CAA Professor Wang Dongling Exhibition "Ink. Space. Time." inspired by Prof. Stephen Hawking Opens at the University of Cambridge

LONDON, May 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The exhibition Ink. Space. Time. by Wang Dongling, a world-renowned calligrapher and professor at the China Academy of Art, is held at the University of Cambridge from May 25th to August 27th. The exhibition presents the artist's monumental contemporary Chinese calligraphy work inspired by Prof. Stephen Hawking.

Wang Dongling is widely recognised as one of the greatest living practitioners of Chinese calligraphy. His work has been included in several public collections, including those of the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York).

The artworks presented are written in Wang's radical new script style, luanshu, often translated as "chaos script" or "entangled writing". Luanshu places greater importance on the gestural and sensual qualities during writing than on legibility. The free and dynamic curves and lines of Wang's luanshu are grounded in, yet unencumbered by, traditional systems of expression.

For Ink. Space. Time., Wang has drawn upon the Daodejing by the legendary Daoist philosopher Laozi, and the writings of the Cambridge theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking, both of which deal with the nature of the universe, space, and time. Under the hand of Wang Dongling, the texts are rendered incomprehensible, and, thereby, transcend their original meanings. Embodied in the lines, however, is a deep awareness of the cosmic and transformative power of words. His artworks represent pioneering intellectual enquiry across time and the enduring influence of ideas.

Gao Shiming, President of the China Academy of Art mentioned that Wang's luanshu could be considered a Chinese echo of Balzac's metaphor. In his work, we perceive signs of the dialectic between order and chaos, boundlessness and impermanence, multi-polarity and apolarity. The way of luanshu seems to respond to the primordial chaos of the Big Bang presented in the writings of Stephen Hawking.

Except for the luanshu he created, the Chinese artist also showcased the handwriting process of literary work related to Cambridge using acrylic paint. Meanwhile, Wang gave a lecture on contemporary calligraphy art and presided over a workshop on calligraphy writing in Cambridge.

As Wang himself puts it, "I want to take this opportunity to promote the exchanges between China and the United Kingdom using the universal language of art."

Exhibition Venue: Downing College, Cambridge CB2 1DQ