United+Nations-+China+Monument,+Temple+of+Heaven-+Wenda+Gu

**United Nations- China Monument: Temple of Heaven by Wenda Gu**



 * Artwork Identification**
 * Title: //United Nations- China Monument: Temple of Heaven//
 * Artist: Wenda Gu
 * Date: 1998
 * Country of Origin: China
 * Cultural/Ethnic Affiliation: Chinese/Member of the World
 * Medium: installation, mixed media (human hair, wood chairs,...)
 * Dimensions: 13 feet x 52 feet x 20 feet
 * Museum/Collection: Permanent Collection of Hong Kong Museum of Art
 * Accession Number: Unknown
 * Current Location: PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York

This Wiki page offers a detailed analysis of Wenda Gu's //United Nations- China Monument: Temple of Heaven.//
 * Introduction**

//United Nations- China Monument: Temple of Heaven// is a three dimensional installation formed by white curtains. Human hair has been sewn into the curtains to make pseudo-Chinese, English, Hindi, Arabic, and synthesized English-Chinese letters. From a distance, the words appear readable but up close the words are nonsensical. The walls and the canopy that drapes gracefully down from the ceiling are used to create and define the three-dimensional installation space. The installation creates a home for the self without boundaries as indicated by the transparency of the hair walls, which prevents the space from becoming neither interior nor exterior. In the middle of the installation lies a meditation setting of [|Ming Dynasty] style furniture featuring two tea tables, twelve lamp chairs, and a few spring stools which are all made from hua li wood. Within the seat of each chair, lies a video monitor depicting images of the sky which Gu refers to as a video film heaven. The images suggest peace and harmony. The interior wires of the monitors remain exposed in clear cases. Bianzhong, an ancient Chinese musical instrument consisting of bronze bells can be heard playing as background music.
 * Descriptive Analysis**

Wenda Gu is an avant-garde artist who emerged from China in the late 1980’s and in the 1990’s as a result of the [|“Open Door” policy] that succeeded the [|Cultural Revolution]. He is considered one of the pioneers of contemporary Chinese art and was one of the leaders of the [|85 New Wave] art movement in China. After moving to New York in 1987, Gu’s work began to artistically address issues surrounding [|multiculturalism] and [|internationalism]. Through his //United Nations// installations, Gu explores the changing nature of world cultures in the face of [|globalization] and the relationship between the sense of self and the sense of place in a global community. Gu’s artistic goal is to transcend cultures and “reveal the cultural identity of modern times” (Art Radar Asia). He seeks to find a new way in which to define the general issues faced by all of humanity and his objective is to understand and reinterpret the common nature and cultural history of mankind. Gu views himself as a member of the world, not of a single nation and he describes himself as being in-between the East and the West (Bessire, 2003, p.56). Gu has a utopian vision of a unified humanity and an utopian ideal of universalism is deeply rooted in Gu’s thought and methodology. In speaking about his //United Nations// art project, Gu stated that, “a great utopia of the unification of mankind probably can never exist in our reality, but it’s going to be fully realized in the art world” (Hung, 2010, p. 257).
 * Formal/Contextual Analysis**

The //United Nations// series was an ongoing art project that began in 1993 and continued until 2004. The project is divided into 22 individual installations which Gu refers to as national monuments. These have been installed in countries from around the world, including the United States, France, Poland, England, South Africa, Israel, Australia, Japan, Canada, China, Taiwan, Russia, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Italy. Each national monument is designed specifically for a country and is divided into two parts: local people’s hair and local historical, social, and cultural context. By combining these two components together, Gu created installations that captured each country’s identity.

In //United Nations- China Monument:Temple of Heaven//, Gu’s historical context relates to the [|Temple of Heaven] or literally Altar of Heaven (Tian Tan) that was built in 1420 A.D. during the Ming Dynasty in [|Beijing]. It was here that the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties would gather every winter solstice to make offers of sacrifice to heaven and pray for good harvest (China Highlights). The Temple of Heaven is seen as the most holy of Beijing’s imperial temples. Furthermore, //United Nations- China Monument: Temple of Heaven,// creates a cultural and aesthetic bridge from Chinese traditions of calligraphy and Ming Dynasty furniture to the global era, characterized by the curtains of hair and video monitors (Bessire, 2003, p. 3).

The real power of the //United Nations// art project is that it embodies living people’s presence through pure human hair. After leaving China in 1987, Gu became interested in contemporary genetic research and his artistic focus shifted to the human body. He came to decide that humans are the center of the material world and he began creating provocative artworks through the use of human genetic material including menstrual blood in //Oedipus Refound;// pure placenta powder in //Enigma Beyond Joy and Sin//; and finally hair in //United Nations//. Gu uses body material both as subject and medium. By choosing pure human hair in //United Nations//, Gu escapes the traditional practice of using a medium solely as a vehicle to convey representation. In Gu's work, the body and body materials that are used as media serve as a metaphor for the melding of different cultures through globalization (Bessire, 2003, p. 16). Unlike the use of impersonal materials, human substance is rich in cultural and symbolic connotations. Through the use of pure human hair in //United Nations//, the work itself becomes immediate. People can instantly relate to the art because the materials come from themselves and therefore can infuse a deep sense of physical, psychological, and spiritual presence. Gu’s initial hope was that people would feel connected to the work. The hair that is sewn into the screen curtains in //United Nations- China Monument: Temple of Heaven//, is unique. It is one of the few national monuments that combines different hair types from many different countries, each representing a specific nation and culture. Gu collected the hair from over three hundred twenty-five barbershops and hair salons from all around the world. In doing so, Gu represents mixed identities making racial and cultural identities co-exist in his work. //United Nations- China Monument: Temple of Heaven// is intended to create a shared experience within viewers contributing to a shared identity.

