Gao Xingjian
Publications: Current
Daniel Bergez
Sherry Buchanan
£48
Cover
Luxury Setalux Hardcover
Dimensions
310 x 270mm
Illustrations
200 four-colour illustrations
Pages
264
Additional Information
Printed in Italy on 170gsm Art Paper
Universally known as the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2000 for his novel Soul Mountain, Gao Xingjian is also an artist whose paintings are exhibited worldwide. Born in China in 1940, the multitalented Gao excels equally as a critic, playwright and filmmaker. After his avant-garde plays were banned, he left China in 1987 and settled in France. Today he lives in Paris where he continues to paint and make films. This stunning book showcases for the first time over two decades of Gao Xingjian’s oeuvre. Daoism, the Chinese literati painting tradition and Western Modernism inform Gao Xingjian’s masterful ink-wash paintings. His groundbreaking technique allows him to work with ink, the traditional Chinese medium, on large canvases. A champion of a return to painting, he remains as free from the diktats of the contemporary art market as he did from the Communist censorship that led to his exile. Drawing from Soul Mountain and other literary works, author Daniel Bergez offers telling insights into Gao’s enigmatic landscapes and figures while Sherry Buchanan’s interview with the artist reveals the drive for innovation behind the artist’s unique pictorial creation.
‘Soul man, Nobel prize-winning writer Gao Xingjian shows flair with an ink brush.’
- The Wall Street Journal
In the press:
Chicago Tribune
‘A dark figure stands alone in the centre of a bleak, shadowy landscape in one painting, while an ethereal tree-like form claims attention in another…The haunting black-and-white paintings are the work of Gao Xingjian, the first Chinese-born Nobel literature laureate, who traded pen for brush to explore a realm of mood and meditation.’
New York Times
‘Like his writing, his paintings convey poetry, intellect and a powerful narrative. At the same time, Gao, is a master of ink technique, and his works exude a creative energy born of Chinese tradition while being thoroughly universal and contemporary…Whatever the current winds of whim and politics, Gao's place in China's cultural history appears to be indisputably set.’
