Lithic Impressions: From Stone to Ink on Paper

Lia Wei and Zhang Qiang

Today, important questions arise when we reconsider the technique of rubbing stone carvings: about the impact of such techniques on visual culture and the history of art, in particular when it meets with other traditions of looking at the past. What is the role played by visual recording in the understanding of volume, light, and texture or materiality? How do copying techniques impact innovation and change in material culture? Lithic Impressions revisits such techniques to elaborate our own cross-cultural attitude to the past.

Lithic Impressions: From Stone to Ink on Paper is an itinerant project  exploring the technique of full scale replication by rubbing. The event partners with local institutions to cast a Chinese antiquarian eye on the lithic heritage of the host city: Venice (2018) Brussels (2019), Bruges (2020).

Rubbings are monochrome replicas of stone carvings in ink on mulberry paper. The fragile, fine-grained paper membrane is applied with water to the rock surface and inked, to render intaglio and relief. Since at least the 7th century rubbings have been the main transmission medium for sculptural and calligraphic models for scholars and antiquarians. Chinese rubbings appeal to us because of their contrasting attitude to matter, their strong reliance on text, and the distorting (and creative) lens they apply to sites and artifacts.

For more information about each iteration of this project, see the following links:

Exhibition in Venice (2018)

Exhibition in Brussels (2019)

Catalogue 1 (2018)

Catalogue 2 (2019)

Catalogue 3 (2020)

Lia Wei has been conducting research in China since 2009, with a focus on medieval Buddhist epigraphy and cave temples in Northeast China (Shandong, Hebei, Henan provinces) as well as funerary landscapes in Southwest China (Sichuan, Chongqing, Guizhou, Yunnan, Hubei and Hunan provinces). She received her PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. In parallel to her work as an art historian and archaeologist, she engages in practice-based research or creative practices and designs projects that combine academic and artistic research. She was trained in calligraphy, sigillography and landscape painting at the China Academy of Art (Hangzhou 2007) and Sichuan Fine Arts Institute (Chongqing 2008), and recently coordinated a series of events combining conferences and exhibitions in the field of ink painting, literati art and antiquarianism, in particular rubbing techniques (Ink Art Week in Venice 2018, Lithic Impressions Venice 2018, Ink Brussels 2019).

To see other work by Lia on www.artarchaeologies.com, see the following project:

Site_Seal_Gesture https://www.artarchaeologies.com/featuredwork_ssg

You will find more information about Lia Wei on her Academia.edu page and website:

https://ruc.academia.edu/LiaWei

https://www.liawei.org/

You can follow Lia on Instagram:

@otto_d_alatri

Zhang Qiang is a Chinese calligrapher and professor of art history at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Chongqing City, China. His main research interests include the development of modern abstraction and the history of modern calligraphy. Since 1990, Zhang Qiang has led a project in contemporary ink painting. Since the 1990s, Zhang Qiang has been part of the Chinese avant-garde in modern calligraphy and contemporary ink art with his performance-based projectj Traceology. Since 2009, he has participated in a project of collaborative writing and installations with Lia Wei entitled Biface Graphy. Scrolls resulting from the writing sessions have since conquered architectures and landscapes through a series of “‘Open Scroll”’ events. Along with his experiments in contemporary art, Zhang Qiang composes poetry in Classical Chinese, and practices traditional figure painting and calligraphy.