XU BING ILLUSTRATES THE LABEL OF CHÂTEAU MOUTON ROTHSCHILD 2018

Each year since 1945, a famous artist has created an original artwork for the label of Château Mouton Rothschild, with complete freedom as to the design.

The owners of Château Mouton Rothschild, Philippe Sereys de Rothschild, Camille Sereys de Rothschild and Julien de Beaumarchais de Rothschild, commissioned the label for the 2018 vintage from the Chinese artist and writer Xu Bing (b. 1955).

The artwork for the 2018 label reflects the artist’s work on the illusory splendour of appearances as manifested by his Square Word Calligraphy, which resembles traditional Chinese characters but is actually composed of the letters of the Latin alphabet. Xu Bing expresses his linguistic creativity in the invention of a unique script in which the words are absorbed into the codes of traditional Chinese ideography.

In this coalescence of cultures, the label for the 2018 vintage features the two words “Mouton Rothschild”. The characters in the artwork are designed by Xu Bing to reveal themselves to the attentive reader one after the other, in the same way that the aromas and flavours of a very fine wine, with patience, are also gradually discovered.