Having preserved and made his fair share of history, the internationally renowned conceptual artist is turning his focus forward. By Edmund Lee

For an artist who made his name with such seemingly mechanical techniques as printmaking and calligraphy, 54-year-old Xu Bing comes across as a deeply humanistic figure. Currently serving as the Vice President of Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Arts, the 1999 MacArthur Fellow’s most acclaimed works include A Book from the Sky, a monumental installation of prints involving thousands of unique but unintelligible characters created with the looks of Chinese ideograms, and Where Does the Dust Collect Itself?, an installation made of the scattered dust from the collapsed World Trade Center, which won Xu the first ever Artes Mundi International Contemporary Visual Arts Prize in 2004.

While the concept of ‘cultural tattoo’ – a term Xu uses to describe the indelible mark that culture has made in our consciousness – is a recurrent trait in his works, the skilled calligrapher’s concern for humanity doesn’t rest on a merely intellectual level. Conceived in 2005, Xu’s Forest Project aims to raise funds for the protection of Kenya’s severely threatened ecosystems through online auctions of children’s paintings. We caught up with the artist during his brief visit for the project’s Hong Kong workshop.

You’ve made a career of looking back and reflecting on tradition and history. It’s interesting to see that your current Forest Project is an initiative to change the future.
In my [earlier] works, I was applying the intelligence of Chinese tradition – this is what I like. My later works are more socially conscious and more about social advancement – so they seem as if they’re more about the future. We didn’t use the term ‘environmental protection’ in the past, but the concept has always been at the heart of traditional Chinese philosophy. We see ourselves as part of nature, and we humbly and respectfully find our place in it.

You mentioned on a previous occasion that the purpose of art should be to serve the community. Is the Forest Project a step towards substantiating that idea?
I emphasised the social function of art when I spoke at MoMA in New York. I was mainly addressing my disgust towards certain problems of Western contemporary art, which is why I emphasised that art should serve the people. Having said that, I think art has a variety of objectives and values.

What’s your own view?
For me personally, I want my works to provide people with a new perspective. When the art museums invite me to exhibit, or when people collect my works, I sometimes think to myself: the art works themselves are not worth anything, so why do people exhibit or spend money on them? I don’t think they are buying the works per se, but the new ways of thinking or seeing that are inspired by them.

When you created A Book from the Sky, were you thinking about negating a Chinese tradition – as many believe?
Not exactly. It’s full of contradictions… The work [aims to] rethink tradition from its very core.

Were you influenced by some of the negative commentary the work received from the Mainland?
There was much discussion about this work, and the reason for the heated debate was that the work itself didn’t really say anything. It provides space for thought, and so I don’t want to give any direction about how to approach it.

Its mostly positive reception overseas might have come as a surprise to you, considering that the foreign audience couldn’t even recognise the invented ‘Chinese characters’ in it. Has this experience changed the way you see your art?
I was a little concerned when I brought it overseas, as it’s true that [the foreign audience] couldn’t comprehend the work’s play on language. But in reality, this work is popular wherever it goes. Therefore, I think although they’ve missed out on a certain aspect of the work, they have instead recognised another aspect of it that’s not based in Chinese culture.

Have you found out what that is?
They all seem to like the work quite a bit, though I’ve no concrete idea [why]. Maybe it fits into their fantasies of the East, because it is realised in a contemporary form… I’ve no idea [Smiles].

You’re apparently an avid collector of historical mementoes: you collected a tank-flattened bicycle from Tiananmen Square, and you created an artwork with the dust from Ground Zero.
I like these items because I think all of them have their own transcendent meanings. Like the dust I collected on September 11th – I was only thinking that the world, from that day onwards, would be forever changed… Sometimes, you don’t know what to do with such [historically] significant moments. Just like the last day of the last century and the first day of this century: two days that have absolutely no difference from any other day, but which people give special meaning. And the two days… they just passed.

To support Xu Bing’s Forest Project, visit www.forestproject.net.