Chinese Characters as Concept and
The International Language of Visual Art
Jean M. Ippolito
University of Hawaii at Hilo
[email protected]
Abstract
This paper addresses the reality that a number of artists of
China and the Chinese diaspora use Chinese characters in their
work. Some of the characters are legible and some are not, but
all are wrought with deep layers of meaning. The fact that the
characters originated as pictures makes them even more
relevant for the visual arts as an international language.
Aesthetics of Brush Writing
The ancient art of calligraphy, Chinese characters written
with brush and ink, was and is considered an art form of
the highest quality, even elevated above the art of
painting. The traditional training for a professional
calligrapher begins at a very young age and requires a
great deal of self-discipline and repetitive practice. A
work of calligraphy is revered for its abstract visual
beauty, regardless of the meaning of the words. The most
renowned of ancient calligraphers in China was Wang
Xizhi, who lived in the 4th century. He is known for his
method of manipulating the pressure of the brush to
create strokes of varying width and density. This results
in an illusion of depth in what is usually considered a
two dimensional art form.
The expressive character of Chinese brush writing, or
calligraphy, when compared to painting, includes
differences in ink thickness and opacity, and the weight
of the hand on the brush. Varying amounts of water can
be added to the ink to make gradations of black and grey,
and the brush, which is held vertical, perpendicular to the
paper, is pushed and pulled by the hand to vary the
thickness of the stroke. There are also certain technical
terms, like “flying white” to indicate a dryness of the
stroke that leaves the white of the paper showing
through.
The Chinese written language began to develop as
much as 3500 years ago, and began as pictures incised
on oracle bones and later cast into bronze vessels.
Modern Chinese characters are direct descendents of the
ancient pictographs. Since each character represents a
visual concept, the written form of Chinese can be read
throughout the many distant dialects of modern China.
This universal written language is an important unifying
factor in much of China.
It is no wonder that this visual communication system
is utilized by a number of contemporary artists of China
and the Chinese diaspora. It is used conceptually as an
indicator of understanding or misunderstanding,
communication or miscommunication, depending on the
method of employment in the work of art.
Contemporary Artists
How can the beauty of the ancient art of brush writing be
updated to the conceptual standards of contemporary art
without losing the values of tradition?
Hung Keung, a Chinese artist based in Hong Kong,
uses digital technology to recreate the process of brush
writing as part of his series entitled Dao Gives Birth to
One. His thesis is that there is greater aesthetic value and
understanding in viewing the process rather than limiting
oneself to just the result. The artist presents Chinese
characters in two stages. In the first, the animation shows
a character written stroke by stroke, and in the second,
the animation shows the complete character being
rotated and moved through time and space. The latter, is
said to present the three-dimensional aspects of
calligraphy, and the former shows the fourth dimension
of time. Hung Keung argues “ . . . that Chinese-character
writing contains the seeds of 3D and 4D experience,
which become manifest only when a traditional
calligrapher controls the volume of ink and the pressure
of brushes on a 2-dimensional writing platform.” [1]
Hung explains his two stages: “The first step sought to
give viewers a temporal experience by having them
visualize the entire process of creating these animated
characters as a flying sequence.” [2] The second step
shows the “character zooming around in virtual space
(void), the character’s motion suggests a threedimensional form, rather than a flattened, 2-dimensional
image.” [3] By visualizing the 3D and 4D characteristics
of the traditional art of calligraphy, Hung Keung updates
the theme for an international audience. “Hung states
that the reunification of Hong Kong with mainland China
has ‘led to much confusion and ambiguity about our
language and identity’, and in his work he seeks to reawaken peoples’ consciousness of the meaning and
significance of Chinese cultural tradition in Hong Kong
contemporary society.” [4]
Illegible Writing
Two artists that use Chinese characters, but render them
illegible, are Xu Bing and Wenda Gu. Xu Bing uses the
kaishu script, standardized since the Song Dynasty (9601279), in his renowned work Book from the Sky.
Although the kaishu script is one that is most easily
recognized for printed matter, Xu Bing has created
nonexistent characters that cannot be read by even the
most literate of Chinese people. Wenda Gu uses the style
of the ancient seal script, an already difficult to read
style, but, like Xu Bing, creates nonexistent characters,
rendering his work illegible as well. Both of these
manufactured hanzi have been dubbed “pseudolanguages” by art historians. Xu Bing’s work is more
about the meaninglessness of propaganda literature in
20th century China, and Wenda Gu claims that his
pseudo-language is conceptually universal, therefore it
doesn’t matter what it says.
