The Art of Asian Languages by OSU Museum of Art

Oklahoma State University | Oklahoma State University Museum of Art | The Association of Chinese Artists in American Academia

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THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

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THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

Art Asian Languages of

The

SHAOQIAN ZHANG ……. Introduction Essay

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MAP OF CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS

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PART 01: PROLOGUE

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A. ELIZABETH TENG …… The Insistent Desire of Han Characters in Contempo rary Art of Asian Languages

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FANG CHEN …… Knowledge is Infinite

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XIA GAO …… Sheng

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HAN DAI-YU …… Do Not Know（series # 1） …… Do Not Know（series #2） …… Do Not Know（series #3）

POUYA JAHANSHAHI …… Chine-collé

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LINXIA JIANG …… Book of Colors

018 020 023

THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

026 028 030 032 034 036 038

…… B is for Book 02

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NAIJUN ZHANG …… Fragmented Memory

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REBECCA RUIGE XU …… Make Merry before Spring’s Spent away XIAOHONG ZHANG …… Floods

HONGTAO ZHOU …… Poem: Buildings Needed for the Poor XIAOZE XIE …… Transience

…… Los Angeles Public Library (R78.8G, Grieg)

…… Square

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…… B is for Book 01

YONG XIAO …… 100 Surnames

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FEI CUI …… Tracing the Origin XIX_I_ii

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CHEN WANG …… Extremes Meet 有無相生

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PART 02: ART WORK

WENHUA SHI …… Wild Cursive

YU JI …… Into the Dust

CUSHMAN KERRI …… ABC: Between Cursive and Characters LAMPO LEONG …… Gesture IX

…… Gesture VIII

JOE REN …… A Word For Home(家)

…… A Word For Garden (園)

QIAN LI …… Follow The Line

CHUNMEI LIU …… City Landscape QING LIU …… Untitled

SUSAN MESSER …… Origins (Handmade Book)

DESMOND PANG …… Image Languagescape —Meal XUHONG SHANG …… RIDDLES 1

…… RIDDLES 2

YVETTE SHEN …… Visualizing Tao Te Ching

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PART 03: EPILOGUE 060

YU JI …… Epilogue: A Recollection on the Forum of Across the Divide

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CREDITS

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INSTALLATION VIEWS

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CONTENTS

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PART

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PROLOGUE

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THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

SHAOQIAN ZHANG PH.D.

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INTRODUCTION

The symbolic meaning of language is always open to new interpretations and its symbolism is modified and reintegrated through history.

THE ART OF ASIAN Languages explores intersections

artworks, this exhibition will raise awareness of the

of writing Asian characters and is closely related to

cultural framework, at this moment it is crucial to

Asian culture. Focusing around the central issues of

aries that we confront today.

tools, techniques and theoretical principles. The high

the issues of transculturality, a few Asian artists have

between art and language in contemporary East THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

Asian languages and book-making, this exhibition

issues surrounding globalization and cultural bound-

of forty works offers a comparison between picto-

Unique in their etymological origin, Asian characters

Western ones. Representing a variety of styles and

inscribed on oracle bones, through the invention

graphic-based Asian languages and phonetic-based media, these artworks not only convey the complex cultural heritage of calligraphy and book-making in

traditional Asia, but also respond to recent changes in Asian politics and social environments. Through

the different cultural experiences conveyed by these

have been evolving — from the earliest pictographs of paper, and on to the digital format — and have

endowed Asian culture with a distinguishable identity featuring a lineage of uninterrupted written history

from its infancy. Calligraphy, revered as the highest form of art by Asian scholars, is an artistic method

ink painting, as both are accomplished using similar

cultural status of calligraphy reflects the longstanding alliance of written language with political power and social prestige in East Asia. Writing and calligraphy have also led directly to the development of many

other forms of art, including, book-making, seal carving and ornate paperweights.

While languages play an essential role in shaping

cultural identities, evolving within their own specific

discuss these issues in global terms. Responding to

branched out to bring traditional calligraphy into new territories by mingling Asian characters with Roman letters. Notable among these new forms of calligra-

phy are Xu Bing’s square English calligraphy and Gu

Wenda’s pseudo-languages. Attempting to shed the negative constraints of their languages and cultures,

some artists choose to create universally comprehen-

sive language arts, which appears as a utopian dream of escape from the orbit of the signifier and, by exten-

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sion, from the social field. Intended for the global

audience rather than domestic ones, this particular

“art of language”is a branch of global contemporary art, an identity determined, not by where the artists live, but by the ideologies and media of their works and their intended audiences. To this end, transi-

tional and transcultural identities have produced the dynamic visuality that this exhibition presents.

A number of artworks in this exhibition present the artists’fascination with the forms of language as much as its contents, and they demonstrate the

marriage or the discrepancy between forms and con-

cepts. For example, Chen Wang’s Extremes Meet and Desmond Pang’s Image, Languagescape, explore the potency of using images to assist in the understanding of a language. Conversely, Lin Xia Jiang’s Book

of Colors and Joe Ren’s A Word For Home (家) and A Word For Garden (園) exhibit the contradiction and

discord between the visual and physiological experience of reading characters and the literal meanings

assigned to them. Playing with a medium filled with

the Chinese Communist Party held a magical and

and graphics simultaneously, suggesting the pos-

This exhibition thus offers an unprecedented look

of media forty years ago. The“Little Red Book”of

reach. Wenhua Shi’s Wild Cursive draws a parallel

the service of creative works. After making its debut

persuasive power that was adapted to all forms

Chairman Mao became a type of bible for the Chinese people and many posters employed large characters as vehicles of political propaganda. Yu Ji’s Into the Dust and Han Dai-yu’s Do Not Know demonstrate

how the government labeled and constrained each person through the mysterious undercurrents of

language and political icons. With Chinese characters seamlessly dissolving in the overall graphic format of

a paper cut, Xiaohong Zhang’s work promotes awareness of governmental dereliction of duty. People’s emotional reaction to these works can be complicated, combining feelings of shock, wonder and a

sensation of oppression and being smothered. It is

ironic, that while the Chinese language is a national

symbol of Chinese culture and participates in official

THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

as a mythical, overwhelming and sometimes even oppressing power. They mark an association between the use of iconographic language and the corporeal exercise of political power. In reality, the text from

the traditional brush can move so fast that the

characters can be unintelligible. These works are

good examples of languages without barriers, either

linguistic or aesthetic. Issues surrounding globaliza-

tion and computer technology have become import-

ant stimuli for these artists. Yet, globalization should not be understood in terms of cultural and economic homogenization; it is instead a machine for creating

and recreating local identities and differences. These

artists utilize the machine of globalization to produce new forms of Asianness.

junction with the Museum Exhibition course taught

the age of globalization and information technology.

