'Vulgar' vagina calligrapher Sun Ping banned from China Artists Association

Ping is trying to counter 'sexual taboos' in China but the government-led body is unimpressed

Chinese calligraphy is a traditional art form that the CAA claims Sun Ping has 'defiled' (Rex Features)

A Chinese calligrapher has been banned from the China Artists Association for a performance piece featuring women painting with brushes held in their vaginas.

Sun Ping’s membership of the professional government-led body has been revoked, with the group announcing their decision in response to his “sexual calligraphy”.

The 63-year-old artist shocked art fans with his show, as well as his use of pubic hair for brush pens.

Chinese authorities were made aware of Ping’s “vulgar” project and expelled him for failing to adhere to the national association’s artistic standards, claiming that his art is “wantonly defiled calligraphy and trampled over civilisation”.

“In recent years, Sun Ping used the name of performance art to promote ‘sexual calligraphy’ in China and overseas,” read a statement from the CAA. “The general public have looked down upon it. After investigation, his behaviour has indeed caused adverse social impact and great damage to the reputation of Chinese Artists Association.”

Ping argues that his intention was to demonstrate the connection between art, the body and creativity in opposition to China’s “sexual taboos”. He has reportedly been displaying vaginal calligraphy since 2006 without repercussions, having first joined the CAA in 1985 after graduating from the Guangdong Academy of Fine Arts.

“My art may seem ugly and vulgar on the outside because we’re clouded by principles and conventions, but there is also elegance, beauty and inner value,” Ping said, according to Metro, of the “extremely conservative” association’s decision.

“If art is revered then why can’t sex be as well? A vagina is too often labelled as vulgar but it is where we all come from.”

Ping has experimented with sexual themes in his earlier projects, notably for “Wet Dreams” which featured semen-stained bedsheets to “express the spirit’s frustration”.