Mapping a Modernist Metaverse: Gu Gan’s "Labyrinth City of Loulan

The Labyrinth City of Loulan (Loulan micheng), now kept in the Museum of East Asian Art, Cologne, was created in 1992 by pioneer Modernist Chinese calligrapher Gu Gan (1942–2020). Featuring pictographic variations of ancient Chinese oracle-bone and seal scripts, it exemplifies the Modernist renewal of calligraphic arts in Post-Mao China. Relying on the long-standing premise of ink-drawn brush strokes as unique, cosmographic “mind paintings”, the work expresses an artistic mindset shaped by and shaping the creative generation of Gu’s time. Its composition is, decipherable as a diagrammatic, indeed cartographic spatial design, whose intricate labyrinth of written and painted ‘signposts’ emerges like a visualized mind map of sorts: allowing us to navigate across some of the tangled historical and geographical, epigraphical and archaeological terrains of Chinese art. The presentation so maps out Gu’s work as a “Modernist Metaverse” themed on the ruined ancient Silk Road city of Loulan.