The artist Xu Bing, who spent approximately one year
carving the wood blocks for the printed matter of his
piece, states, “I wanted there to be a tension between the
seriousness of the execution and the presentation and the
underlying absurdity that animates the project.” [5]
Whereas Wenda Gu, expresses the unreadable character
of the language as liberating: “Because I couldn't read
the script, I felt liberated from the meaning of the
words.” [6]
In United Nations, a project that Wenda Gu has been
working on in series since 1994, the artist uses human
hair from different world ethnic groups to construct his
pseudo-characters. The symbolism of the DNA provided
by human donors honors the artist’s commitment to his
universal concept. “The target is the United Nations, an
organization whose utopian purpose is to create a better
world by unifying its different races and cultures – a
vision that probably won't exist in our lifetime. But it can
be realized in art, whose function is to serve as a
projection of our imaginary.” [7]
One must compare Xu Bing’s choice of carved woodblock characters from the Song dynasty to Wenda Gu’s
seal script characters made from human hair. Both artists
have created illegible characters; however, Xu Bing’s
intention is to distance the unreadable words from any
human expression, and Wenda Gu’s intention is to infuse
the human quality of the actual texture of hair into his
illegible ancient script. Xu’s point is that propaganda
writing can be nothing more than nonsense, where
Wenda’s point is that the written words are an imaginary
international language, to be shared by all – and that
what is being said is not relevant to the content of the
work. Both are parodies in the Post-modern sense: Xu’s
work parodies mass communication through wood-block
printing, and Wenda’s work parodies literature as ancient
cultural tradition.
Xu Bing’s later work, Book from the Ground, is closer
to Wenda Gu’s idea of a shared universal language. In
Xu Bing’s Book from the Ground, a project begun in
2007, the artist set out to create a universal visual
language that can be readily understood by all, utilizing
common communication icons, like those used in
international airports, collected in a computer database.
In 2007 installation at the Museum of Modern Art in
New York, visitors could type in their words, and the
computer would automatically translate into the iconbased language. More recently, Xu Bing’s book, Pointto-Point, was published in icon only form by MIT Press
(2014). Wenda Gu, however, explains the subtle
difference between Xu Bing’s universal language and his
own: “So I am playing a double game. Chinese readers
could interpret the concept of an unreadable language as
the mythos of a lost history, while non-Chinese readers
could interpret it as a misunderstanding of an ‘exotic’
culture. In general, the miswritten language symbolizes
misunderstanding as the essence of our knowledge of the
material world, yet the pseudo-languages help us to
imagine a universe beyond language.” [8]
Conversely, there are other artists that begin with a
legible script and use artistic process to cancel it out.
This implies an apathy that results from mindlessly
repeating actions or the falsity of overused words.
Cancelled Writing
Qiu Zhijie, in Writing the Orchid Pavilion Preface One
Thousand Times (1986/97), begins with a legible script,
an ancient 4th century text (originally written by the
legendary calligrapher Wang Xizhi) and copies it over
1000 times. Although this is a task that is undertaken in
the traditional training for a professional calligrapher, in
Qiu Zhijie’s case, the copies are done on top of one
another until the excerpt becomes a solid block of
illegible ink. This has connotations of mindless repetition
without meaning – doing as one is instructed without
questioning until the purpose no longer exists.
There are a few works by Qiu Zhijie that include
legible Chinese characters. Within the photographic
series entitled Tattoo (1994), the character 不 bu
(negating), is photographed over the artist’s torso, giving
the meaning of cancelling out the individual. [9] In
Double-Happiness (2000), two individuals, one male and
one female, lay on the ground, straitjacketed by an
overlay of the double-happiness character commonly
associated with weddings in China. [10] In Ten Tang
Poems (2000-2001), the poems are written backwards,
from left to right, bottom to top. In addition, each
character is written backwards, stroke by stroke. This
was videotaped so that when the video is played
backwards the poems are being erased. [11]
Another artist who cancels out writing by burning over
it is Wang Tiande. He was inspired after inadvertently
dropping his cigarette butt onto his calligraphy. From
that point, the burned images mirror the calligraphy. The
burns, however, are ghostly shadows, which obscure the
written word, making it almost indecipherable. [12]
Also, similar to the idea of eradicating what is
written, is Song Dong’s Water Diary (1995). The idea
comes from the tradition of practicing calligraphy with
water on a flat stone, rather than ink on paper. For
training, this allows the calligrapher to repetitiously
practice writing without wasting paper or ink.