Some works in this exhibition present a view of texts

practice of writing Chinese calligraphy. Sometimes,

is modified and reintegrated through history.

always open to new interpretations and its symbolism

of language communication. These works transform ers of visual and aesthetic connotation.

the fiercely individualistic and spontaneous artistic

The Art of Asian Languages has been organized by

A number of works focus on the relationship between

the texts from signifiers of literary meaning to signifi-

between computer-generative automatic writing and

political rituals, the symbolic meaning of language is

spiritual significance, Sue Messer’s Origins suggests

the volatile social impact of changes made to vehicles

sible existence of a world just out of language’s

traditional Asian art and high-tech digital means in

For example, Yvette Shen’s Visualizing Tao Te Ching is a depiction of the Daoist classic in a rhythmic and graphic format, which reminds us of the patterns in computer codes. Shen also uses different colors to

the Oklahoma State University Museum of Art in conby myself in spring, 2017 for the OSU Department of Art, Graphic Design, and Art History. With great

enthusiasm, the following students curated the exhi-

bition: Micah Firestone, Ellie Fuksa, Cheyanne Myers, and Katheryn Woodard. The artworks in this exhibi-

tion were juried and selected by the California-based art critic, Jeff Kelley.

create a pattern, in turn creating a“word”in Chinese

Many of the paintings, prints, small-scale installations

has translated the text of the famous ancient poem

directly from the artists after extensive consultation

characters. In a similar manner, Rebecca Ruige Xu

Make Merry before Spring's Spent Away into sound

and digital arts in this exhibition have been borrowed with them and have never been exhibited before.

at an imaginative and ambitious use of languages in at Oklahoma State University Museum of Art, this

exhibition will travel to the East Asia Library, Stanford University. This collaboration between an art museum and library not only allows people to recognize more fluid definitions of art, but also to achieve a new understanding of gallery and library spaces.

Challenging the conventional assumptions about

Asian art while expanding the horizons of contem-

porary art, the exhibition is part a long-term strategy by our respective institutions to redress the current

lack of knowledge about the subject, and to suggest

nuanced perspectives for the study of contemporary Asian art in the next millennium.

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The Insistent Desire of Han Characters in Contemporary Art of Asian Languages

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A. ELIZABETH TENG PH.D.

What is believed is often influenced by the desire to believe.

THE WORKS SELECTED FOR this exhibition on The

The work of the artists in this collection questions our

appear to take on a life of their own conveying Liu’s

Joe Ren’s work, The Word for Build, for example,

feature, a thread connecting them, in which language

on words as things.

sequential pollution which makes life more livable

in the marking of oracle bones (Figure 1; ca. 1200

Art of Asian Languages all share a single common

THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

or text, stubbornly, compulsively even, insists on

representing itself within spaces that are accustomed to demanding non-textual imagery.

The timing could not be more fortuitous. It is as

if these artists had an extra sense or harnessed a

nascent paranoia to explore issues which have come to dominate our perception and consumption of

information here in the United States of America.

Language or more precisely, discourse shapes reality.

implication in the shaping of this reality by focusing

These word-things are pulled apart, effaced, stripped back to their origins, modified, morphed and turned inside out. Chinese is one of the oldest written

language systems in the world. Many of the artists in The Art of Asian Languages are of Chinese Heritage and use the visual properties of the Han Character

to explore language’s implication in shaping reality. Chunmei Liu’s City Landscape, for example, literally envisions words as building materials. Buildings

anxiety regarding rapid development and the con-

for cars and structures than for the people that live in them and use them. Sigmund Freud believed

anxiety was a signal. For Jacques Lacan, the 20 C. i

French psychoanalyst who took Freud as his starting point, anxiety warned of the desire of the Other. In ii

Liu’s City Landscape the Chinese language as Other takes on a life of its own, perpetuating its own de-

sire, oblivious to the others that speak the language and who are eclipsed by perpetual discourse.

recalls the development of modern written Chinese B.C.E). The skeleton perpetuates itself, housing

more skeletons, just as language perpetuates itself regardless of who is speaking. The Han Character,

which is the basis not only for early written Chinese, but also early written Japanese and Korean lives on in modified form long after those who spoke it are dead. The angular thrust of the rainbows troubles the veneer of fantasy over a harsher reality, ulti-

mately questioning reality itself. What is believed is often influenced by the desire to believe.

Riddles by Shang Xuhong. The view in Riddles I is from

lation and disinformation.”Qing directs the viewer to

questionable nature of reality in the series called

the sky, the character for sky, or heaven, 天 glazes over the black and white photographic medium through

four quadrants. Riddles 2 narrows in on the phallic jet

which has allowed these views, bifurcating the picture

these newspaper clips function as means of manipu-

interrupt the hypnotic effect of what the words mean, asking rather what they do, how they function—to manipulate, not to convey meaning.

plane with a repetition that crops while contrasting

Singapore’s Desmond Pang’s Image Languages-

privilege and paradoxical dependence on duality. The

icons to capture a culture that speaks through food.

light and dark. Shang calls attention to the signifier’s

capes—Meal extrapolates this word- function through

character superimposed over the airplanes is the word

“Are you hungry?”being the most customary greeting

as door. Shang has introduced a clue to the riddles by

new ethnic groups through the shared enhancement

for question, 问 sometimes less commonly translated making an erudite reference to the classical Chinese poem, Tian Wen or“Heavenly Questions.”The text

ca. 288 BCE challenges authority by asking unanswer-

able questions about the basis of duality (Figure 2; ca. 1645).iii Political trauma as well as the compulsion to label reinforce ambiguity and alienation, implicating

all speaking beings who participate in the shaping of society and its effect on perception. The imposing

jet, vulgar in its lack of a frame and devoid of human

presence except as trace, recalls Ana Barrado’s photographic illustrations for J.G. Ballard’s The Atrocity Ex-

hibition.iv (Figure 3; 1986) Shang questions reality’s relation to language with the airplane, one of the largest

in an island which forged intersecting alliances and

of new ingredients, cooking techniques and intermarriage. Pang explores the possibility of overcoming

language barriers through the use of icons. Elements

of the Hanzi character for meal, 饭 (fàn) have been re-

constructed through different utensils and ingredients. The orange background reverberates with the simpli-

fied character and stimulates the desire to eat. Of all pore does transcend linguistic and cultural barriers.

The invocative drive remains even after the demand for food has been satisfied.

by an increasingly ubiquitous sense of alienation.

from traditional forms and sources while also pivoting

THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

and reality through found materials that question languages’behavior as vessel or container of meaning.

