Part of Xu Bing’s 1987 woodcuts titled five series of repetitions, recording the stages of carving the block of wood prior to printing, a process that is usually obliterated. For these works, he made an impression of each state – beginning with a solid black print from an uncarved block and ending with a blank white ‘print’ representing the block after the raised surface had been completely carved away. The prints were mounted successively in a strip, progressing from nothing to something and back to nothing, they hint at the cycle of life.