Lot 6. Xu Bing (b. 1955), Landscript, 2002, ink on Nepalese paper, framed, signed in pinyin, dated 2002 and marked with one seal of the artist, 19 by 68 in., 48.3 by 172.7 cm. Estimate 100,000 — 150,000 USD. Lot sold 212,500 USD. Photo: Sotheby's.

Provenance: Acquired from Prüss & Ochs Gallery, Berlin, Germany, 2002

Note: Born in Chongqing and a graduate of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 1987, Xu Bing is one of China's most important living artists. His extraordinary imagination and brilliant technical skills have created over three decades worth of ever-evolving works and themes: from his early volumes of books and woodcuts, notably the iconic ‘Book from the Sky', 1988, his exploration of words and ‘meanings’, through invented characters; dioramas in mixed media in ‘Background Story’, 2004; his calligraphy installations, notably 'The Living Word', 2001; to installations including the monumental 'Phoenix Project', 2007-2010 and ‘Tao Hua Yuan: A Lost Village Utopia' (The story of the Peach Blossom Spring), 2014 at Chatsworth.

In the fall of 1999, together with several fellow artists, Xu Bing embarked on a trekking trip in Nepal and his drawings from the series 'Landcripts from the Himalayan Journal’ combined his love of nature and fascination with language, shown in innovative landscapes where he used hanzi, the pictorial structure of characters, to form the terrain. 1999 was also the year he won the MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant, a tall tree amongst his vast forest of accolades. His works have been shown in innumerable museums and institutions worldwide  including Duke University; the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Cornell University; the National Arts Museum of  China, Beijing; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Xu Bing has lived and worked in the United states since 1990 but returned to China in 2007 to teach at the Central Academy of Fine Art (CAFA).

Sotheby's. Monochrome, New York, 15 sept. 2015