Celebrated contemporary Chinese artist Wenda Gu, the creator of two major installations now on display at Cornell, will participate in a symposium on his work March 3 at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. Gu also will give a free public lecture, March 1 at 5:15 p.m. at the museum.

In connection with the installations, a public Lunar New Year event at the museum will be held Feb. 24 from 1 to 4 p.m. featuring Asian art, performances, cuisine and art activities. Admission is free.

Gu was born in Shanghai in 1955 and lives and works in New York City. His large-scale ink paintings, installations and performances have earned him worldwide attention. He led the conceptual ink art movement in China with his use of invented, fake and miswritten Chinese characters.

"Forest of Stone Steles: Retranslation and Rewriting of Tang Poetry" comprises massive carved stone tablets and accompanying ink rubbings, with English translations of Tang dynasty poems, phonetic retranslations back into Chinese, and "post-Tang" poems (retranslations based on literal meaning) in English. Twelve steles are on display through March 14 at the Johnson; Gu supervised the installation himself in January, and an engineer was consulted to ensure the museum's flooring would support the stones' weight.

The project is based on the historic Forest of Stone Steles in Xi'an, China, where more than 1,000 tablets record important political and cultural moments in Chinese history and preserve classic calligraphy styles. The installation's steles were carved by trained artisans in Xi'an under Gu's direction.

"United Nations: We Are Fortunate Animals," two large hair screens adorned with pseudo-Chinese characters representing the zodiac and an accompanying interactive cartoon, is installed in the museum lobby. More than 1 million people around the world have contributed their hair to this ongoing project, which has involved more than 20 site-specific installations in 13 countries on five continents since Gu began it in 1993.

The symposium, March 3 from 1 to 4 p.m., will include Cornell faculty members An-yi Pan, associate professor of East Asian art; Ding Xiang Warner, associate professor of Chinese literature; and Buzz Spector, artist and art department chair; along with David Cateforis of the University of Kansas Department of Art History.

Advance registration is required; contact Elizabeth Saggese at (607) 254-4642. For information, call (607) 255-6464 or visit http://www.museum.cornell.edu.