The Art of Xu Bing: words without meaning, meaning without words

At the culmination of his art career in China, Xu Bing (who now lives in the West) spent months inventing more than 1200 characters that mimic Chinese characters but have no known meaning. At once familiar and strange, they evoke confusion, wonderment, and even hostility in viewers. Xu Bing printed them in books with traditional formats, on wall posters, and on giant billowing sheets, which he installed in exhibition galleries to form a ceiling or sky. He cagily argues that any explanation of his art is superfluous because the books have no meaning.