'[...] The works included in this catalogue to the exhibition Reading Space: The Art of Xu Bing represent moments within the last twenty years of Xu Bing's exploration of language, literacy, meaning and process. Fragments of larger installations, they both create and consider the interpretive space between reading and cultural comprehension, a space that seems unbridgeable by language alone. Early works encourage the viewer to experience and consider the breakdown of language itself as a mode of communication, while recent works herald the possibility of a universal intelligibility. This exhibition takes the renowned woodblock print work, Book from the Sky and the ongoing icon language project, Book from the Ground as book ends, presenting the trajectory of the artist's engagement with these themes. The essays in this volume address Xu Bing's work, goals, and process within their intellectual and cultural context. [...]' (Front Inside Sleeve, Reading Space: The Art of Xu Bing)