Semiotic Analysis of Visual Symbol Reconstruction in Chinese Installation Art: Interpreting Daoist Thanatology through Works by Xu Bing, Cai Guoqiang, and Gu Wenda.

Abstract

Driven by the imperatives of globalization, contemporary Chinese installation art increasingly mobilizes the structural transmutation of indigenous Eastern philosophies to forge globally resonant visual narratives1. This study conducts a semiotic analysis of Visual Symbol Reconstruction (VSR) in Chinese installation art, focusing on Gu Wenda’s United Nations—The Great Wall of Blood and Flesh, Cai Guoqiang’s Sky Ladder, and Xu Bing’s Background Story. Addressing the lack of systematic semiotic methodologies in existing scholarship, this research constructs a conceptual framework of VSR by employing Roland Barthes’ second-order semiological system to interpret how Daoist philosophies of death are encoded into visual form. Data were collected through direct observation and literature analysis. The analysis indicates that these artists reconstruct philosophical concepts through the material properties of their works: Gu Wenda integrates human hair with the form of the Great Wall to construct a myth of “Way of nature”; Cai Guoqiang’s ascending gunpowder imagery visualizes the “State of unity ,” linking the earthly realm with the celestial through the simultaneity of destruction and creation; and Xu Bing’s manipulation of discarded materials and light-shadow relations embodies the principle of “Way of non-action,” revealing the nature of reality through the interaction between illusion and existence. This study advances visual culture studies by unpacking a critical mechanism: the Material-Semiotic Transmutation through which contemporary installation art preserves and regenerates traditional spiritual values.