The pseudo scripts in //United Nations- China Monument: Temple of Heaven//, stems back to Gu’s early career. After graduating from the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in 1981, Wenda Gu initially began his career in traditional Chinese ink and brush paintings. Calligraphy was a major component of his formative training and language became a key element of many of his artworks. After awhile, Gu began to mistrust language in his art and he started to question the philosophy of language. In doing so, he embarked on a mission devoted to inventing new Chinese characters, entirely devoid of meaning. Gu’s pseudo-seal-script characters are fake variations of the ancient script that was established by the emperor Qin Shi Huang as the first standardized system of Chinese writing. Gu viewed his unreadable characters as both an avant-garde challenge to Chinese tradition and as a philosophical expression inspired by his reading of Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein who believed that, “there is always something mystic and unexplainable in the world that language cannot capture” (Cateforis, 2007). His creation of pseudo-seal-script characters was later referred to as the “earthquake of Chinese painting”, which at the time was the beginning of the contemporary art movement in China (NYFA). By deconstructing and synthesizing Chinese characters, the characters themselves can be seen as a new form of representation. In Gu’s perspective, his pseudo language symbolizes “misunderstanding as the essence of our knowledge” (Gao, 1998, p.35). Faking language is a way to “express our fears, anxiety, and distrust of our knowledge as well as putting human language in a predicament of absurdity and irony” (Bessire, 2003, p. 14). In //United Nations- China Monument: Temple of Heaven,// Gu creates an entirely human hair made temple of pseudo Chinese, English, Hindi, Arabic, and synthesized English-Chinese. By using human hair and illegible script, Gu attempts to eliminate cultural boundaries. His hope is to create equality and unity between individuals of all cultures within the installation. Gu suggests that the limits of language must transcend in order to communicate in a global era (Ragan, 2004). //United Nations- China Monument: Temple of Heaven// relates to another artwork by Gu entitled //[|Forest of Stone Steles: Retranslation and Rewriting of Tang Dynasty Poetry]//. This artwork consists of fifty stone slabs each weighing 1.3 tons and carved with a mixture of Chinese script and Times New Roman font. This artwork is another prime example of how Gu manipulates Chinese characters and their meaning. Gu phonetically translated the english version back into Chinese making the text bizarre and surreal in meaning. Whereas the United Nations series focuses on global issues, the //Forest of Stone Steles// is a personal tribute to Chinese culture. Both artworks relate to cultural identity and the re-establishment of cultural identity in the global community (Art Radar Asia). In Forest of Stone Steles, Gu question’s China’s state in a global context. The translations highlight the impossibility of reaching genuine understanding between cultures. The artwork is on the one hand imbued with a deep sense of history with Gu’s respect for the Chinese past and on the other hand a deconstructive work that reflects his questioning of global communication (Hung, 2010, p. 403).

In response to the //United Nations// art project, Mark Bessire, author of //Wenda Gu: Art from Middle Kingdom to Biological Millennium,// stated that, “his work is an intelligent fusion of historical and contemporary influences from Eastern and Western spheres alike. In his work, we see blended ideas of cultural isolation and assimilation. Gu is inviting a notion of a metaphoric narrative that dares to speak of a brave new idenity where differences of race, religion, language, tradition, culture, and georaphical division begin to collapse and suggest something new” (Bessire, 2003, p. 10).

