Title: Sounds of Ink: Luo Qi and Thirty Years of Calligraphyism
Duration: 12 October 2023 to 5 November 2023
Institution: International Museum and Library of Music, Bologna, Italy
The WRITE team is pleased to present its first exhibition of contemporary Chinese calligraphy of international scope where the works of the Calligraphy Master Luo Qi – one of the most important living Chinese calligraphers and professor of the Hangzhou Academy of Art – will be exhibited. The exhibition celebrates 30 years of foundation of “Calligraphyism”, one of the main currents of contemporary Chinese calligraphy of which Master Luo Qi is the founder. World premiere works will be exhibited as well as testimonies of the thirty-year fervent activity of this revolutionary and transversal movement which attempts to transform Chinese calligraphy into a contemporary art form, an art that can be used globally through a radical change in its aesthetic principles and semantic function.
The choice to exhibit the works of Maestro Luo Qi at the International Museum and Library of Music in Bologna to celebrate this important anniversary is due to the fact that much of his artistic reflection is based on the interaction between calligraphy and music. Luo Qi is, in fact, a Chinese calligrapher strongly influenced by Western art, who revolutionized the very way of doing calligraphy by creating an asemic language that can be used universally and definable as “music of the written sign” or “music of the line”.
The exhibition aims to connect a space “resonant with musical culture” – the International Museum and Library of Bologna – with the rhythmic flow of Luo Qi’s pictorial-calligraphic works, in which the “flowing music of the world” (qi ) is translated in dynamic lines and colors with harmonious contrasts. Inspired by ancient Chinese musical notaton systems composed of Chinese characters, famous lyrical arias or Italian songs, Buddhist litanies and musical images of characters in the form of musical scores, the artist aims to create a real visual and sound dialogue between his calligraphic works and the musical instruments on display, a dialogue between the art of calligraphy and music, between East and West.
For more information, please visit the website here.
