Artists › Wang Guanyi › Biography - Exhibitions
Biography of Wang Guanyi
Born in 1957 in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China.
Lives and works in Beijing.
Education
Graduating from the painting department of Zheihang Academy of Fine Arts in 1984m Wang Guangyi is representative of the first generation of artists to break away from the realist style of painting encouraged in the academy at the time. From the outset of his career, his willingness to take on significant cultural icons stirred controversy.
Influences
Wang Guangyi is the leading artist of the post-1989 art movement known as Political Pop. Painting Cultural Revolution icons in the style of American Pop art Wang combines imagery from propaganda and advertising, leveling the difference between two forms of culture.
Idealised peasants and workers yield pens instead of hammers or shovels and appear to extol the virtues of Coca Cola, Nokia or Swatch. Wang Guangyi calls the ironic effect produced by the juxtaposition of icons, cultural or other, from different eras anatomic structuralism. This anatomic structuralism destroys the original intent of each image resulting in an absurdity.
At the same time that an artist criticizes society, he also acts to alert it, to awaken it to the awareness that there may be many things spreading forever through one's consciousness, this awareness may be the starting point for the revival of a nation and a people.
His work takes aim at the state controlled art-making practice enforced in China during the 1950s through the late -1970s as well as taking its inspiration from the paintings of such Pop art masters as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.
Wang Guangyi is interested in the visual transmission of the socialist message. He first thought about making his Materialist sculptures in 2000-2001. The inspiration came from the socialist realist statues he saw everyday throughout his childhood. Images of leaders or of model heroes were immensely effective communicators of power and idealism, and deeply inspirational for a great many people. Interested in the communicative power of these sculptures, Wang Guangyi wanted to continue the communication thus bringing that era of Chinese history to younger generations, making them reflect on Chinese history.
He wants to transmit the concept of socialism using a visual approach and at the same time communicate some of the faith the Chinese people had in the socialist message. Power is an important element in these works. Wang Guangyi considers these sculptures a turning point in his work, moving away from the cultural conflicts expressed in his Great Criticism paintings.
Exhibitions of Wang Guanyi
Solo Exhibitions:
2008
- Wang Guangyi: Cold War Aesthetics, Louise Blouin Institute, London, United Kingdom
- Visual Politics - Solo of Wang Guangyi, He Xiangning Art Museum, Guangdong, China
2007
- Wang Guangyi, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, France
2006
- Galerie ARARIO, Seoul, Korea.
2004
- Galerie Urs Meile, Lucerne, Switzerland.
2003
- Galerie Enrico Navarra, Paris, France
1997
- Littmann Kulturprojekte, Basel, Switzerland.
1994
- Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong, China
Group Exhibitions:
2008
- The Revolution Continues - New Art from China, The Saatchi Gallery, London, United Kingdom
- Avant-Garde China: Tenty Years of Chinese Contemporary Art, The National Art Center, Tokyo, Japan
- Writing on the Wall: Chinese New Realism and Avant - Garde in the 80's and 90's, Groninger Museum, Groningen, NL
- Case Studies of Artists in Art History and Art Criticism, SZ Art Center, Beijing, China
2007
- RED HOT - Asian Art Today from the Chaney Family Collection, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA
- Absolute Images II, Arario Gallery, New York, USA
- ShContemporary 2007, Shanghai Exhibition Center, Shanghai
2006
- Jiang Hu, Tilton Gallery, New York
2005
- Invitation Exhibition-Opening Ceremony of OCT Contemporary Art Terminal He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen, China.
- Plato and his seven spirit'Beijing, China. "OCAT" Art Terminal
- Beautiful Cynicism, ARARIO BEIJING, Beijing, China
2004
- Body-China, Museum of Contemporary Art, Marseille, France
2003
- ALORS, LA CHINE? Pompidou Art Center, Paris, France
2002
- Chinese Modernity, Fundacao Armando Alvares Penteado, Sao Paulo, Brazil.
- Paris-Peking, Espace Cardin, Paris, France.
- Welcome China, Galerie Soardi, Nice, France.
- Take Part II, Galerie Urs Meile, Lucerne, Switzerland.
- Media and Arts World Trade Centre Exhibition Hall, Beijing, China.
- Guangzhou Triennial Guangdong Museum of Art, China.
- The Power of Image He Xiangning Museum, Shenzhen, China.
2001
- New Image:20 Years of Chinese Contemporary Art National Art Gallery, Beijing, China.
- Polypolis Kunsthaus, Hamburg, Germany.
- The Academic and the Non-academic Yibo Gallery, Shanghai, China.
- Next Generation: Art Contemporain d'Asie Passage de Retz, Paris, France.
- 5 Chinese Avant-garde Artists Artside Gallery, Seoul, Korea.
- Transplantation in Situ He Xiangning Museum, Shenzhen, China.
2000
- Door of the New Century Chengdu Art Gallery, China.
- Society Upriver Gallery, Chengdu, China.
- In and Out He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen, China.
- 20th Century Chinese Oil Painting Exhibition' National Art Gallery, Beijing, China.
1999
- Inside Out San Francisco Museum of Modem Art
- New Modernism for a New Millennium Limn Gallery, San Francisco
- Open Channels Dong Yu Museum of Fine Arts, Shenyang, China.
1998
- Made in China, Nikolaus Sonne Fine Arts, Berlin, Germany
- Inside Out, Asia Society, New York
1997
- China!, Kuenstlerhaus, Wien, Australia.
- Quotation Marks, Modern Art Museum, Singapore Magie der Zahl-In der Kunst des 20 Jahrhunderts' Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany.
- Red and Grey, Soobin Art Gallery, Singapore.
- In and Out, LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts, Singapore.
- The First Academic Exhibition of Chinese Contemporary Art' National Art Gallery, Beijing, China.
1996
- Begegnungen mit China, Ludwig Forum Fur Internationale Kunst, Germany.
- China!, Kunst Museum, Bonn, Germany.
- Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art' Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia.
1995
- Der Abschied Von Der Ideologie, Kampnagel Halle-K3, Hamburg, Germany.
- Aperto 95, Avant-gardes Artistiques Xinesses, Centre d'Art, Santa Monica, Barcelona, Spain.
- Art to Swatch, Museum of Architecture and Design, Chicago
1994
- 22nd International Biennale of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
- 600 Seoul International Art Festival, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea
1993
- China, Avant-garde, Kunsthal Rotterdam, Holland.
- China, Avant-garde, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford
- 45th International Biennale of Venice, Italy
- China's New Art, Post-1989, Hong Kong Art Centre, Hong Kong, China.
- Mao Goes Pop, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia.
- China's New Art, Marlborough Gallery, London
1992
- The 1st Biennial of Art in the 90s' Guangzhou, China
- China, Avant-garde' Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany.
1991
- Cocart, Bianca Pilat Gallery, Milan, Italy
1990
- I Don't Want to Play Cards with Cezanne: China's Avant-garde, Pacific Asian Museum, Pasadena, California
1989
- China Avant-garde, National Art Gallery, Beijing, China
