Gu lives in Brooklyn Heights with his wife, interior designer Kathryn Scott, though he also maintains studios in Shanghai and Xi'an in China.
[citation needed] Gu Wenda was born in Shanghai in 1955; his parents were bank employees, his grandparents on his mother's side worked in wool.
[citation needed] As a result of the Cultural Revolution, Gu's grandparents were taken away for "reeducation", and much of the artistic documents and objects in the house were seized or destroyed by the authorities.
One exhibition of this type, held in Xi'an in 1986, featuring paintings of fake ideograms on a massive scale, was shut down by the authorities who, being unable to read it, assumed it carried a subversive message.
After spending some time in San Francisco, he moved to New York, and put his art work aside for a year while he learned English, and served as artist-in-residence at the University of Minnesota for a few months.
One exhibit he produced, organized around sanitary napkins sent to him by women from sixty countries, was attacked by feminist movements and refused to be shown at every venue he approached.
Some of his other works included the use of semen and a placenta, which are supposedly far less shocking materials in China than in the West, as they are sometimes used as part of traditional Chinese medicine.
His first personal exhibition was closed by the authorities to public audiences before the opening because of the invented, fake, miswritten Chinese characters, and printing style calligraphy.
[3] In his poster for the Cultural Revolution, Gu's use of miswritten, deformed, or crossed letters signifies the meaninglessness of the written word and the futility of human endeavor in a communist society.
The use of hair from all different races either glued together to fashion a curtain or braided symbolizes the biological interconnectedness of human kind and Gu's optimism towards achieving true "Internationalism.
"[3] On his website Gu states: 'During its more than ten year length, United Nations art project will travel throughout five continents, in approximately twenty different countries which I have selected due to their historical, civilization and political importance.
In a few years into twenty-first century, a giant wall will be composed solely from the pure human hair from the integration of the national monument events.
About the concept behind "Ink Alchemy" Gu states: 'Traditionally, the Shanghai Medical Factory produces hair powder for medicinal purposes.
GU states that 'this project will combine authentic green tea leaves with the historical method of making rice paper.