Xu Bing

The Post Testament Connoting Today’s Standard Version

Xu Bing

The Post Testament Connoting Today’s Standard Version

Date

1992

Edition Size

350

Media

Leather, Letterpress

Binding

Hand-sewn

Format

Artist Book

Pages

570

$ 8,400.00

Unavailable


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La Salle University, Connelly Library

Oberlin College

Princeton University

Reed College

Skidmore College

Stanford University

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG)

King James Bible & a trashy contemporary novel, unnamed.

“[I created] three hundred specially printed and bound volumes that in appearance look like weighty tomes of literary significance. The content of the books, however, presents quite a different story: a strange, hybrid text which the artist created by combining the King James Version of the New Testament with that of a trashy contemporary novel, through alternating each word of the texts. As a result, the only way to read the complete text taken from either book is to skip every other word. […] Regardless of which narrative the reader is focused on, the visual presence of the other narrative cannot be avoided, creating a visual imprint on the reader’s mind. The hybrid text thus generates a new and abnormal reading pattern. At the same time and on another level of cognition, it creates a kind of third narrative that limns the border between avant-garde literature and visual art. Post Testament also allows readers to engage with highly loaded texts that are removed from their usual connotations.” — Xu Bing