Xu Bing and the biennial and fair presence in 2026
Published on 08/21/2026 at 17:34 | Editorial responsibility: Rafael Müller, Editor-in-Chief AD HOC NEWS
Xu Bing has long used installations, films and calligraphic experiments to test how images and words travel across cultures. His recent appearances in museum programs and thematic shows underline how central his work remains to discussions of biennials, fairs and large-scale exhibitions.
Xu Bing in international exhibition programs
Xu Bing is part of the group exhibition Forever Tomorrow: Chinese Art Now at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o T?maki, which runs from May 2 to August 23, 2026 and presents contemporary Chinese artists such as Ai Weiwei, Xu Zhen and Yang Fudong alongside his work. The Auckland Art Gallery exhibition page notes that the show explores how artists balance centuries-old traditions with new media and global perspectives.
Beyond New Zealand, Xu Bing’s practice has featured prominently in thematic collection displays such as Delinking and Relinking at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, where his work appears within a multi-sensory presentation of the museum’s holdings that ran until June 1, 2026, connecting his experiments in language and printmaking to broader debates about decolonizing collections. These curated collection shows often function like biennials inside major museums, placing artists like Xu alongside peers from different regions and generations.
Biennial-scale projects and long-running shows
Recent years have also seen Xu Bing’s work integrated into programs that echo the format of biennials and triennials, even when they take place in museums rather than on a classic fairground. In 2024, for example, he was included in the thematic exhibition Shanshui: Echoes and Signals at M+ in Hong Kong, a multi-year show that runs from February 4, 2024 to February 1, 2026 and rethinks landscape traditions across media, with artists such as Yang Jiechang and Xu Bing presented together. A news update by INKstudio highlights this inclusion as part of the gallery’s overview of his recent institutional projects.
At the Shenzhen International Museum of Art, which opened in 2026, a dedicated space titled Xu Bing: Word Paradise forms part of the opening suite of exhibitions and functions as a child-friendly interactive environment in which visitors can explore his language-based installations alongside art and technology projects and collection displays. A report in China Daily’s Hong Kong edition describes Word Paradise as one of several large-scale presentations that will be on view across different durations through 2027, underscoring how museums now adopt biennial-like programming cycles for such long-running projects.
All news and background on Xu Bing
For further coverage of Xu Bing’s exhibitions, publications and institutional projects, the AD HOC NEWS archive provides continuously updated context and links.
The work core across media
Xu Bing is widely associated with the landmark installation Book from the Sky, begun in the late 1980s, in which he printed books and scrolls using thousands of invented Chinese characters that resemble legible script but cannot be read. This project set the tone for a practice that repeatedly examines how written language shapes perception and power.
Over the decades he has extended this interest into projects such as Square Word Calligraphy Classroom, where English words are reconfigured into block-like characters that echo traditional Chinese calligraphy, and into film works like Dragonfly Eyes, his 2017 feature assembled entirely from found surveillance footage and online video. In each case the medium shifts, but the core focus remains on how viewers decode and trust images and text.
Where the artist stands now
Xu Bing’s work presently circulates through long-running museum exhibitions and thematic collection presentations rather than a single headline fair or biennial date in late August 2026, reinforcing his position as a reference point for institutions engaging with contemporary Chinese art and the politics of images.
Xu Bing at a glance
- Artist: Xu Bing
- Medium / Genre: Installation, printmaking and conceptual art
- Born: 1955, Chongqing, China
- Place(s) of practice: Studio practice between Beijing and New York
- Active since: Late 1970s, with early woodcut and print exhibitions in China
- Key work groups: Book from the Sky, Square Word Calligraphy, Ghosts Pounding the Wall, Dragonfly Eyes
- Current/last exhibition: Forever Tomorrow: Chinese Art Now, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o T?maki, May 2 to August 23, 2026
- Major collections: Museum of Modern Art (New York), British Museum (London), Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.)
- Awards: MacArthur Fellowship (1999), Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize (2003), Artes Mundi Prize (2004)
- Next date: currently no announced date in the 30-day window
Frequently asked questions about Xu Bing
Where can Xu Bing be seen in 2026?
In 2026, Xu Bing is featured in the group exhibition Forever Tomorrow: Chinese Art Now at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o T?maki in New Zealand, which presents his work alongside artists such as Ai Weiwei and Xu Zhen.
How does Xu Bing’s Book from the Sky relate to his later projects?
Book from the Sky established Xu Bing’s method of creating convincing but unreadable scripts, a strategy he later extended into projects like Square Word Calligraphy and the film Dragonfly Eyes, all focused on how viewers construct meaning from written and visual information.
What role does language play in Xu Bing’s installations and films?
Language is central to Xu Bing’s practice, whether through invented characters in Book from the Sky, hybrid scripts in Square Word Calligraphy or the captioning and metadata of online video in Dragonfly Eyes, where he probes how text frames what audiences see.
This article was produced with a.i. support and editorially reviewed. All statements without guarantee; auction results, exhibition dates and awards may change at short notice.
