Ink on paper

94 x 174 cm.37 x 68 1/2 in.

Stamped with four artist seals
PROVENANCE Acquired directly from the artist.
Formerly the Property from Ms. Huai-Kuei Song Collection.

Gu Wenda
(b.1955-)
From the ink fabrication and installation ink created in the early 80s to the body based conceptual themes and material media series created for arts, the “United Nations” started in 1993, and the “Central Park” projects combining land arts, architecture, garden, and design through of interdisciplinary new originality, contemporary artist Gu Wenda living in the United States has drawn great attention from the international art circle with his works. He graduated from China Academy of Art with a graduate degree in Chinese painting in 1981. Gu Wenda studied with Lu Yenshao and has already drawn great attention from the art circle with his “Text” and “Forerunner Ink” series in the 1980s. Gu Wenda has absorbed Western elements on the basis of Chinese painting, forming an innovative, beautiful and unique art style that affects the contemporary artists.

His “The Universe” was created from the enlightenment period of Chinese contemporary culture, whereas the Critique of Language from Russell and Wittgenstei, and the philosophy of aristocratic radicalism from Nietzsche provided the spiritual resource and theoretical basis for the cultural rebellion needed by Gu Wenda at the time. Gu Wenda abandoned the “writing” oriented ink standards from traditional ink painting but to separate brushes and ink, using ink itself as an independent presentation factor and aesthetic structure. Based on large are of splashing, washing and rinsing, and even using spray-gun as well as other modern tools plus imprinting and printing techniques to highlight the space filled with dynamics, Gu Wenda turns “writing” into “expression,” using western contemporary concepts to take challenge for the convention. Under the big background of contemporary art, GU Wenda transforms the “destruction” of traditional ink painting into word fabrication, wrong word and modified words based ink painting concepts. Artists are more interested in concepts rather than the image, and therefore they value more in the expression of concept or metaphor of culture than the pursuit of formality of arts.

“The Universe” has been collected by Mr. Maryn Varbanov and Madam Huai-Guei Song. Mr. Maryn Varbanov is an excellent tapestry artist who constantly implements breakthrough in terms of material and spatial forms for creation. He is also the one who induced the development of “soft sculpture” in China. In 1986, Mr. Maryn Varbanov established the “Maryn Varbanov Research Institute of Tapestry” with Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (currently the China Academy of Art), which became the first research institute hoisted by a foreigner among Chinese academies, launching the first media reform of academies at the time and the conceptual renovation of Chinese academy education. Under the guidance of Mr. Maryn Varbanov, three pieces from the research institute was chosen to the Thirteenth Lausanne International Tapestry Biennials in 1987 and it was also the first time for Chinese contemporary art to gain international visibility. Meanwhile, the structure of tapestry art education which he has been thinking in the establishment of “Industry-academy research” is also insightful and experimental. Madam Huai-Guei Song is not only an artist but also the first Chinese chief representative to enter the Chinese-French clothing brand, Pierre Cardin and the first planner who led Chinese models into the western stage, renowned as the messenger and the communicator of French food culture and clothing culture. This remarkable lady is also the owner of famous Maxim Restaurant. Mr. Maryn Varbanov and his wife are both good friends and colleagues with Gu Wenda. They have worked together in China Academy of Art at late 1980s and appreciate each other’s works. The piece, “Universe” is the signature work of Gu Wenda’s experimental ink paining collected by Mr. Maryn Varbanov and his wife, which become the testimony to the profound friendship between the collector and artist.

Price estimate:
HKD：500,000 - 800,000
USD：64,500 - 103,200

Auction Result:
HKD: --