snackugaki-jestsjapesjokes reblogged
book from the sky (tianshu) xu bing, 1989-91
I was so excited to see a copy of this in real life bc it's something I studied in art history. this is a book that was typeset and printed by hand using wooden blocks but every one of the characters was invented for the sake of the piece and does not correspond to any word in the Chinese language
yes. he invented and hand carved 4000 characters. it is a CRAZY project that resulted in an intentionally unreadable book. I love it
Xu Bing you're legendary to me !!!!
#I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO FIND THIS FOR AGES#AAAAAAHHHHHHHH#apparently I should have just waited for tumblr to show me#instead of trying every permutation of “chinese artist calligraphy hanzi print” because my hamster ball goldfish memory couldn't remember#hhhh god it's so satisfying#also a goddamn trip because it feels like it almost ALMOST means something but no it's gibberish#literally feels itchy in my mind looking at the characters too long