The reaction she elicits with organic materials such as human hair and eggshells is visceral and recalls the

alienation of birth as the shell breaks. Hair, a peculiar human feature, develops just as humans enter lan-

guage. Bits of discourse detached from their context in China Daily make strange the notion of what the words are containing. Once made strange, the question can turn to what the words are doing. Qing writes,“Like

Fig. 3. ©Ana Barrado, Jet Yard, Miami International Airport, 1986, The Atrocity Exhibition by J.G. Ballard, Re/Search Publications, 1990.

conveys the cultural sense of cuisine. Food in Singa-

The artists in this exhibition are contemporary, yet

Liu Qing takes up the question of language, authority

Figure 1: Oracle Bone, Wu Ding, Ca. 1200 BCE.

the Chinese words for food or meal, fàn most clearly

and most phallic vehicles in postmodern experience, suggesting that the force of the signifier is magnified

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the noisiest authorities insisting on its being received,

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Memory becomes ensnared in uncertainty and the

cognizant of their history working both within and

against this history with anxiety, indignation, concern, irony, alienation, and in some cases a sense of trau-

ma. It is artists who are best positioned to question language’s implication in the creation of reality. Denver Colorado, March 2017

The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. James Strachey, vol. 20, Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety (London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1953), 93. i

Jacques Lacan, Anxiety: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book X (Malden, MA: Polity, 2014), 325. ii

Stephen Field, Tian Wen: A Chinese Book of Origins (New York: New Directions Publishing, 1986), 3. iii

J.G. Ballard, The Atrocity Exhibition (New York: V/ Search Publications, 1990), 96. iv

Figure 2: Qu Yuan. Heavenly Questions (Tian Wen), From the book The Illustrated Li Sao, illustrated by Xiao Yuncong, and inscribed by Tang Yongxian, ca. 1645.

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CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS - USA

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CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS - USA

THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

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XXI

CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS - CHINA PART

ART WORK HONGTAO ZHOU Tongji University

CHUNMEI LIU

China University of Mining and Technology

THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

YONG XIAO

Central Academy Of Fine Arts

Fang Chen is a Professor of Art at Pennsylvania State University. His art-

works have been exhibited worldwide, and his posters were awarded the top prizes in the 9th Chaumont Festival of France, the 11th Colorado Biennale,

the 4th Trnava Triennial and 1st Hong Kong Triennial, respectively. Chen also won first place at the 4th ECOCARTOON 2011 in Brasília. In addition, he was

selected as the honor laureate for the 15th Colorado International Poster Bi-

ennale 2007 for his lifetime record of excelling in the poster medium. Chen’s works have been reproduced in hundreds of highly selective periodicals and books, including A History of Graphic Design, Art Actuel, Communication

Arts, Design Issues, étapes, Graphic Agitation 2, and KAK. His poster,“We Are One,”graced the cover of The UNESCO Courier in September, 2001. Feature articles about Chen and his work have appeared in Argumentation (Spring-

er), World Graphic Design (Merrell publishers), New Masters of Poster Design (Rockport publishers), Idea (Tokyo), Novum (Munich), and Print and Graphis (New York). The poster here was designed for a university, to convey its

frequently stated reverence for the pursuit of knowledge. Chen developed a concept using only one Chinese character, xue, meaning“to study,”to

express the idea that“Knowledge is Infinite”. He morphed the xue character from its origin as an ancient pictograph into the character used today, to demonstrate its metamorposis over thousands of years.

THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

陈放，美国宾夕法尼亚州立大学教授。《学无止境》是他为中国的一所大学设计的招生海报中的一部分。设计取甲骨、金文、秦简、汉碑各体“学”字，构成远近、虚实、大小、交错五层画面，以蕴含学贯古今，世代承继，以至永远的意念。

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Pennsylvania State University Pennsylvania

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陈 Fang Chen 放

Cui Fei was born in Jinan, China. She received her BFA in painting from the

China Academy of Fine Arts, Shanghai and her MFA from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She lives and works in New York.

Cui’s work is marked by her use of found natural objects. Materials such

as twigs, thorns, and seeds are used in three ongoing series;“Manuscript of Nature,” “Tracing the Origin,”and time based works. These projects

explore the relationship between humans and nature with an emphasis on the importance of nature to culture and life.

Cui’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues

such as the Museum of Arts and Design, New York; Princeton University

Art Museum, Princeton, NJ; Queens Museum; Aldrich Contemporary Art

Museum, Ridgefield, CT; Jeju Museum of Art, Jeju, Korea; Rietberg Museum Zurich, Switzerland; and the Museum of East Asian Art in Cologne, Germany, among others.

Cui has also received several honors: She won the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant; the Artist’s Fellowship from the New York Foundation for

the Art; and the Emerging Artist Fellowship from Socrates Sculpture Park. She was selected for the Art Omi International Artists Residency, the Art-

ist-in-Residence Program at Light Work, and the AIM program at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

崔斐生活工作于纽约，她的作品以使用自然元素为标志：干枯的树枝成为了她的

系列作品《溯源》的构成材料。通过将干枯的树枝摆放成看似中国象形文字的书法图案，她探索人与自然的关系中自然对于人类文化和生活的重要性。

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Independent Artist New York

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崔 Fei Cui 斐

My creative work engages a transcultural perspective to contemplate

personal, cultural, societal, and environmental issues and concerns. It highlights materials, studies, techniques and exploration to visualize

ideas in 2D, 3D and installation expressions that blend traditions with new innovations, and integrate art, craft, and design. Geographic migrations and relocations have brought me new insights into the life and cultural

milieu of my native East. My work tells stories, relaying personal experiences and my renewed connection to my cultural tradition and Eastern origin. The transitions in my own life and transformations in societies, particularly in contemporary China, serve to inspire my creation.

The Chinese character, 生 (sheng in pinyin), conveys multiple meanings.

Material play brings upwards movement, expansion, and blurriness; the

red color, meanwhile, symbolizes life, birth, sex and energy, which together interpret the complex dimensions of this world.

This work plays on both the shape and meaning of the Chinese character,

“正”(zheng in pinyin), utilizing white materials to form a see-through space, which creates shades and shadows.

高霞从文化交叉的视角思考个人、文化、社会及环境所涉及的问题。同时，地理的迁移和环境的转换激发了她对东方母文化的再认识。《方正盒子》是对汉字“正”形与意的玩味,白色材料与字型的结合形成了通透的空间和交错的光影。

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Michigan State University Michigan

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高 Xia Gao 霞

THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

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戴 Han Dai-Yu 汉至 Loyola Marymount University Carlifornia

This work plays on both the shape and meaning of the Chinese character,“正”(zheng in pinyin), utilizing white materials to form a see-through space, which creates shades and shadows.

Artist and Art Professor Han Dai-Yu received his M.F.A. from the China Academy of Art, Shanghai, where he was offered a teaching post after graduating. Combining Western and traditional Chinese art and culture, he developed and instituted a comprehensive Chinese art program for the academy.

From 2001-2002, Dai-Yu held the position of Artist-in-Residence at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. Since 2006, Dai-Yu has been teaching at

Loyola Marymount University as a full time faculty member of the Art and Art History department.

His art has been exhibited internationally at the Shanghai Art Museum and the Museum of Chinese Painting Institute in Shanghai, the Cité Interna-

tionale des Arts in Paris, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, the

LA Contemporary Art Gallery in Los Angeles, SCOPE Miami, and numerous contemporary art fairs.

His recent mixed media (3D) art work“Do Not Know”(series #1 #2 #3)

displays his technical range, drawing from calligraphy, map and portrait

illustration.“Do Not Know”combines Legos and veristic painting with the sign language for the three different chapters of Chinese modern history.

