This review of Xu Bing's exhibition "Word Play" considers written language as performance. Bing's well known work "Books from the Sky" is installed at the Sackler Gallery in Washington and consists of "an architectural environment made entirely of books, wall panels and enormous paper scrolls that hang from the ceiling like a canopy. Every surface is covered with words, printed from thousands of wood block plates hand-carved by the artist. The language resembles Chinese but actually consists of nonsense characters he invented." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.