Shi Hu Shu: Another Clue about Shi Hu

October 1 – October 30, 2025

About

Statement

“SHI HU SHU: Another Clue About Shi Hu” traces the creative trajectory of Shi Hu’s calligraphic practice, offering a vital opportunity to reconsider the essence of writing—not merely as a tribute to the artist, but as an ontological meditation on the nature of “writing” itself.

Press Release

We are excited to present the solo exhibition Shi Hu “Shu” – Another Clue about Shi Hu, with the Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Arts (AMNUA).

Shi Hu “Shu” (“Shu”, the Chinese character 书 meaning “writing/calligraphy”; here an open-ended practice) stands among the artist’s most radical propositions for contemporary art. Rooted in the origins of Chinese calligraphy and characters, yet breaking from style, lineage, and law, it treats writing as a live event: strokes remain open, provisional, and generative, refusing closure and inviting the viewer’s gaze to complete them. It asserts itself as an independent practice where image and script, body and time, chance and intention continually meet.

This exhibition offers no final answers; it reopens the question of what writing can be today. By presenting Shi Hu’s large-scale calligraphic works in depth for the first time, Shi Hu “Shu” reveals a different facet of the artist beyond his celebrated ink-and-color paintings, inviting audiences to discover a new clue about Shi Hu.

On view from October 1 – 30, 2025, at Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Arts (AMNUA)