial point of thinking back to the origins of signs in the human history of writing (almost all writing systems start with visual signs). In my work, the separation between the classical and contemporary does not exist. In its essence, the separation between the East and West also does not exist. These are the attitudes my work expresses.

This new piece carries many questions around communication. It reflects the multi–layered meanings, complexity, and boundlessness of issues related to communication. This piece is designed according to the two gallery spaces at the American Academy. One space will exhibit the rubbings I made of the Great Wall in China 36 years ago. Another space will have the rubbings from the Via Appia Antica in Rome. The structure of the exhibition alludes to the concepts of “wall” and “road”. It is, in fact, discussing the multi–layered conversations regarding the values and world perspectives of diferent cultures.

First of all, it is a conversation between two important ancient civilizations. After thousands of years, they enter into conversation once again. The formation of the Roman Empire happens around the time of the Qin Han Empire. In roughly the same period, both civilizations contributed their unique wisdom to mankind. Another layer of meaning is a retrospective of and a conversation with the artist’s own creative path. The rubbing of the Great Wall 36 years ago reflects my fascination with traditional culture and my background in printmaking. They serve as an important foundation for my later practice. 

Nearly forty years have passed, and I have used a variety of undefinable expressions to create, mutate, or push forward ideas. Reactivating and combining the artists’ materials I worked with thirty-six years ago seems to be a return to my old works in terms of the apparent techniques and forms. However, in my opinion, an artist’s past works and present works form a closed “circle” that belongs to the artist only. An artist’s life goal is to construct this “circle”. Although the forms of its past and future works may be very different, the inner thoughts and methods must be related. New works are the rediscovery of old works, and old works are the annotations of new works. They can discover and complement each other.

DQ: The semiotic forms in Chinese language and its reappearance in the world are inseparable from highly complex and sophisticated abstraction. Chinese realism is in a way a coping mechanism, and the technique of rubbing is a perfect example of this. In the newly commissioned work, you use this technique to copy, while at the same time reinventing and reproducing the Appian Way. What is the message that this work emphasizes?

XB: Indeed, the particularity of the Chinese language and writing has influenced and determined the many aspects and characteristics of Chinese culture. The particularity of Chinese square characters — its neatness when written — reflects the way Chinese people value the beauty of symmetry, which gave rise to the aesthetics of counterpoint, rhythmic poetry and the unique charm of Chinese literature. The rich relationships between sound, meaning, and shape of Chinese characters make writing and reading Chinese a multidimensional experience. Because of the amount of characters in Chinese, everyone who starts his or her education must spend several years copying thousands of glyphs, which has led to the formation of a unique copying culture in China. The fact that Chinese people have been writing square characters for thousands of years must have influenced the nation’s characteristics and ways of looking at things. It can even provide reasons for why China is the way it is today. The technique of rubbing, which appeared in the 2nd century, can be seen as the result of Chinese people’s attitude toward copying.

German sinologist Lothar Ledderose writes in Ten Thousand Things that Chinese artists do not seek to faithfully reproduce natural appearances. Rather, they explore methods to replace imitation, and never directly create thousands or even millions of artworks. However, he also points out the changes of stable “casts.” For example, the terracotta warriors from the Qin Dynasty are created with casts, but there are some diferences in the handling and assembling of each piece.

These unique characteristics of Chinese culture are in fact implicit in the The Wall and the Road project. For example, ink rubbing is a traditional Chinese method of copying the patterns and words of an artifact, a technique used before the invention of photography. When you make a rubbing of an object, the object itself remains unchanged, but if you make five rubbings, then the five copies would have subtle diferences from each other. This is because of the involvement of human actions. For example, the pressure of rubbing, diferent rubbing styles, and treatments of the edges of the rubbing itself, all involve aspects determined by a human.

Of course, the diferent results of the rubbings also reflect the values of the objects being rubbed and the diferent timings of when the rubbing is done. For example, the value of a rubbing of a Han inscription at its time is diferent from a rubbing of it in the Ming and Qing dynasties. This is just like rubbing the Gubei Kou portion of the Great Wall a few decades ago; it would have a diferent value than if I were to rub the same portion of the Great Wall now. Why? It is because after decades of natural weathering of the wall, the wall itself has changed, and the rubbing will delicately reflect, document, and distinguish the changes of the original object over time. In other words, we rub the Via Appia today, but if we come back to rub it again after a few years, the presentation of the forms would be diferent. What I have talked about is the technique of copying through ink rubbing, and its techniques and hidden cultural meanings. 

