Artist Wenda Gu's exhibit features a large temple structure, made entirely of human hair, including massive pillars that are lighted from within. More photos are on the Bulletin Board page of this issue of InHouse.

Gu creates new installation during residency

Internationally renowned artist Wenda Gu spent a weeklong artist's residency at UNT earlier this month with the support of nearly $50,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

GU's residency culminated with the opening of an original installation, "From Middle Kingdom to Biological Millennium," in the UNT Art Gallery Jan. 16.

The exhibition will be on display through Feb. 25. The opening reception included a celebratory performance piece; Gu commissioned an original sound piece from Chicago-based electro-acoustic composer Olivia Block, who worked with faculty members from the UNT College of Music and Department of Dance and Theatre Arts for the opening presentation. A symposium, "Transnation: Contemporary Art and China," preceded the Jan. 16 opening reception and featured a panel of experts including Gu, David Cateforis from the University of Kansas; Melissa Chiu from the Asia Society in New York; Rob Erdle, UNT Regents Professor in painting; Gao Minglu from the State University of New York in Buffalo; Jennifer Purtle from the University of Chicago; Harold Tanner, UNT associate professor of history; and Gan Xu from the Maine College of Art. Jennifer Way, UNT assistant professor of art history, moderated the symposium. Consisting of six installations, "From Middle Kingdom to Biological Millennium" explores the relationship between China and the West, past and present. It has transformed the UNT Art Gallery into a forest of stones, a sacred space, and a meeting of humanity and culture.

The exhibition features examples of the major works that have defined Gu's reputation as a creative and dynamic artist.

Among the pieces included is the latest addition to his "United Nations Series," an ongoing, global art project. Titled "United Nations 7,561 kilometers (4,698 miles)," this piece uses human hair to create a large temple that viewers may enter. Another work debuting in this exhibition is "Forest of Stone Steles — Retranslation & Rewriting of Tang Poetry." Six 1-ton stone tablets, carved with the original Chinese versions of Tang poetry, along with translations, give this installation a striking physical presence.

Small altar-like installations of Gu's recent "Ink Alchemy" (1999-2000), "Tea Alchemy" (2002), "United Genes" (1995) and "Enigma of Birth" (1993) projects, along with video documentation presented on tiny television monitors built into black wood presentation tables, will complete the exhibition.

The UNT Art Gallery is open Monday and Tuesday from noon to 8 p.m., and Wednesday through Saturday from noon to 5 p.m.

When the exhibition closes at UNT, it will travel to Artspace at the Kansas City Art Institute in March, and then to the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art for exhibition from July through September. A comprehensive catalog, the first book devoted to Gu's work, will be published by MIT Press.

Born in Shanghai in 1955, Gu is a graduate of the Shanghai School of Arts and the China Academy of Art. Although trained as a traditional landscape painter, he rebelled against the canons of Chinese art. In 1987, he left China for the United States in search of greater artistic freedom. This move introduced Gu to new sources of concern and inspiration such as an increasingly globalized culture and cultural mistranslations. By continuing to use and rework traditional Chinese media such as calligraphy, ink painting and carving to express these ideas, Gu breathes new life into old art forms and creates striking statements about life and culture.

In addition to the grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, this project is supported by the Texas Commission for the Arts, the Charn Uswachoke International Development Fund Grant at UNT, the UNT Fine Arts Series and the School of Visual Arts Visiting Artist and Scholar Committee.

BY KELLEY REESE kreese@unt.edu

Other featured articles in this issue

• New campaign promotes UNT license plates and scholarships
• Women at work: Habitat for Humanity calls for Women Build volunteers
• Rafes named senior vice president for administration
• Equity, diversity conference registration deadline nearing
• Pohl addresses golf course development issue
• UNT offers support system to employ people with disabilities
• Rafes speaks to Staff Council about salaries, staffing levels, legislative session
• UNT to sponsor Leadership Texas participant
• UNT scholars win four Rotary scholarships

homepage