The first time I saw a photo of //United Nation- China Monument: Temple of Heaven,// I was immediately drawn into the beauty of it. Having experience in calligraphy myself, my attraction to the temple lit a spark of curiosity to analyze the artwork. After learning about the process and the meaning behind it all, there are many aspects that I think are particularly interesting. What I most fascinating about the installation is how Gu created his own unique pseudo-language. Our thoughts take form when they are translated into language and language is powerful because it allows us to make sense of reality. However, that power can be restraining because sometimes language is inadequate to truly express our thoughts and emotions. Have you ever seen or felt something that you just could not put into words? If you don’t have a word for something, can you think about it? Perhaps we need to consider that maybe our thinking might be limited by language which Gu so symbolically illustrates. A whole host of realities may exist that we have never thought of because there were no words within our language to describe it. This notion is explored in the Saphir-Whorf hypothesis which suggests that language influences thought and language affects how you think while shaping your reality. In relation to //United Nations- China Monument, Temple of Heaven,// Chinese people could interpret the concept of unreadable characters as the mythos of a lost history while non-Chinese people could interpret it as a misunderstanding of an exotic culture. Gu’s intention of symbolically illustrating his belief that “misunderstanding is the essence of our knowledge” (Gao, 1998, p. 35), is contrary to the Saphir-Whorf hypothesis. Viewers are invited and tempted to decipher the meaning of pseudo-script in their own personal ways. The meaningless words represent a new form of mysticism with his installations being a place where the mysteries can be contemplated. In relation to the Saphir-Whorf hypothesis, Gu’s pseudo-language forces one to think about a world beyond language. I find it interesting that this aspect is applicable to Gu’s ideas surrounding his utopian vision of a unified humanity. Can language really capture this concept that is so outside everybody’s realm of perspective? Since the pseudo-script is unreadable to everyone, I think it’s a beautiful way of creating a symbolic unity between all viewers of every culture and every nation. The meanings and ideas that I respond to the most in association with //United Nations- China Monument: Temple of Heaven,// is it’s artistic attempt to eliminate cultural boundaries and transcend cultures in the age of globalization. I’ve travelled around the world. I’ve had the opportunity to experience many cultures in my life and I have met many people from various nations. This to me is one’s of life’s greatest experiences and treasures. My travels are what captures my fascination with Gu’s attempt to create a shared cultural identity within all viewers of //United Nations//. His installations are a place where every nation of different cultures and races can gather and transcend their national differences. There may not be many places in the world for this to happen, but at least it can in the art world.
 * Personal Interpretation**


 * References**

//__Printed Sources__// Bessire, Mark. //Wenda Gu: Art from Middle Kingdom to Biological Millennium//. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2003 > Gao, Minglu. //Inside Out New Chinese Art//. New York: University of California Press, 1998.
 * This book offers a comprehensive presentation of Wenda Gu’s work to date. Includes previously unpublished writings by Gu, an interview with the artist by David Cateforis, and essays by Mark Bessire, Gao Minglu, and Gan Xu.
 * This book presents a survey of contemporary Chinese art of mainland China, Hong Kong, and overseas Chinese artists.

Grosenick, Uta and Casper H. Schubbe. //China Art Book//. Koln: Dumont, 2007.
 * This book provides a brief glimpse of eighty contemporary Chinese artists. Includes informative overview about each artists life and work, photographs of each artists artwork, short statements from each artist as well as the phonetic writing of the artists name.

Hung, Wu. //Contemporary Chinese Art: Primary Documents//. Durham: Duke University Press, 2010.
 * This book is a collection of documents and writings on contemporary Chinese art. Includes manifestos of avant-garde groups, prefaces to exhibitions, writings by artists, interviews, and critical and analytical essays.

Ivy, Diana and Phil Backlund. //Gender Speak: Personal Effectiveness in Gender// //Communication//. New York: Pearson Education Inc., 2008.
 * This book is about gender communication. This was my reference for the Saphir-Worf Hypothesis.

Kovskaya, Maya. China Under Construction: Contemporary Art From the People’s Republic. Beijing: Futurista Arts, 2007.
 * This book offers a fresh look through the eyes of some of China's most cutting edge artists. Includes photographs of multiple contemporary Chinese artworks.

//__Online Sources__//

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 * This website is presented by the Asia Society and provides an interview with Wenda Gu.

http://www.artspeakchina.org/mediawiki/index.php/Wenda_Gu_谷文达
 * This wiki page provides an overview of Wenda Gu's life and artwork.

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 * This website offers a detailed bio of Wenda Gu as well as an overview of his artwork and career.

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 * This is Wenda Gu's official website. It provides current exhibitions and events, bio, resume, image galleries, publications, and contact info.

Cateforis, David. “Wenda Gu’s Metamorphoses.” 1 July, 2007, http://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/bitstream/1808/5421/1/FY08%20REG%20Cateforis-Gu.pdf.
 * This website provides a published essay about Wenda Gu's artwork.

__[|http://www.chinahighlights.com/beijing/attraction/temple-of-heaven.htm]__
 * China Highlights is the leading online tour operator in China. Provides information on the Temple of Heaven in Beijing.

__http://nyfa.org/level4.asp?id=123&fid=1&sid=51&tid=167__
 * This website is presented by the New York Foundation for the Arts and provides an interview with Wenda Gu.

http://www.wendagu.com/installation/united_nations/un_china01.html
 * This website provides the //United Nations// art project timeline included with photo's for each national monument and a detailed thesis on //United Nations//.

http://artradarjournal.com/2011/06/15/words-in-arts-wenda-gu-on-rewriting-and-reranslating-traditional-culture/
 * This website is presented by Art Radar Asia: contemporary art trends and news from Asia and beyond. Provides an article called //Words in Art: Wenda Gu on rewriting and retranslating Chinese culture.//

Golden, Ragan. //"Wenda Gu: A Home for Hair."// 1 April, 2004, 
 * This website provides a published essay on Wenda Gu's //United Nations- China Monument: Temple of Heaven.//