Repetitious practice conditions the calligrapher “ . . . to
incorporate the text inside his own musculature and
gestural reflexes.”[13] As the calligrapher continues to
write, the characters slowly evaporate, so that what is
written gradually disappears. For Song Dong’s Water
Diary, this allows the artist to record his emotional
reaction toward daily events in complete confidence.
[14] In Song Dong’s Stamping the Water (1996)
performance in Tibet, the artist used a large rubber stamp
with the character for water to stamp the surface of the
water for one hour. [15]
There is a similarity between the non-cognitive,
endlessly repetitive actions of the artist and the mindless
repetitions within the programmed algorithm of the
computer. This poses the idea that when shut off,
whether intentionally or not, the human mind can be
empty like a machine.
Mindless Repetition
Also addressing the mindless repetition of meaningless
words is Man Ching-Ying (Hong Kong), 97
Reunification, I Am Very Happy . . . More typically a
feminist artist, in this piece she is a political activist. Her
installation, 97 Reunification, is a room with the Chinese
characters for “97 Reunification I am very happy [九七
回歸我很高兴]” repeatedly plastered over all the ceiling
and walls. Although the words are very clear, the
meaning reflects the falsehood and apathy of the people
of Hong Kong toward the handover in 1997. Every inch
of the walls of the room are covered with the same type
of communist style propaganda lettering once used on
factory walls in The People’s Republic of China. [16]
Intercultural Communication
A new trend is to develop international communication
systems for promoting intercultural understanding and
sensitivity.
In Wenda Gu’s piece entitled United Nations: Babel of
the Millennium (1999), the concept has a more positive
approach to bringing together our different means of
communication. It includes nonsensical characters of
Chinese, English, Hindi and Arabic script made from
human hair donated from barbershops around the world.
Wenda Gu explains: “At the final realization of united
nations project there will be thousands and thousands of
different living races’ presence on the hair wall,
supported by so many cultural institutions, [and] local
barbershops . . .” [17] In addition, the artist explains,
“That’s why I use hair from different races. I want
people to feel that they are part of the work, not just
passive viewers looking at it.” [18]
Over time, the artists’ attitudes change along with the
cultural context, international acclaim and audience
reactions to their work. From the survival of the most
difficult hardships to self-recognition concerning the
power of art, Xu Bing and Wenda Gu both lived through
the cultural revolution, and both have had their
exhibitions shut down by the Chinese communist
government. Wenda Gu explains, “ . . . the government
suspected that unreadable characters might have hidden
meanings or that I was destroying the code of tradition;
they consequently closed my exhibitions several times.”
[19]
Language Misunderstood/Art Censored
Artists that have been subjected to censorship by the
Chinese government tend to be sought after, even more
so, by the Euro-American art market, resulting in a
global art market boom for Chinese art. [20] This does
not necessarily mean that the Chinese artist must become
an ex-patriot. “The assumptions that one cannot be both an
avant-garde artist and a patriotic Chinese, or be loved by
Western art critics and love your Chinese homeland at the
same time, block more nuanced interpretations of modern
artistic experiments.” [21]
Xu Bing describes his own survival and attachment to
his homeland, “Since I grew up in China and am
involved in Chinese culture in a very deep way, what I
do comes very naturally. I have no other choice but to
draw from my own cultural tradition, which has been
filtered through Mao's Cultural Revolution.” [22] And as
much as the capitalist art market continues to embrace
the works once censored by the Maoists, Mao Zedong
had a few good ideas. “I believe that art should serve the
people. This is Mao’s idea.” – Xu Bing [23] What better
way to serve people than to address languages through
visual art, an intercultural means of communication.
References
1. Hung Keung, “Dao Gives Birth to One (version I)” 20092012. Keung + imhk lab website. Accessed December 31,
2015. https://hungkeung.wordpress.com/exhibition/dao-givesbirth-to-one-version-1/
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Sophie McIntyre, Exhibition Curator, statement in Hung
Keung biography in Ink/Remix, Canberra Museum Gallery,
ACT. Canberra, Australia. Gallery website. Accessed January
1, 2016. http://inkremix.com.au/artists/hung-keung/
5. Xu Bing interviewed in Simon Leung and Janet A. Kaplan,
“Pseudo-Languages: A Conversation with Wenda Gu, Xu
Bing, and Jonathan Hay,” Art Journal, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Autumn,
1999), p. 89.
