To celebrate the opening of the new and largest-in-Asia Apple Store West Lake in Hangzhou, China, calligrapher-artist Wang Dongling has created a mural that covers the exterior of this new store, incorporating the Apple logo seamlessly in the middle of his original, calligraphic artwork. This is the first Apple Store -not only in China, but around the world- to have combined traditional Chinese cultural element, with its western, architectural design.
In recognition of this historic event, Apple has also released a video on the behind-the-scenes making of Wang's artwork, and the artist's opinion on the new store in Hangzhou:
Apple Store, West Lake - About the Artist
The artwork contains the first stanza of a famous poem by Su Shi, one of the most renowned poets of Nothern Song dynasty:
"Drinking by the Lake: Clear Sky at First, then Rain"
Shimmering water on sunny days
Blurred mountains through rainy haze
West Lake is like the beauty, Xizi
With light or heavy makeup beautiful
Widely recognized as China's greatest living calligrapher, Wang Dongling is currently Director of the Modern Calligraphy Study Center at the China National Academy of Arts, Hangzhou. He graduated from the calligraphy department of the China National Academy of Art in 1981. With his calligraphic work widely recognition in China and abroad, he has had three solo exhibitions in the National Art Museum of China, Beijing (1987, 1994 and 2007), and his works have been featured exhibitions in the Guggenheim Museum, New York (1998), the British Museum, London (2002), and the Metropolitan Museum, New York (2006 and 2014).