To answer your question about the message of reinventing and reproducing the Appian Way, I would like to say that through this project, people can realize that the products of these civilizations, as well as the direction and progress of human civilization that actually, exist in a kind of flux. The other point is that by moving these immovable and valuable historical sites through the technique of rubbing to the environment and cultural context of another civilization, the two civilizations are then juxtaposed, embedded, and are being observed beyond space and time. This displacement allows cultural artifacts that are rooted in a specific historical context to become “specimens” that leave their original context and provide people with new visual and conceptual perspectives. These “specimens” have actually touched the original objects, and the rubbings directly preserve the carbon–based information and the cultural DNA of the original objects. From this point of view, the work is fundamentally diferent from photography and video documentation. It is only a presentation of shadows. The power and value of this piece lie in the technique of displacing the rubbings.

DQ: Flying to the moon... In the project you recently exhibited in Venice, you created a very idealistic work that uses a satellite as a tool that helps the artist transcend his or her mundane limitations. Pierre Huyghe depicted a post–human world in his last exhibition in Venice. How do you connect this project to the real possibilities of the last moments of humanity? Is it possible to develop a new Appian Way that can lead us further?

XB: Actually, while I am doing the rubbing of the Via Appia, my creative vision also reaches to the distant outer space. As a matter of fact, artistic creation has always discovered new ways of expression alongside the developments of science and technology. People in ancient times invented the technique of rubbing. It is in a way the predecessor of the idea of a photocopier. The Via Appia is also the predecessor of the highways around the world, and the predecessor of virtual information pathways, as well as the predecessor of space satellites. It all comes back to the topic that we discussed at the beginning. Ultimately, it is all related to communication. 

Today’s space technology allows the tentacles and footprints of mankind to reach further. Yet, regardless of how far the tentacles of mankind can reach, the ultimate goal is to look back at Earth, the only home for human survival, and to find new perspectives to solve problems on Earth, as well as to add more reference data that aids human thinking and helps us to discover new philosophical outlooks and methods that can help solve the problems on Earth. This goal and concept is similar to the one that ancient Romans had, extending their roads to places afar and into other cultures. That’s why I really like the last sentence in your question: “blaze a new Via Appia path that will lead us further.”

Essays by curator Ilaria Puri Purini (Andrew Heiskell Arts Director) and Allison Emmerson (interim Andrew W. Mellon Humanities Professor) shed further light on the exhibition.

A Moment in Time: Xu Bing in Rome

Curated by Ilaria Puri Purini

with Lexi Eberspacher, Assistant Curator and Exhibition Coordinator

American Academy in Rome
May 22–June 29, 2024

The exhibition is made possible by the Tsao Family Foundation Residency in Art.

AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME

President
Peter N. Miller

Director
Aliza S. Wong

Andrew Heiskell Arts Director 
Ilaria Puri Purini

Interim Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Humanities
Allison Emmerson

Deputy Director for Fellowships and Programs 
Anne Coulson

Programs Associate for the Arts / Exhibition Coordination and Organization
Lexi Eberspacher

Public Program Curator
Johanne Affricot

Press / Communications
Maddalena Bonicelli
Laura Cabezas

Graphic Design
Sara Annunziata

Exhibition Installation
Nomade Servizi per l’Arte

Insurance
Arte Assicurazioni, Srl

The American Academy in Rome expresses/extends its gratitude to Wu Yanling and Qu Shanpu at Xu Bing Studio, Bejing, and to the students of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma and Istituto Europeo di Design: Maria Elena Capitanio, Chen Qianyu, Han Zeyu, Hou Jiamian, Yue Hao, Ke Chenwei, Liu Yifan, Peng Yujie, Zeyu Meng, Shiyuan Sun, Yuan Wang, Zhang Yihao, Ronghui Zhao, Shangkai Zhou, and Tianyu Zhou.

Special thanks to Chan Nga Kei Tiffany, Wong Chung Yan Teresa, Cheung Cheuk Yan, and Pau Shuen Yi Noran from Hang Seng University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Metropolitan University; the Leisure and Cultural Services Department; The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China; and Wang Yongxu and Zhu Yaning from AAIE Gallery Center for Contemporary Art, Rome.