Sacramento State University showcases fine work amongst its fourArt Department galleries: the Else Gallery, the Design Gallery, theWitt Gallery and the University Library Gallery.

The University Library Gallery is located on the first floor ofthe library. It exhibits both internationally and nationally knownartists. For the entire month of October, and continuing untilNovember 15, “The Spirit of Contemporary Asian Art,” will celebrateartists from China, Japan and Thailand. Artists include XuBing, Wenda Gu, Mayumi Oda, Pinaree Sanpitak, Kazuaki Tanahashi,and Sac State alum Hong Zhang.

Xu Bing, developed an odd relationship to language as a youngman. The son of a professor and a librarian, he spent his earlyyears surrounded by books that he could not read. His art stemmedfrom this alienated relationship to language. Xu’s breakthroughinstallation, “A Book from the Sky” (1987), featured hundreds ofbeautifully bound books and giant scrolls that arched acrossceilings and down walls. The documents contained 4000 unreadablecharacters – a new language that Xu had created. The installationpuzzled Chinese and international viewers alike.

In his latest projects, Xu comments on human culture by usinganimals. In the performance art piece “A Case Study ofTransference,” he printed Chinese characters on a female pig andEnglish characters on a male pig, placing them in a pen filled withbooks in different languages.

Fellow featured artist Wenda Gu was born and educated inShanghai, where he studied traditional Chinese ink-and-brushpainting. After graduating from the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts,he took a teaching position at the school. But an interest inWestern philosophy led him to pursue a self-directed study ofEuropean classics and American Modernism – in 1987 he came to theWest to force a cultural collision.

Since 1993, Gu has been involved in an ongoing project entitled”United Nations.” Using samples of human hair gathered fromfar-flung regions of the world, he explores issues of globalizationand hybridity with sensuality, intelligence and playfulness. Largenets and tunnels are constructed from the tufts of hair, thenintegrated with letters and phrases printed in sometimesindecipherable scripts.

Mayumi Oda is a contemporary, Japanese-born, American printmakerwhose artistic vision focuses on images of goddesses. Some aretraditional and some she invents from Buddhist, Taoist, Shinto,Christian and ancient Greek spirituality and folklore.

Her subject matter is often environmental and she is herself afounder of “Plutonium Free Culture,” an organization dedicated tosafe energy and the elimination of nuclear weapons. Her books,”Goddesses” and “I Opened the Gate Laughing: An Inner Journey,”include reproductions of her art, along with commentary as clearand as empowering as the imagery it describes.

Thai artist Pinaree Sanpitak, visiting artist from Bangkok,Thailand, uses acrylic, pastel, photographs and paper to createsculptures, collages and paintings that address issues of and paytribute to womanhood. Her work is highly personal, sensual, andevocative. “Innovative and adventuresome, [Sanpitak] offers afreshness and vitality to the often predictable works by many youngThai artists,” wrote art critic and historian Dr. ApinanPoshyananda in 1991.

Kazuaki Tanahashi is an artist and writer trained in Japan andactive in the United States. As a painter, he is the pioneerof the “one stroke painting” genre, as well as the creator ofmulti-color Ensos (Zen circles).

As a calligrapher, he creates large single-ideograph pieces.Kazuaki’s brushwork has been shown in solo-exhibitions ingalleries, museums, and universities worldwide. He has taught brushworkshops at Zen Mountain Monastery since 1986.

Of local interest is the work of Hong Zhang, who was born inChina and received her bachelor’s degree in fine arts from theCentral Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. She received her master’sof art degree from Sac State in 2002.

Zhang and her identical twin sister use their unusually longhair in their art projects, such as tying them together forphotographs. For her master’s thesis at Sac State, Zhang exploredthe psychic nature and spirit of twins by using her long hair as apersonal metaphor for her hybrid identity in a series titled TwinSpirits. The series, part of which will be featured in the show,represents the interaction of Eastern beauty and Western influence,which Zhang says has shaped her identity both in the past and thepresent.

In addition to “The Spirit of Contemporary Asian Art,” othergalleries on campus will feature local and student art each month.Sacramento Bee photojournalist Jose Luis Villegas, in celebrationof National Hispanic Heritage month, is showcasing his photoexhibit titled “Home is Everything.” These photos can be seen inthe University Library until October 15.

Continuing to October 10, art professor Brenda Louie willshowcase her students’ art in the Witt Gallery. It features theStudent Award Show, the Graduate Student Exhibition, in addition toone-person shows by graduate students each month. The MiniatureTapestries exhibit by D.R. Wagner will be on display in the DesignGallery located in room 4000 until October 11.

For more information about these particular exhibits or for justgeneral questions about art events at Sac State, call theUniversity Library Gallery at (916) 278-2368, the Witt Gallery at(916) 278-6166, or Design Gallery at (916) 278-3962.