6. Wenda Gu interviewed in Ibid., 90.
7. Wenda Gu interviewed in Ibid., 92.
8. Wenda Gu interviewed in Ibid., 90.
9. Qiu Zhijie, artist’s website. Accessed January 1, 2016.
http://www.qiuzhijie.com/worksleibie/Photography/e-tatoo-htm
10. Ibid.,
http://www.qiuzhijie.com/worksleibie/xingweixianchang/edouble%20happiness.htm
11. Ibid., http://www.qiuzhijie.com/worksleibie/calligraphy/etangshi10.htm
12. Wang Tiande at artsy.net. Accessed January 1, 2016.
https://www.artsy.net/artist/wang-tiande
13. Norman Bryson, “The Post-Ideological avant-Garde.” in
Inside Out: New Chinese Art, ed. Gao Minglu (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1998), 57.
14. Philippe Vergne, essay with quotes from interview of Song
Dong by Binghui Huangfu. Accessed January 1, 2016.
http://www.beijingcommune.com/enArtText.aspx?ID=49&Tex
tID=28
15. Ibid.
16. Hong Kong Art: Visual Archive. Accessed January 1, 2016.
http://finearts.hku.hk/hkaa/revamp2011/artist_view.php?artist_i
d=042
17. Wenda Gu’s Shanghai Studio website. Accessed January 1,
2016.
http://www.wendagu.com/home/product/product/catid/117/pare
ntid/65.html
18. Wenda Gu in Simon Leung, Janet A. Kaplan, “PseudoLanguages,” 95.
19. Wenda Gu, Ibid., 90.
20. Aihwa Ong, “What Marco Polo Forgot: Chinese
Contemporary Art Reconfigures the Global,” Current
Anthropology, Vol. 53, Number 4 (August 2012), 474.
21. Ibid., 482.
22. Xu Bing in Simon Leung, Janet A. Kaplan, “PseudoLanguages,” 91.
23. Xu Bing in Ibid., 98.
Bibliography
Bryson, Norman, “The Post-Ideological Avant-Garde.” In
Inside Out: New Chinese Art, edited by Gao Minglu. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1998, pp. 51 – 58.
Delbanco, Dawn "Chinese Calligraphy (April 2008)."
Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. Accessed December 31,
2015. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/chcl/hd_chcl.htm
(April 2008)
Hong Kong Art: Visual Archive. Accessed January 1, 2016.
http://finearts.hku.hk/hkaa/revamp2011/artist_view.php?artist_i
d=042
Hung Keung “Dao Gives Birth to One (version I)” 2009-2012.
Keung + imhk lab. Accessed December 31, 2015.
https://hungkeung.wordpress.com/exhibition/dao-gives-birthto-one-version-1/
Leung, Simon and Janet A. Kaplan. “Pseudo-Languages: A
Conversation with Wenda Gu, Xu Bing, and Jonathan Hay.”
Art Journal, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Autumn, 1999): 86 – 99.
McIntyre, Sophie. Exhibition Curator, statement in Hung
Keung biography in Ink/Remix, Canberra Museum Gallery,
ACT. Canberra, Australia. Accessed January 1, 2016.
http://inkremix.com.au/artists/hung-keung/
Nakatani Hajime, “Imperious Griffonage: Xu Bing and the
Graphic Regime.” Art Journal. Vol. 68, No. 3 (Fall 2009) pp. 6
– 29.
Ong, Aihwa, “What Marco Polo Forgot: Chinese
Contemporary Art Reconfigures the Global.” Current
Anthropology, Vol. 53, No. 4, (August 2012): 471 – 494.
Qiu Zhijie, artist’s website. Accessed January 1, 2016.
http://www.qiuzhijie.com/worksleibie/Photography/e-tatoohtm
Vergne, Philippe. essay with quotes from interview of Song
Dong by Binghui Huangfu. Accessed January 1, 2016.
http://www.beijingcommune.com/enArtText.aspx?ID=49&Tex
tID=28
Wang Tiande at artsy.net. Accessed January 1, 2016.
https://www.artsy.net/artist/wang-tiande
Wenda Gu’s Shanghai Studio website. Accessed January 1,
2016.
http://www.wendagu.com/home/product/product/catid/117/pare
ntid/65.html