Wang Dongling
Born 1945, in Rudong, Jiangsu Province, China; lives and works in Hangzhou, China
Wang Dongling is widely recognized as one of the most revered living calligraphers from China. His experimental “mad” cursive script creates a platform for engagement between gestural abstraction and traditional Chinese calligraphy. He is well known for his performative painting practice in which he creates large-scale works on the floor. Wang’s experimental approach to calligraphy, featuring his dynamic luanshu (chaos script), reinvents a venerated literati tradition, rendering texts almost completely indecipherable. Wang’s expressive movements create a field of abstract gestures that prioritize the formal aesthetics of his script over its legibility, shifting language to an aesthetic tool rather than the primary subject in traditional calligraphy. The resulting controlled chaos, in a nod to Western gestural abstraction, alters the distinction between calligraphy and painting, as well as the conventional relationship between reading and looking, in traditional Chinese calligraphy. Wang studied traditional calligraphy under Master Lin Sanzhi (1898–1989) and later under Master Sha Menghai (1900–1992) at Zhejiang Academy of Art (now China National Academy of Arts) in Hangzhou. He currently serves as the Director of the Modern Calligraphy Study Center at China National Academy of Arts in Hangzhou.
