Artist: Wang Xieda 

Title: Sages’ Saying - 0847 

Size: 55×50cm

Material: Ink, rubbing, rice paper, rattan, paper pulp and silica gel mounted on canvas 

Year: 2008-2012    

Donated by Wang Xieda and James Cohan Gallery

Lot. SA-39

US$5,800

Wang Xieda was born in Fushun, Liaoning Province in 1968, and graduated from the Sculpture Department, China Academy of Art in 1996.  Xieda has spent the past 20 years studying the history of Chinese written language, specifically focusing on Chinese calligraphy of the fourth century, a period in which the brush came to be used for writing as an alternative to carving characters into wood, bamboo, or stone. Chinese writing evolved through the development of pictographs (which depicted objects) or ideographs (which represented abstract notions) and the work from his Sages’ Sayings series derive from these ancient forms.

He has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions both home and abroad as follows: “2010 Arte Chino”, Wang Xieda Solo Exhibition, Cuba Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba; 2010 “Wang Xieda”: Solo Exhibition, Institut Valencià d’Art Modern (IVAM), Spain. Wang Xieda is represented by James Cohan Gallery, and currently lives and works in Shanghai.