Artist's work explosive

It was October 15, 1985, just a normal sunny afternoon during Beijing's pleasant autumn.

Nothing seems out of the ordinary, except for the crowd of people flocking to a simple opening ceremony at a small exhibition hall in a corner on the ground floor of the China National Art Museum.

Gu Gan, then 43, was presiding over the opening of a group exhibit he organized and participated in, which was entitled "The First Exhibition of Modern Calligraphy."

At that moment, the artist did not realize that he was launching an important modern artistic movement that would have spanned the coming 15 years and retain its vitality even to today.

At that time, he likely had no idea that the second half of his life would be tied to this new cause, which he started with his artist friends Wang Xuezhong, Wang Naizhuang, Huang Miaozi and others.

Most of the 72 works by the 26 artists in the exhibition were highly innovative and reminded viewers of both calligraphy and painting, or, neither calligraphy nor painting.
Painting techniques and images were introduced extensively in these modern calligraphic works. And many of them featured colour, a highly radical approach for Chinese calligraphy that is often regarded as purely black-and-white form.

Like a pebble thrown into calm water, the exhibition and the concept of "modern calligraphy" proved to be a great stimulus to the depressive Chinese art scene following the detrimental "cultural revolution (1966-76)."

The explorative spirit of the artists received warm applause, although some critics and calligraphers made immediate objections, criticizing that the showpieces deviated too far from a glorious tradition.

"What I had in my mind at that time was nothing but to add some new vitality to the traditional art form of Chinese calligraphy in a new age," Gu recently said in his comfortable, two-storey house in northern Beijing.

"The works were far from mature, of course, especially from the point of view today. But they reflected the strong desire of Chinese artists for a change after the 'cultural revolution' as well as the beginning of reform and opening-up in China."

Most important of all, the term "modern calligraphy" was made public for the first time during the exhibition, and a group of modern calligraphers began to form and seek to develop a modern abstract art derived from China's calligraphic traditions, rather than recklessly following the example of Western modern art.

Gu became the group leader, serving as the first president of the Society of Modern Calligraphy and Painting which he co-established together with the opening of the historic exhibition.

Modern calligraphy has developed much further with increased variety. The use of calligraphic elements has been expanded from two-dimensional works of art to cutting-edge art forms such as installation and performance. Modern calligraphy has become an irresistible artistic trend that any serious scholar of Chinese calligraphy and Chinese modern art has to take into account.

Following the 1985 show, exhibitions of modern calligraphy have been held frequently in China and in the West, and works of modern calligraphy have been accepted and rewarded for their creativity in national exhibitions organized by the Chinese Calligraphers' Association.

Fifteen years have passed since that October day, and Gu says he feels lucky that his faith and enthusiasm in the artistic movement still remain.

Many of his fellow artists from the first exhibition of modern calligraphy, unfortunately, have moved on for varied reasons - largely because the works are misunderstood and because of hardships in exploring in this lonely field.

Misunderstandings primarily came from some traditional calligraphers. They complained that these modern artists were no more than troublemakers that would eventually despoil the treasurable traditions of Chinese calligraphy.

Gu, however, firmly believes that modern calligraphy represents a significant attempt to develop the traditional art form of calligraphy in a modern age and make it a valuable source of inspiration for other forms of contemporary art.

"In my opinion, modern calligraphy is a most authentic Chinese abstract art that uses Chinese characters as its vehicle. And I insist on using Chinese characters in my works, which is essential for calligraphy, rather than abandoning them as some modern calligraphers do," Gu said.

Under this principle, Gu's artwork always bears Chinese characters that are abstract and unrecognizable in appearance, but which actually have concrete meaning related to the themes or titles of his works of art. In his works, images are often combined with pictograms as well.

The concrete meaning of the characters and their rich images, in a way, make his abstract works less abstract to viewers, being easy to understand even for Westerners who cannot read Chinese characters.