The work invites questions about the visual metaphors embedded in these various communication modes.

THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

戴汉至作品《不知道》（综合三维材料系列）（2016）展现的是书法、地图和人物肖

像，以及乐高玩具和有关手语所传达的写实绘画手段，综合集中地表现关于中国现代史三个不同阶段及其在多种视觉传达语言中互相作用的隐喻效果。

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THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

Pouya Jahanshahi is an Iranian-American Graphic Designer and Filmmaker,

currently Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Oklahoma State Universi-

ty. He received his MFA in Graphic Design and Integrated Media from California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) where his research focused on the global development of what he terms“Hybrid Visual Languages, a where visual cultures merge to create anew.

While my work spans across spectrum of media, as an immigrant of more

than 30 years I see my world through dual lenses, decoding my surroundings, searching for meanings of the past, approaching every moment as inquirer.

Exoticising war is an undercurrent present in our contemporary culture,

ranging the entertainment arena, to gaming products, and the latest lure of war-tourism and the ISIS phenomena. Ancient cultures have depicted simi-

larly depicted battles as a righteous act of bravery or a holy endeavor. Here, I approach this narrative from both a conceptual and formal perspective.

The main visual tells a timeless story of battles, as seen in ancient Persian

miniatures – juxtaposed against contemporary battle scene as we know. The words‘War’and‘Jang’(war for Persian) are intertwined with the aesthetics of Persian and Latin calligraphic forms – a hopeless love affair. THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

Pouya Jahanshahi 是俄克拉荷马州立大学图形设计专业助理教授。他的创作关注

全球发展视角下的混合视觉语言，并在融合中创新。他的作品通过视觉语言讲述古今战争的永恒性，用古波斯的微型复制战场和当今世界战场形成对比。

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Oklahoma State University Oklahoma

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Pouya Jahanshahi

My work, entitled“Into the Dust,”excavates a shared experience in book

form, meant to be an effort to prevent our memory from fading into oblivion. With words written in Chinese Han characters, the book records a revolution that took place fifty years ago. Its scripts, read vertically from right to left, record a chronology of human banality capable of tyranny that inflicted

pain on others. Echoed by the fanatical enthusiasm of its participants, this

Revolution intended to change the world, yet its legacy has ironically strayed

from public attention after only a few generations. As a person who survived the Revolution, I made this book to memorialize the time frittered away

during those years. Pages of this book may decay from moisture. Ink will

fade underneath layers of dust, but the images of this dark age remain - we cannot escape them.

Yu Ji is an artist whose work explores images of contemporary urban life. His work has been in exhibitions in Los Angele, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia,

Guangzhou, and Beijing. He is a professor at California State University, Long Beach, and a contributing member to the Forum Across the Divide.

宇计是加利福尼亚长滩州立大学教授，也是《穿越分界》论坛艺术家。宇计的作品，题为《忘却于尘》，以书去保存一段即将逝去的记忆。以汉字书写，由右至左的行文为读者留下了一段出于暴政而施他人于痛苦的人类平庸。

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California State University, Long Beach California

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宇 Ji Yu 计

THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

Lin Xia Jiang is a professor of Art and Coordinator of the Painting and Drawing Program in the Fine Arts Department of the State University of New York, Buf-

falo. He graduated with an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of

Utah. Jiang has exhibited his paintings regionally, nationally and internationally. His paintings are in numerous private, cooperative and public collections.

Lin Xia Jiang’s work is titled“Book of Colors.”It is a mixed media painting cre-

ated on a found object that has been repurposed. Finished in 2016, it measures 8.25”high, 7.25”wide and 0.25”thick when standing.

Its format references the theme of books as vehicles by utilizing a found object

that resembles a traditional Chinese accordion book. The contents of the painting are images and words - two Chinese characters 红 (Red) and 绿 (Green) with corresponding English words directly below them.

The character of the Chinese word“Red”(红) is painted in green with a red

background while the image of the Chinese word“Green”(绿) is painted in red with a green background. By doing so, the artist creates 1) a heightened visual tension between complimentary colors; 2) an incongruous sensation of color with the meaning of the word; and 3) an ultimate conflict or discord between the intellectual and visual experiences which can be described as a kind of cognitive dissonance.

THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

It is the artist’s hope that this work demonstrates the unique power of Chinese characters as images and the power of color as a universal language.

蒋临夏的作品题为“色书”。画面上有红绿二字和对应的英语。但“红”字是绿色画出呈现在红色背景上。 “绿”字是红色画出呈现在绿色背景上。通过这种对比, 他试图探讨文字图像和文字意义的矛盾性以及色彩语言的普遍性。

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Buffalo State University New York

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蒋 Lin Xia Jiang 临夏

Kerri Cushman is a sculptural book artist with an MFA from Columbia Col-

lege, Chicago. She is a professor of art teaching papermaking, bookbinding, and letterpress printing at Longwood University in Virginia. Her narratives push the boundaries of what defines a book. Wrapping everyday objects

with a fresh visual language, sculptural books provide an interdisciplinary link—a nexus between tradition and the future.

Historically, alphabet blocks were utilized as a tool for learning letters, words, and narratives: linking knowledge and play. By looking at the

physical act of how we learn to read through our senses by playful, spatial

manipulation of surface, construction and deconstruction, we preserve the

richness of words and the ability to invent. Metaphorically, as in all learning, we cannot understand until we take apart, examine and rebuild. This inter-

active book invites the viewer to participate in constructing and sharing his/

her own narrative. The work reflects parallels between the evolution of writing methods and systems, drawing similarities between tradition, practicali-

ty, and the future of communication. Is it vital that we maintain the ability to read documents from the past? In this information age, is the art of cursive handwriting obsolete, or is handwriting becoming obsolete because of technology? THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

Kerri Cushman 用全新的视觉语言来包装日常用品，通过书籍雕塑连接传统与未

来。采用字母积木这一学习字母的工具，使观众在交互中构建和分享自己的认知。作品反映了书写方法和系统的平行发展，描述了传统，实用性和未来沟通的相似性。

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Longwood University Virginia

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Kerri Cushman

Lampo Leong, PhD, Central Academy of Fine Arts; MFA, California College of the Arts, is currently a Professor of Art at the University of Missouri-Co-

lumbia. Leong’s work has been featured in art auctions such as Christie’s,

Ravenel, Poly, etc., and in art expos, museums, and galleries worldwide with more than 60 solo and over 350 group exhibitions, receiving over 70 awards. His works can be found in over 10 museum collections, including the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Cantor Center for Visual Arts, as well as

public art commissions for Columbia City Hall and a San Francisco city park. Leong’s achievements have been documented in hundreds of reviews and publications, including the front cover of the New Art International in New

York and the Creative Genius: 100 Contemporary Artists in London. Leong’s painting incorporates wild cursive Chinese calligraphy with geometric struc-

tures attained by accumulated layers of ink splashes to generate an ethereal

atmospheric quality and a sense of moving energy in a mysterious and powerful cosmic space. Reflecting a reverence for both the spirit of Daoism and the Sublime, Leong’s work celebrates the dynamic energies that give birth to new stars, new planets, and new life.

