GU WENDA (b.1955) Forest of Stone Stele 16, 2000,GU WENDA (b.1955)Forest of Stone Stele #16, 2000,Ink rubbing on rice paper, edition 2 of 25, framed. 180cm high x 97cm wide (71in high x 38in wide). 谷文達（1955年生） 碑林#16 拓片 版次2/25 鏡框 2000年作Gu Wenda was a leading figure of China's 1980s 'New Wave' art movement, and later a prominent member of China's art diaspora when he moved to New York in 1987. He originally studied traditional ink painting at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts and achieved a superlative degree of technical skill which he put to devestating effect during the exciting era of China's opening-up policy. His early landscapes, such as Ink Valley and White Water (1986), illustrated in China Onward: The Estella Collection, Chinese Contemporary Art, 1966-2006, Humlebaek, 2007, p.89, show an understanding of historical masters but feature iconoclastic compositions and surreal spaces, reflecting the mentality of Chinese society and idealist art of the 1980s, when huge social changes took place. By combining different character components, Gu has invented unreadable characters to investigate the power of the written word. In most of these works, he places these powerfully symbolic pseudo-characters in vast surreal spaces. See for example, The Mythos of Lost Dynasties, C Series No.6: Cloud and Water, 1996-1997, illustrated in Chinese Ink Painting Today, New York, 2010, pp.152-153. For more information about Gu Wenda, see also W.Hung, Contemporary Chinese Art: A History, 1970s>2000s, Singapore, 2014, pp.314-315.Gu Wenda's works are in many prestigious collections and museums globally, including the Guggenheim Museum, New York; The British Museum, London; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Uli Sigg Collection, Switzerland; Shanghai Art Museum; China National Art Museum, Beijing; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.