July 8, 2025 (Palo Alto, CA) - Qualia Contemporary Art is pleased to announce At Ease with Hand and Mind: Calligraphy, Literature, and Contemporary Art (得心应手：文学，书写与视觉）, a group exhibition curated by renowned poet Ouyang Jianghe and Xie Xiaoze, Paul L. & Phyllis Wattis Professor in Art at Stanford University. This diverse exhibition spans contemporary calligraphy through interdisciplinary works from prominent practitioners, including writers and scholars such as Jia Pingwa, Li Xianting, Ouyang Jianghe, Xi Chuan, and Yu Jian; calligraphers Gu Gan, Liu Zhengcheng, Shao Yan, Wang Dongling, Yu Mingquan, Yang Tao, and Zhao Xuesong; and artists Fong Chung-Ray, Gu Wenda, Wang Tiande, Xie Xiaoze, Xu Bing, Yang Jiechang, and Zhang Xiaogang. At Ease with Hand and Mind will be open to the public from July 27 to September 27, 2025, with an opening celebration hosted on Sunday, July 27, from 4:30-6:30 PM PST. Concurrently with the exhibition, an academic symposium will be held in Beijing, China, and an exhibition catalogue is forthcoming. For more information, please visit www.qualiagallery.com.

Throughout Chinese history, literati calligraphy has been considered an elite art form. Its practitioners were poets, writers, scholars, and statesmen with deep cultural cultivation, not merely skilled artisans. The selected works represent a continuation of the tradition’s interdisciplinarity, as many of the exhibitors move freely among literature, calligraphy, contemporary art, and other spheres, taking on multiple identities. However, departing from this convention, this exhibition is not a showcase of contemporary literati calligraphy; rather, by presenting various kinds of works, it explores the relationship between mind and hand, between text and imagery, and the ways these relationships transform between elite art and everyday writing, between tradition and the contemporary.

Compared to primary or spontaneous writing, most modern and contemporary calligraphic works are created for aesthetic purposes; that is, they are to some extent interpretive or secondary practices. Every act of copying literary works becomes a rereading, a moment of appreciation and resonance—another performance and visual interpretation. On one hand, it is a silent recitation of the words themselves; on the other, it is a new rendition, or even a breakthrough, of historical calligraphic exemplars. Works by Liu Zhengcheng, Yang Tao, and Zhao Xuesong, which copy classical poetry and other texts, vary in their flavor and appeal, yet all belong under this category of practice.

The interchange between calligraphy and painting can be considered an important strand in Chinese abstract art. Text has appeared in visual works throughout a long, rich history. Curator Xie muses, “When Chinese painters inscribe poetry on their works, is it an expression of lingering emotion after the painting is done, or is it a way to extend and supplement the visual’s inherent limitations? In traditional Chinese painting—often reusing age-old formulas of brushwork and composition—artists might be unable to fully convey their feelings, so they rely on inscriptions in language to guide the viewer’s imagination beyond the painting, endowing itwith deeper emotion and meaning.” Language is a tool of thought, and may even be classified as thought itself. Words flash, extinguish, and linger in the mind. As syllables and images flow, text becomes narrative, an utterance, and an expression of ideas. In Western contemporary art, incorporating text and combining image with text is commonplace. Conceptual art often takes advantage of the directness and abstraction of language itself to reduce or even remove the visual aspects of traditional art.

The history, forms, and stylistic nuances of Chinese characters are remarkably rich and subtle, their unique visuality perhaps tracing back to their origins as pictographs. As curator Ouyang Jianghe aptly notes, “Chinese characters were specifically invented for writing. Without practicing calligraphy, one cannot fully appreciate the profound depths of these characters.” Indeed, calligraphy has always held a particularly significant place in the history of Asian art, as well as in contemporary artistic practice. This exhibition provides abundant examples and opportunities for exploring Chinese character writing both as a medium of communication and as an aesthetic creation, as well as the delicate interplay between text and vision. Qualia Contemporary Art is proud to present this curated survey of modern and contemporary calligraphy, continuing the gallery’s commitment to introducing new and experimental works of historical and cultural significance to Silicon Valley audiences and beyond.

Press release text adapted from Xie Xiaoze’s curatorial essay, available upon request and to be included in the forthcoming exhibition catalogue.

About Ouyang Jianghe

Ouyang Jianghe, a nationally renowned poet and culture critic who lives in Beijing, was born in 1956 in Luzhou, Sichuan Province. His ancestral hometown is Hebei, China.

His works include over 200 poems, as well as articles on poetry and reviews of contemporary fine art, music, film, and drama. His published books include the poem collection Through the Glass of Words, the collection of poems and criticism Who Leave, Who Stay, the collection of reviews and essays Standing on the Side of Fiction, and the poem collection Tears of Things.

Ouyang Jianghe's poetry accentuates originality of thought and hybridity of language, emphasizing the connection between personal experience and public realities. Ouyang Jianghe has made broad and lasting influence among his peers, whereby he is recognized as one of the most important poets of China since the 1980s.

About Xie Xiaoze

Xiaoze Xie is an internationally recognized artist and the Paul L. & Phyllis Wattis Professor of Art at Stanford University.

Xie received his Master of Fine Art degrees from the Central Academy of Arts & Design in Beijing and the University of North Texas. Xie has exhibited extensively in the US and internationally; his recent solo exhibitions include “Objects of Evidence” at the Asia Society Museum in New York City (2019-20) and “Eyes On” at the Denver Art Museum (2017-18).

Xie’s work has garnered critical acclaim, his exhibitions have been reviewed in The New York Times, Art in America, Artnews, and hyperallergic.com, among others. His work is in the permanent collection of such institutions as the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Denver Art Museum, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, San Jose Museum of Art and the Oakland Museum of California.

Xie received the Asia Game Changer West Award from the Asia Society Northern California (2022), the Painters and Sculptors Grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation (2013), the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2003), and artist awards from the Dallas Museum of Art and Phoenix Art Museum.