梁蓝波，哥伦比亚密苏里大学终身教授。他活跃于国际艺术博览会等艺术拍卖，作品被坎托艺术中心等十多个博物馆所收藏。他的作品通过充满动势的狂草线条和水墨肌理去营造氤氲浑沌的宇宙氛围，追寻雄伟博大的精神境界。

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University of Missouri Missouri

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梁 Lampo Leong 蓝波

THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

Zhe Ren was born in Tianjin, China. He received his B.F.A degree in

Sculpture from Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts, his M.A degree in painting and drawing from Arkansas State University, and his M.F.A degree specializing in Digital Media from Southern Illinois University. In the past few years he has exhibited his art work in America, Sweden, South Korea, and China.

Hearkening back to thousands of years of history which culminate in the

development of Chinese characters, his work expresses the origin of Chinese characters from Oracle bones and uses visual language to convey the

creativity and meaning of Chinese characters. His work borrows from the

origins of the form and concept of Chinese characters to evoke the tension between humans and nature, while emphasizing notions of greed, waste, arrogance, and desire inherent in our modern life. Miscommunication

and fantasy are excuses invented to obscure the reality. He questions the

relationship between what we see and what we want to believe, between what is and what we create for ourselves. He aims to elicit questions and to incite investigative thought concerning the world we live in as well as the postmodern cultural experience of duality and to provoke doubt in reality itself.

1. A Word For Home(家), Digital Print, 8.5”x11”

2. A Word For Garden (圓), Digital Print, 8.5”x11” THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

任喆的系列作品借鉴了中国汉字从甲骨文发展的概念，用汉字的最初形式和概念传达了人与自然的关系。通过思考事实是什么和我们为自己创造了什么之间的关系, 这组系列作品强调了现代生活中所固有的贪婪，欲望和自大。

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Dakota State University South Dakota

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任 Joe Ren 喆

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025

THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

Qian Li was born in Qingdao, China. She is an associate professor at Cleveland State University.

She received her BFA from The Central Academy of Art and Design (now the Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University) in Beijing. She received her MFA from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth.

Qian Li is an internationally renowned artist working in painting, digital

print, video, interactive installation and mixed media. She has exhibited

frequently in the US, Europe, and Asia. Her work has been shown in Germany, China, Brazil, Serbia, Turkey, Greece, Serbia and many other countries.

Her awards include the Individual Excellence Award and Grant from the Ohio Art Council in 2008 and 2015, Best in Show from the“Eighth Annual Image Ohio.”Qian’s art has been featured in many art magazines and her works are included in many permanent collections in the US and China.

李倩，克利夫兰州立大学教授。她的作品包括绘画, 影像,和装置，曾展于德国, 美

国, 和中国等国家。她两次被授予俄亥俄州杰出艺术家奖与奖金, 第八届俄亥俄图像艺术展头等奖等。她曾在三藩市黑德兰兹艺术中心作访问艺术家。

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Cleveland State University Ohio

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李 Qian Li 倩

THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

Chunmei Liu is currently an Associate Professor and a tutor at China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing). She was a visiting professor at the

University of Lincoln in the UK from 2014 to 2015 where she both joined and

organized emerging exhibitions. Her works have been collected both publicly and privately in China and numerous other countries.

Liu chose one city Landscape to create her work. Here, many different buildings were replaced with the Chinese words“房子(House), 楼房

(Building), 公寓(Apartment), 大厦”( Mansion), etc. She directly expresses her anxiety about the rapid pace of developing cities and the pollution of the environment in this picture. CITY LANDSCAPE 2 Image, 30*30cm

刘春梅, 中国矿业大学（北京）副教授, 2014-2015年英国林肯大学访问学者。

她的作品《城市风景》选用现代中国城市为背景，用中国的汉字直接替换其中的各类建筑物，直接表达对现代城市飞速发展和环境恶化的担忧。

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China University of Mining and Technology China

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刘 Chunmei Liu 春梅

THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

Liu Qing’s current work“Untitled”contains over 20 individual objects, each approximately 2 by 1.5 by 2 inches.

I employ material such as human hair, eggshells, newspaper clips from

China Daily to create these objects and sculptures. I’m interested in connections between materials and their relationship to meanings and value. Hair, as a basic human trait, symbolizes the deceased and the ideas of impermanence. Eggshells are relics of an organic vessel containing the zygote

in which animal embryos develop. Chinese characters are also viewed as containers and generators of written and verbal communications. In my

current work, they are torn off from China Daily and emerge from inside of

eggshells between the deformed tangled hair, -- the chaos. Like the noisiest

authorities insisting on its being received, these newspaper clips function as means of manipulation and disinformation. By combining them, I draw on

the paradox between power and fragility, authority and insincerity, permanence and perishability, wisdom and foolishness.

THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

刘勤选择时事新闻标题，人发和蛋壳这些远离当代艺术语境的材料创作《无题》。在隐约可见的诡异之中，让人生出疑问，这些疑问徘徊在被呈现物和象征物之间，徘徊在永恒和转瞬即逝之间，消弭主题与物件的距离，发人深省。

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San Antonio College Texas

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刘 Qing Liu 勤

Susan Messer creates handmade books, photographs and drawings using a combination of alternative print strategies and mixed drawing and sculp-

tural media. Her artwork has been presented in exhibitions in NY, Chicago,

Seattle, Milwaukee, Oaxaca, and Beijing. Awards from the NEA, Artists Space, Art Jewelry Forum, Wisconsin Arts Board and Kohler Foundation have supported her research activities.

In form and content, Origins reflects the relationship between ancestral and contemporary Chinese characters and evokes aspects of the cultural and

political forces that shaped the evolution of the forms over time. Made from cast and carved slabs of handmade soap, each page of the book presents a single Chinese character: on one side, an ancestral version of the character and on the other, a contemporary simplified version of the form.

Soap’s sculptural properties made it well suited for layered casting and

carving. Its associations with everyday use, intimate rituals and public functions, as well as cleansing, purity, conditioning, and impermanence align

with the contentious historic forces that influenced the development of the characters and suggest the mutability of knowledge and meaning. A cord

of braided wick binds each page to its spine suggesting the volatile social impact of changes to vehicles of communication.

THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

Susan Messer 的创作涉及手工书籍以及绘画和雕塑综合媒介。《起源》表现了古代

和当代中文字体的关系，唤起了时代发展下塑造汉字形式发展的文化与政治力量。作品由手工肥皂雕刻，每页展示一个中文汉字，一面是古代字体，另一面是当今简化字体。

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Univeristy of Wisconsin Wisconsin

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Susan Messer

Desmond Pang is a multilingual graphic designer from Singapore, a multi-

ethnic and multicultural country. Here, four official languages—English, Malay, Mandarin Chinese and Tamil, shift across different language platforms,

creating a distinctive language system. It is with sensitivity to transboundary conditions that he approaches his research and form-making in design.

