Vanishing 36 Red Pigmented Golden Sections

Wenda Gu (Chinese), Vanishing 36 Red Pigmented Golden Sections, 1991. Red pigment and earth, each rectangle: 3.236 x 2 m. Fukuoka, Japan.

Wenda Gu's ephemeral land art installation is a clear example of the artist intenationally using the Golden Ratio. He created each of the thirty-six red golden rectangles from a wooden frame measuring 3.236 x 2 meters, a ratio of 1.618 to 1, or Phi. 

Yan Zhou writes that "the choice of the Golden Section introduced for the first time a pro-scientific methodology and attitude in Gu's art, which was significant for his 'analytic' orientation in the phase of 'analysis of culture'" (92).

Like Dorothea Rockburne's Golden Section, Wenda Gu's Vanishing 36 Red Pigmented Golden Sections is an example of a reference to Phi appearing in the title of the work itself, thus confirming artist intentionality.