Wang Tiande is best known for the ongoing Digital Series in which traditional Chinese themes executed in brush and ink are overlaid with translucent sheets in which the forms are created by cigarette-burn marks. For the current exhibition Wang expands the iconographic range by incorporating materials related to his recent interest in literature. In March 2009 Wang was visiting artist at the University of Kansas and often walked back and forth to the Spencer Museum of Art. Observing people exercising, jogging and walking at different speeds, he envisioned writing a novel which eventually became the subject of the present exhibition to which he gave the title 3,720.

Every night after work, the main character in the novel Lin Wai goes for a walk from his home to a nearby park. One day he counts the number of steps he takes during the walk and discovers that the number is 3,720. From that day on he tries to repeat the number every time he takes the walk but as a result of all kinds of unexpected distractions and incidents, he never achieves the same number again. Wang remarks that his brief novel is a commentary on the uncertainty of ordinary life, which on its surface consists of repetitive actions but is always subject to unexpected diversions. During the course of the novel, Lin Wai’s career undergoes a major change from being a journalist at a state-owned publishing house to an entrepreneur and owner of a photo studio. The story of Lin Wai can be read as a distillation of the lives of millions of Chinese citizens, whose lives went through dramatic changes when the country abandoned socialism as it turned towards a market-oriented economy.

For the current exhibition, one of the galleries is set up as a reading room with chairs where visitors are encouraged to sit down and read the novel. Ink drawings and preliminary studies for the novel hanging on the walls of the reading room offer insights into the artist’s thought processes. In the larger gallery recent examples of his signature landscapes and calligraphic works will also be exhibited.

Wang Tiande recently received his Ph.D. in calligraphy from the renowned China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, and is currently Dean and Professor in the Art and Design Department at Fudan University, Shanghai.