In particular, his graduate thesis at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD)

explores design as a device to overcome language barriers and promote the understanding and appreciation of languages with which one may be unfamiliar, specifically in environments where non-Latin scripts are used.

Image Languagescapes explores the potency of using images to assist in the understanding of a language. In this project, Desmond Pang searched for

images of objects on Google that not only formally resemble each stroke of a kanji, adopted hanzi characters from Mandarin Chinese script, but also lend

themselves to the definitions of that particular character. The resultant work is both a kanji character and an assemblage of images. Project Title:

Image Languagescapes—Meal, 2016

THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

冯启辉来自新加坡，他的作品使用设计来克服语言隔阂，促进个人对不熟悉的语言增加理解和欣赏。《图像语言景》利用谷歌搜索形式上与汉字笔划类似的图像，以此为材创造一幅幅汉字图像，探讨图像促进理解语言的能力。

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Independent Artist New York

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冯 Desmond Pang 启辉

The images of the“天问/RIDDLES”are distorted by white colored Chinese characters. The characters reverberate against the meaning of the origi-

nal background which is obscured. This obscurity reflects the emotional

uncertainty that many have experienced following tragic events such as 9/11 and other similar terrorist attacks. This feeling of uncertainty has become

a phenomenon, and has ultimately distorted our perception of reality. The ambiguity in my work expresses the uncertainty of reality, which we our-

selves have caused. Our consciousness has grown accustomed to creating

labels for the things around us - building the society we live in today, which also provokes a sense of aloofness.

As a multimedia experimental artist, I have exhibited my artwork through

venues such as the Nexus Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta; Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Connecticut; Contemporary Art Museum in Baltimore; Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art; Shanghai Hongqaio Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto Fine Arts Museum; Richard Gray Gallery and

Sotheby’s in Chicago; Sotheby’s in Tel Aviv and Vienna; Plum Blossoms Galleries in Hong Kong, Singapore and New York City; Leda Fletcher Gallery in

Geneva; Hua Gallery in London. I am the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts/Southern Art Federation Regional Visual Arts Fellowship and an Art Matters Fellowship, New York City. THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

商徐宏的作品《天问》占居在机场的空间中, 白色的字体使得背景变得扭曲和混沌, 同时呈现出某种含糊的含义和不确定的情绪。这是911恐怖事件的延续, 并最终扭曲及颠覆了人们对现实世界的感受, 已成为一种广泛的社会现象。

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S. Illinoise University Carbondale Illinois

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商 Xuhong Shang 徐宏

Yvette Shen is a visual communication designer and educator. She is an Assistant Professor of Visual Communication Design in The Department of Design at Ohio State University. Her current research and creative work are mainly focused on information design, data visualization, and statistical graphics.

The intention of Visualizing Tao Te Ching is to depict the Taoist classic, one of the most influential books from ancient China, in a rhythmic graphic format.

The original text of Tao Te Ching was fluid and organized without punctuation. Chinese characters, since ancient time, are known for having square-shaped forms. The content of the accordion-style visual book is mainly composed of individual black squares; each represents one of the 5042 characters of

the Tao Te Ching (Lou Guan Tai version). The top most frequently occurring

characters are found using computational methods and are color-highlighted in the book.

The rate of the color occurrence also reveals patterns. It shows the most

frequently occurring conjunct characters, thus“a word”in Chinese. The two

most repeated words are 天下 meaning“world,”and 无为 meaning“inactive.”

These two key words coincide with the core of Taoist ideology 无为而无不为,

“action through inaction.”

Yvette Shen,俄亥俄州立大学设计部助理教授，她的研究和创作课题主要专注信息 THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

设计，数据可视化与统计图形。《道德经视觉阅读》的创作理念是以图型格式来诠释最具影响力的道家经典巨著《道德经》,以凸显它的结构，韵律，和主题。

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Ohio State University Ohio

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Yvette Shen

Wenhua Shi pursues a poetic approach to moving image making, and

investigates conceptual depth in film, video, interactive installations and

sound sculptures. Wild Cursive is computer generative automatic writing.

This piece is inspired by Sol LeWitt’s conceptual Wall Drawing instruction #260. The Repetition and combination of the lines recalls the endless practice of calligraphy strokes from the artist’s childhood memories.

His work has been presented at museums, galleries, and film festivals,

including International Film Festival Rotterdam, European Media Art Festival, Athens Film and Video Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Pacific Film Archive, West Bund 2013: a Biennale of Architecture and Contemporary

art, Shanghai, Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism, and

the Arsenale of Venice in Italy. He has received awards including the New York Foundation for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, and

Juror’s Awards from the Black Maria Film and Video Festival. Recently he presented a solo show, A Year from Monday, at Squeaky Wheel Film and

Media Art Center in Buffalo, NY and a solo screening, Autumn Air, at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston, MA.

史文华的《草书》是电脑自动书写的装置艺术，在苏乐温的观念绘画260号的启发下，运用电脑算法展示他儿时无休止地训练书法笔划的经历。他的其他录像 THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

装置艺术作品曾在众多美术馆，画廊和电影节展出，如鹿特丹电影节等。

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University of Massachusetts Boston Massachusetts

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史 Wenhua Shi 文华

As a Professor teaching Graphic & Interactive Design at California State University, Fullerton, Chen Wang’s research interests lie in

the field of visual communication across print and digital media.

In the past few years, his works have been exhibited and awarded by numerous international design competitions and they have been published in numerous books and articles. WORK 01: EXTREMES MEET (有無相生)

The Chinese character“無”translates into English as Nothingness, Emptiness, Non-existence, or Openness. Books and languages are conveyors of human thought. As Rene Descartes famously stated,

“I think, therefore I am”.It is fascinating to consider the ways in

which books, as carriers of human thought, serve to reinforce our

sense of existence. And yet, in order to better understand a book’s meaning, one must put oneself in another’s shoes, adopting a

typical“No Me”status. In this way, the two extremes will meet. 王琛, 任教于加州州立大学，佛勒顿。

《有無相生》这件作品的灵感来自法国哲学家笛卡儿的哲学命题

“我思故我在”。书是思想和语言的集成，而从读者的角度去理解 THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

书的内容往往又要放下读者已有的成见。这件作品尝试着表达认知过程中“有”和“无” ， “我在”及“无我”的关系。

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California State University, Fullerton California

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王 Chen Wang 琛

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044 THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

WORK 02: B IS FOR BOOK 01

The letter,“B,”and the character,“书,”both represent the idea of a Book.

WORK 03: B IS FOR BOOK 02

What’s more, these symbols share very similar strokes. By modifying some of

This is the second piece from the series that plays

the joyful experience of reading.

the Chinese character“书”.

these strokes into images of birds and tree twigs, I have attempted to represent 这件作品运用中文“书”和英文“Book”首写字“B”在视觉形式上的相似性来表达一种读书的愉悦感受。

upon the similarities between the letter“B”and

这是《Book与书》系列作品中的第二件。作品运用中西语言符号视觉形式的相似性来表达一种视觉趣味性。

professor of visual communication design

Central Academy of Fine Arts CAFA in Beijing. Board member of CUMULUS.

