Known as the "hair artist," Wenda Gu has that association because human hair is his signature material in his installation sculpture and because of his trademark hairstyle that is a shaved crown and a thick black mane that hangs below his waist. In fact, hair is the fiber weaving together his ambitious series "United Nations--an Ongoing Global Art Project for the 21st Century," begun in 1993.

Gu is credited as being the father of conceptual Chinese ink painting, a genre that remained static for centuries. What he did was to use these stylized characters loaded with symbolism as a referent but create his own characters full of intriguing design but devoid of meaning.

He was born in Shanghai, China and is one of the many emerg...