Different from modern calligraphers such as Zhang Dawo, Wei Ligang and Yan Binghui, who stick to the calligraphic quality of brushwork or the traditional black-and-white, Gu's works are distinctive in their free, decorative nature and their bold, harmonious use of colours, which create a poetic, light-hearted and romantic flavour.

In his work "Deer Crying" of which a similar version is in the British Museum collection, he abandons normal classical characters entirely, but retains a concrete link with Chinese history by working in the earlier pictogram characters for "deer" yet connecting it to a depiction of the animals themselves that relate most closely to European cave paintings.

"A mother stands calmly amidst a herd of deer, who cry with delight that she feels at one with them. Both components are conveyed through modern interpretations of archaic pictograms, coloured in a style reminiscent of Paul Klee's Chinese poems," British art critic Michael Goedhuis wrote in the catalogue for Gu's 1998 exhibit in London.

Born in 1942 in Changsha, the capital of Central China's Hunan Province, Gu was trained as a figure painter in the discipline of traditional Chinese painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in the early 1960s.

Since a young age, he has also taken an avid interest in studying Chinese calligraphy and seal-carving and was especially influenced by the wildly dancing cursive script style of calligraphy of Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) master Monk Huaisu, who was also from Changsha.

Before his retirement in 1999, Gu had worked as an art editor and book illustrator at the Beijing-based People's Literature Publishing House since 1975 after labouring as a worker in a printing factory during the "cultural revolution."

He received nationwide recognition as an accomplished figure painter and book illustrator beginning in 1978, when he was invited by the Ministry of Culture to be a member of China's first research academy for traditional Chinese painting after the 10-year cultural disaster. The group included master painters such as Liu Haisu, Li Keran, Shi Lu and Li Kuchan.

At the academy, Gu, the youngest in the group, had an opportunity to learn from the masters and to meet Wang Xuezhong, who became his life-long friend and most helpful collaborator in the modern calligraphy artistic movement. Wang, an outstanding calligrapher, painter and scholar, is now vice-president of the Chinese Calligraphers' Association and art professor of Tianjin University.

Gu did not become internationally renowned as a modern artist until he launched the modern calligraphy artistic movement. Only since 1985 that has he found his real expression by merging the abstract spirit and high spontaneity of traditional Chinese calligraphy in his artwork, with influences of 20th century Western masters such as Picasso, Kandinsky, Klee, Miro and others.

Westerners would most likely regard Gu's art as "calligraphic painting" that takes Chinese characters as compositional elements.

Gu himself, however, believes that his art is typical "modern calligraphy" that uses the images, lines, and meanings of Chinese characters as his essential artistic language.
"I seek to create an art of my own, blending the most traditional in China with the most modern in the West," Gu said.

During 1987-93, Gu lectured on modern calligraphy at the University of Bonn and the Hamburg Fine Arts Institute in Germany.

It was in Germany that his art began to be widely recognized and collected and that he began to systematically compare Chinese modern calligraphy with Western abstract art, summarizing the theories of modern calligraphy.

The theories can be found primarily in his books such as "The Construction of Modern Calligraphy" and "Three Steps of Modern Calligraphy."

But Gu's success does not mean he is free from criticism.

Every so often, Gu is criticized for not having a stronger calligraphy background in a traditional sense, for instance, in the quality of his calligraphic lines.

Wei Ligang, a student of Gu who is also an influential modern calligrapher and art critic, told of the change in his interpretation.

"Since I was originally trained in calligraphy of traditional styles, I first saw his calligraphic lines as inferior according to classic standards. But after viewing many of his works, I became totally captivated by his art, which is colourful as a kaleidoscope and has a very conformative system of its own," Wei said.

"By abandoning some techniques of traditional calligraphy, Gu, however, created and established his unique system. It is much more desirable for an artist to abandon 10 advantages of tradition and establish one of his own than to grasp 10 advantages of tradition but create none," Wei said.

Date: 02/22/2000
Author: YANG YINGSHI, China Daily staff
Copyright? by China Daily

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