Chief designer for the medal of Beijing 2008 Olympics. Studied in Finland,Germany and Denmark. Taught and lectured worldwide.

Works featured in international design media and collected by art museums.

The character Xiao is among the hundreds of Chinese family names. The font of Xiao has become simplified form through the history. The poster present the comparasion and evolution of Character Xiao in Chinese.

肖勇，中央美术学院任教, 2008年北京奥运会奖牌主设计师，CUMULUS委员会成

员之一，曾在芬兰，德国和丹麦留学。 “肖”是中国百家姓中之一， “肖”的字体在历史中逐步被简化。这张海报体现了“肖”在汉字发展中的对比与演变。

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Central Academy of Fine Arts China

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肖 Yong Xiao 勇

THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

Rebecca Ruige Xu currently teaches computer art and animation as an As-

sociate Professor at Syracuse University. Her artwork and research interests include experimental animation, visual music, artistic data visualization,

interactive installations, digital performance and virtual reality. Her recent

work has been appeared at: ISEA Juried Exhibition; Ars Electronica Anima-

tion Festival; SIGGRAPH Art Gallery; IEEE VIS Arts Program; Aesthetica Short Film Festival, UK; Museum of Contemporary Art, Italy; Los Angeles Center

for Digital Art, USA; FILE– Electronic Language International Festival, Brazil; Techfest -Technical Arts Exhibition, India; Colloquium culture and digitization, Switzerland; CYNETart, Germany; International Digital Art Exhibition, China; Boston Cyberarts Festival, USA.

Make merry before spring’s spent away is a series of images based on my

film“Anatomy of a poem,”which depicts a famous poem“Drinking Alone by Moonlight”from the ancient East using a Western analytical approach.

Instead of literally interpreting the meaning of this poem, I chose to portray it by translating the rhyme and tonal prosody of the poem into sound and graphics simultaneously. The selected image is a mixture of calligraphy of characters from the poem with abstract patterns that drifts in the space, suggesting the possible existence of a world just out reach of language. TITLE: MAKE MERRY BEFORE SPRING’S SPENT AWAY

THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

YEAR: 2016

MEDIUM: Programing generated image, digital print DIMENSION: 12”x 6.75”x 1”

徐瑞鸽的《行乐须及春》用西方文化分析方法来诠释“月下独酌”。作品没有逐字地

表现这首诗的含义，而是用诗的韵律和音调来构架图像。通过诗中汉字和抽象形态在空间的漂移和融合，希望将观者带到诗句以外的延伸空间。

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Syracuse University New York

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徐 Rebecca Ruige Xu 瑞鸽

Naijun Zhang is an Associate Professor and Coordinator of Painting at West Virginia University in Morgantown, WV. He received his B.F.A. in Oil Painting from Nanjing University of the Arts in Nanjing, China and an M.F.A. in Painting from West Virginia University.

He has had solo shows at OK Harris Works of Art in New York City as well as numerous group exhibitions in the US and China. His works have been ex-

hibited at the Museum of Fine Arts at FSU in Tallahassee, FL; the Huntington Museum of Art in Huntington, WV; First Street Gallery and Bowery Gallery

in New York City; Gallery 180 of The Illinois Art Institute in Chicago, IL; and

Shanghai Exhibition Center and Jiangsu Provincial Museum of Art in China. He has also been reviewed in Art Papers Magazine.

In the past decade, Naijun Zhang’s painting has dealt with his personal

memory and social changes in China. His work embodies the collision of

past and present inherent in the changing roles in Chinese social reality. The reconfiguration of his painting through the medium of screen print brings

to his audience a fragmented portrait of contemporary Chinese society. The

perceptions manifested in this work, signify the persistence of old traditions and their incongruity in a modernizing society.

张乃军，美国西弗吉尼亚大学副教授。主要展览包括上海首届中国油画展，纽约OK THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

HARRIS 画廊个展，展览评论见于《美国艺术》评论杂志。他还出版个人绘画专集,他的展出作品整合其绘画图像，运用图像碎片暗喻社会现实。

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West Virginia University West Virginia

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张 Naijun Zhang 乃军

Xiaohong Zhang was born in Hubei, China. She is a professor at University of Wisconsin Whitewater. She received a Master of Fine Arts degree from

Southern Illinois University in Carbondale in 2002. Zhang’s creative focus

has been on“traversing medium and re-appropriating motifs in contemporary art”with a continuous investigation of traditional Chinese painting art forms through a conception of contemporary western digital art.

The artwork“Floods : ”depicts the tragedies caused by floods in north and central China in 2016. Hebei and Henan Provinces received the worst hit by

the flash floods and landslides. As stated by the officials, at least 114 people had been killed in Hebei, with 111 missing and 53,000 houses destroyed.

In Xingtai city, at least 25 people died and half of the victims were seniors and children. The work is prompting people to demonstrate against the government for failing to warn people who resided in the flood zone.

Chinese characters are hieroglyphs. The structure of the Chinese word – Water“ ”was formed by the wavy shape of the water. The work shows

hundreds of Chinese Words – Water. The work matches the theme of the exhibition:“WORDS IN CHARACTERS, BOOKS AS VEHICLES.”

张小红,威斯康星州立大学白水艺术和设计系教授。她的创作重点是通过西 THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

方数码艺术的技术来探索中国绘画的艺术形式和中国传统审美。

《洪水》这幅作品描述的是2016年夏天中国北部和中部因洪水泛滥而酿成的悲剧。

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University of Wisconsin Whitewater Wisconsin

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张 Xiaohong Zhang 小红

Tongji University Shanghai

Hongtao Zhou is an Assistant Professor of the School of Architecture at the

University of Hawai’iat Manoa and a professor at the College of Design and

Innovation at Tongji University. As an interdisciplinary scholar and artist, he

researches, practices and teaches in the areas of Architecture Design, Exhibition Design, Furniture Design & Fabrication and Contemporary Sculpture &

Installation. Hongtao holds a PhD from Purdue University, an MFA from the

University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an MS from Northeast Forest University of China.

Hongtao’s work,“Textscapes,”generates letter-sized 3D printed documents to visually profile the subject matters of the texts, such as cities, landscapes or figures. These documents make the reading process interactive for audiences to read as knowledge as well as art. This series of works draws from

braille, calligraphy and number systems to bridge the text and its visuality in architecture, landscape, forms and other abstract matters. The Chinese

Architecture Poem Textscape,“Buildings Needed for the Poor”uses poems that express architecture to illustrate China’s urbanization boom, architecture adventure, and the extreme disparity between the rich and the poor underneath the great construction of China.

