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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, October 6, 2002

Famed Chinese artist begins at square one with calligraphy

By Victoria Gail-White
Advertiser Art Reviewer

 •  'Introduction to Square Word Calligraphy'

Xu Bing

Through Friday

10 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays, noon to 4 p.m. today

University of Hawai'i-Manoa Commons Gallery

956-6888

Xu Bing is a rare treasure. He is an artist with talents beyond techniques and concepts, although he is not lacking in either.

His genius lies in his ability to bridge cultures and challenge our ways of thinking in powerful, but unthreatening, ways. The excitement sizzling around the University of Hawai'i-Manoa's art department is not unfounded.

As the first artist supported by the Dai Ho Chun Family Foundation, Bing, an internationally recognized Chinese contemporary artist with an overloaded schedule, has managed to squeeze in an engagement as artist in residence.

Students have been lining up at the door to explore his popular installation, "Introduction to Square Word Calligraphy," which also was shown at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of Art at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Brooklyn-based Bing has the distinction of being the first living artist to be given a major solo exhibition at that gallery his work collected by many museums and galleries around the world.

After having traveled to three countries, this interactive exhibit was installed in the Commons Gallery by Wayne Kawamoto, with assistance from Tom Klobe's exhibition, design and management class and Sharon Tasaka.

In the simulated classroom setting, a video produced by the artist, titled "Elementary Square Word Calligraphy Instruction," plays on a monitor with an instructor teaching how to sit, grind the ink, and use the brush — all with a pinch of humor. Traditional-looking tracing booklets, ink, ink stones and brushes sit on desks enticing the viewer to participate. Be forewarned: The surprise in this exhibit is that the calligraphy is not Chinese characters, but English letters arranged in a square-word format — left to right, top to bottom and outside to inside.

Once you take up the brush and begin to trace the words in the booklets, you may begin to think differently about our alphabets horizontal writing format. And you may even begin to ponder the intention of written language systems in relation to culture and communication.

"Calligraphy is a very controlled way of thinking," says Bing. "Each word is a concept. If you change the language, you change the deep part of people's thinking."

In four scroll panels, Bing has calligraphed Mao Ze-Dong's "Talks at the Ya'nan Forum on Literature and Art, May, 13, 1942." From a distance, it appears to be a major work in Chinese calligraphy, but upon closer examination, and with a little patience, one can decipher the English words.

John Wisnosky, chairman of the art department, praised Bing for his generosity to his classes and the community.

"In his lecture today," says Wisnosky, "he spoke to the students about the importance of maintaining a sense of discipline and focus despite everything that is going on around them."

Curious about how your own name would look in this square word format? Bing, with the help of a Japanese computer company, has devised a program for that purpose. You can type in your name and print it out on the computer in the gallery. I did. But don't stop there. To get a bigger dose of Bing, visit his Web site: www.xubing.com.

• • •

 •  'Fresh Fruit'

Paintings by George Woollard

'Ten Apples and Other Tales'

Sculptures by Jackie Mild Lau

Through Oct. 25

10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays

10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays

The Gallery at Ward Centre

597-8034

"Big Avocado" is not a realistic painting, but George Woollard's vision of the creamy fruit is as delicious as the real thing. Shades of acrylic green paint are layered underneath a thin brush line, suggesting a fruit we know, yet may need to re-examine.

"I am interested in finding ways to access the memory of colors," says Woollard, who has been teaching art since 1977. "I don't want it to be representational. I want it to be an abstraction which makes the color emotional."

Woollard has four luscious abstracts in his recent exhibit, "Fresh Fruit." Two are watercolor and pastel works: "Big Cherry" bursting with large, circular brush strokes of garnet and ruby tones, and "Big Blueberry" which integrates patterns in its deep blue-purple field of color. In "Big Papaya," an acrylic on panel, Woollard's sparing use of light orange nourishes the eyes.

"Using fruits and vegetables is a fun way to get to what that color makes you feel like," says Woollard. "There is a logical way of structuring space and understanding form, and there is a certain reasonable quality about it. There is also an emotional aspect. Color bridges the gap between logic and emotion, and abstraction and realism."

Focusing on that bridge is what he does best.

He teaches three classes (watercolor, monotype printing and color) at the Academy Art Center at Linekona and is taking another painting tour to Italy next May (there are still a few openings).

• • •

Oh, the joys of multitasking. Well, maybe not. But Jackie Mild Lau has managed to build extraordinary balancing acts (inspired from the Dr. Seuss book, "Ten Apples Up On Top") in her recent small-scale, cast-bronze works, "Ten Apples and Other Tales."

For a body of work that has been generated in the past four years Lau writes in her artist statement, "I've come to realize that rather than what seems to me a random, gut-level selection, my work is, as can be expected, quite autobiographical."

Evidence of her happy family life is visible in "Happy Hippopotami," while her struggles with adulthood and motherhood are seen in "Ten Apples with Umbrella, Ducks and Books." An equipoised central figure with ten apples balanced straight up on its head holds an open umbrella (with a duck on top) in one hand and books (and a duck) in the other. Does this remind you of you? Or maybe you're more the "Ten Apples With Dolphin and Tea" type — a figure, 10 apples balanced on its head, with a teapot in one hand and a teacup in the other while riding a dolphin that is jumping through a hoop. No? There's more, each just as engaging.

"My art would be meaningless if I couldn't share it," says Lau, and share it she does. With her bachelor and master of fine arts degrees from the University of Hawai'i, she teaches children at the Academy Art Center at Linekona as well as seniors, adolescents and deaf and blind students.

"I am a physical person," says Lau. "I liked a lot of sports as a kid. I was never dainty or cute."

She also likes using power tools and says, "The pour is really cool. I singed my hair a couple of times."

The 'pour' is the red-hot metal poured into wax molds that she has made from her original clay sculptures. Typically, for a 9-pound chased bronze sculpture she melts about 15 pounds of bronze. Fortunately, considering how costly all this is, an unsatisfactory casting can be melted and poured again.

Each sculpture is about 15 inches high. However, the sculptures' charm is life-size.