gdm Hong Kong is pleased to present Wang Gongyi: Selected Works 2020-2024, the artist's fourth solo exhibition with the gallery. Presenting eleven important works by pioneering Chinese artist Wang Gongyi, this exhibition includes the artist’s iconic wild cursive calligraphy, Leaves of Grass series, and Winsor Blue series. 

Wang Gongyi’s works are imbued with vitality. Through bold brushstrokes, Wang captures the unfiltered essence of her subjects. Her lines are unrestrained, devoid of traditional conventions that often mark ink painters. Born in Tianjin in 1946, she has always discovered, evolved, and embodied an attitude unexpected of her age. 

Since early in her career, she has demonstrated avant-garde ideas. In 1993, during her time in France, Wang created Listen, Look, Taste, Smell, But Do Not Ask as a reaction against the educational systems of the time, highlighting the tyranny of words. On a large piece of Xuan paper, Wang writes a series of conjunctions in black ink, repeating until most of the paper is covered in overlayed text. Twenty years later, she presented another iteration of this installation at the Zhejiang Art Museum, titled Forgive Me for Being Free, Unconstrained by Reality (2013). Much larger than the original, Wang created this piece with twenty other participants, encouraging them to write freely. Less structured in form and content, the words—and their meanings—in this version of the work are deconstructed. The result is a playful composition far removed from the rebellious nature of the original.