CITY BUILT ON PAGES-TEXTSCAPE(文本景观) POEM: Buildings Needed for the Poor

YEAR: 2016 ｜ CO - AUTHOR：Bing Liu（School of Fine Arts, Northeast

Normal University, Changchun, China） THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

SIZES: 10 inch by 7 inch by 3 inch ABS Plastic, 3D printing Poem in Chinese:

《茅屋为秋风所破歌》杜甫

安得广厦千万间，大庇天下寒士俱欢颜。

周洪涛，夏威夷大学建筑学院助理教授。作品《文本景观》使用3D打印技术创作三

维文本，使阅读变成艺术和教育的互动;诗歌系列《茅屋为秋风所破歌》表达了中国近年来高速发展的城市建设、大胆的建筑实践以及高房价下的贫富矛盾。

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University of Hawai’I at Manoa Hawaii

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周 Hongtao Zhou 洪涛

Xiaoze Xie is the Paul L. & Phyllis Wattis Professor of Art at Stanford University. He received his Master of Fine

Art degrees from the Central Academy of Arts & Design

in Beijing and the University of North Texas. An interna-

tionally recognized artist, he has had numerous solo and group exhibitions at museums and galleries worldwide, and has received the Painters and Sculptors Grant from

the Joan Mitchell Foundation (2013), the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2003) and artist awards from Phoenix

Art Museum (1999) and Dallas Museum of Art (1996). Combining influences from conceptualism, narrative art and

photorealism, Xie’s paintings, videos and installations explore the fragmentary and transitory nature of historical

memories through images of books and newspapers. His

work is in the permanent collection of such institutions as the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, San Jose Museum of Art and the Oakland Museum of California.

谢晓泽,斯坦福大学终身教授。他的绘画综合了观念主义、叙事艺术和照相写实主义等元素，以书籍报纸为题材，通过独特的

视角阐述历史和记忆的不完整性和易逝性；同时他也以装置、 THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

录像和摄影等多种媒介探索相关主题。 Caption:

“Transience”,2011, video installation, dimensions variable, 12 min. 32 sec.

The Frick Art Reference Library (F022), 2011, oil on canvas, 48 x 48 inches Stills

Installation view, Chambers Fine Art, Beijing.

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Stanford University California

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谢 Xiaoze Xie 晓泽

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PART

EPILOGUE

THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

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BY Yu Ji

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A Recollection on the Forum of Across the Divide

I enthusiastically believe in a prosperous future for this Forum that will continue to reward our effort and spirit.

Artist and Member of Across the Divide Los Angeles, California

It has been nearly twenty years since Xu Bing and I

process of cultural assimilation. The exchange of ideas

Austin, and in 2012 Professor Rebecca Xu, Professor

an international conference in Beijing, writing a new

Illinois discussing an idea to create a platform for

pelling us to comprehend the deeper meanings and

exhibition traveling from Missouri State University to

spirit, creativity, and scholarship in this age of global-

sat by a table on a cold snowy evening in Charleston, Chinese artists who teach and research in Ameri-

can universities. Like a seed sown in soil waiting for

cultivation, the idea later inspired me to embark on

among our group was particularly significant, com-

purpose of our experiences. This powerful dialogue

has become a primary motivation for us to continue

Southwestern and Oklahoma State Universities, culminating with a video document made for the website of

chapter for Across the Divide in its mission to share ization.

Across the Divide.

As a founding member of Across the Divide, I give my

crossing cultural and social boundaries.

Challenge always goes with growth. In 2013 the Forum

in American Academia and supportive friends. I am

great enthusiasm to the call and I began preparing for

With a consistency of spirit, we gradually established

dividuals who attempted to split the group for personal

submitted by seventeen Chinese artists from different

on member participation and shared experiences,

a mission to contact and seek support from Chinese

artists in American universities throughout the country. Many of these artists and art scholars responded with

our first national event. In Fall 2003 I received artworks universities for this founding exhibition. Twelve of us

successfully held a symposium entitled Chinese Artists THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

in American Academia at California State University, Long Beach. Together we created a scholarly forum, named Across the Divide.

Moving forward from this first event, every one of the Across the Divide projects has become a vital part of a journey to seek and define our identity. We have

gathered together not only because of our shared cultural origins and upbringings, but also because of the unique experiences that we faced in the complicated

organizing exhibitions, symposiums and related schol-

Xiaomiao Wang and Dr. Shaoqian Zhang organized an

arly activities, in which a genuine effort is sought in

consensus on our group’s mission. Our forum, based has evolved onto a professional path engaging in the

multicultural discourse of America. Consequently, several notable events characterized the Forum. In 2011,

Professor Xiaohong Zhang invited me to join her in an organization of a national exhibition and symposium at the Wisconsin University at Whitewater. With the generous support from Director Flanagan of Cross-

man Gallery and Chairperson Sue Messer, this event

became a turning point for Across the Divide, helping us to further define our mission for future development. Building on this momentum, Professor Beili

Liu brought the exhibition to the University of Texas

encountered a divisive threat by a small handful of ingain. With wisdom and perseverance, a core group of Forum members stood together and established an

executive committee in 2014, along with a written by-

law to ensure that the governance of the Forum would remain in the hands of its participants. This measure

strengthened and unified our entire group and brought about a new stage of the Forum’s scholarly devel-

opment. In 2014, we joined Xu Bing, Professor Wang

Xiaolin and Dr. Zheng Qinyan in holding a mini-conference at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing. This

event has made Across the Divide identical to scholarly exchanges with art institutes in China. In 2015, the Fo-

rum’s Executive Committee and the College of Art and

Communication of Beijing Normal University organized

sincerest gratitude to all members of Chinese Artists grateful to many individuals for their excellent and

generous works. Dr. Shaoqian Zhang, Professor of Art History from the Oklahoma State University has been

exceptionally supportive in her dedication and tenacity for carrying out the 2017 Exhibition of“Words in Char-

acters; Books as Vehicles”at Oklahoma State University and at the East Asia Library of Stanford University. I

enthusiastically believe in a prosperous future for this

Forum that will continue to reward our effort and spirit.

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Installation Views

THE ART OF ASIAN LANGUAGES 字為體／書為輿

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Editor: A. ELIZABETH TENG, MEINING WANG Executive Curator: SHAOQIAN ZHANG Exhibition Coordinator: YU JI Director & Designer: CHEN WANG Design Assistance: MEGHAN YOSHIDA, LUYU LI Exhibition Catalogue Coordinator: XIAOHONG ZHANG Juror: JEFF KELLEY Thanks to: ARLETTE KLARIC, CARLA SHELTON, CARRIE KIM, JOHN MICHAEL CAVAZOS Curatorial Team: MICAH FIRESTONE, ELLIE FUKSA, CHEYANNE MYERS, KATHERYN WOODARD ORGANIZERS :

OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY MUSEUM OF ART THE EAST ASIA LIBRARY, STANFORD UNIVERSITY THE ASSOCIATION OF CHINESE ARTISTS IN AMERICAN ACADEMIA

Funding for this program is provided in part by a grant from Oklahoma Humanities (OH) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of OH or NEH.

ACROSS THE DIVIDE THE ASSOCIATION OF CHINESE ARTISTS IN AMERICAN ACADEMIA PRESENTS

美国高等院校中国艺术家协会｜“穿越分界”学术论坛