Artist's garden dream

Gu Wenda wants to turn his art into a green paradise

Since the 1980s, contemporary artist Gu Wenda has been coining new Chinese characters by putting together parts of two or more Chinese characters. Now he has decided to create his characters from the ground up, planting calligraphy gardens where the public can physically involve themselves in his work.

Gu's latest creation, China Park, a work that ingeniously combines Chinese calligraphy with gardening and architecture, is on show at the OCT Contemporary Art Center.

It is the debut piece for the OCT Public Art Project, an ongoing 10-year program.

In the courtyard of the OCT Contemporary Art Center, Gu has grown shrubs in the shape of a few of his coined characters, such as gonghe (republic), qiuyu (autumn rain) and chunfeng (spring wind). This is only part of his ambitious China Park plan - a huge compound surrounded by water and forest. Seen from above, the landscape will look like a huge work of calligraphy.

While people around the world are calling for a greener environment and trying to live a low-carbon lifestyle, Gu wants to show that there is a unique Chinese way to achieve this.

"This is a conceptual design and I hope one day some estate developer can turn it into reality," Gu said. "It's a versatile plan - you can build it as a residential community or for commercial purposes."

Gu was trained in the traditional Chinese arts of water-ink painting and calligraphy, and in the 1980s, was one of the first among his peers to turn to contemporary experimental art.

"When I was studying traditional Chinese inscriptions on stone tablets, I could not recognize many of the Chinese characters because of the way they were written. It intrigued me and inspired me," Gu said at his studio in Shanghai.

"I felt free. I couldn't read them but I could imagine their meaning and I could even create my own characters."

Chinese characters have been the recurrent theme in Gu's artwork - carving characters of his own creation on stone tablets and making them into embroidery with human hair.

"I believe art has to involve mass culture and social life. It would mean so much to me when the public can walk into my creation and appreciate it from within. I want art to infiltrate people's lives instead of staying in the museum or collector's warehouse."

Gu now lives in New York and Shanghai. In September, a retrospective exhibition of his water-ink paintings will be held at the He Xiangning Art Museum in Shenzhen.

Until Nov15

OCT Contemporary Art Center, 800 Puxing Road

021-6299-6293

CHINA DAILY

(China Daily 05/21/2010 page45)