WANG YUPING
Wooson Gallery will be putting works by Chinese artist Wang Yuping (b. 1962) on display at its first project exhibition. His works are far from the rational grand discourses on seeking an ideal life based on narratives and political ideologies that are often found in contemporary Chinese art. Anchored in his substantial experience while departing from universal perceptions and inflammatory, authoritative logic, Wang Yuping considers the relationship between art and life in the flow of life.
He often takes the motifs of his paintings from the ordinary people around him, the inconsequential things and scenes pertaining to them, and his own daily routines. All the same, we are able to discover some signs of the grand narratives imbued in everyday urban life in Beijing and traces of futile ideologies and logic. All grand discourses are inevitably founded on a priori thinking structure in each age since the regional situations of each era as well as social structures and norms are inextricably bound up with each individual’s everyday life. In this sense, Wang Yuping’s individual daily life cannot be separated from his nation’s narratives and political ideologies.
Chinese intellectuals felt severely frustrated and overwhelmed by a sense of defeat in the overturned social structure of China around the time of the Cultural Revolution. This resulted in their distrust of the world and art losing its original function in society. The artists’ sensibilities led to a cul-de-sac can react to a standardized structure in a way they respect differences among individuals and explore each one’s value in a common structure. The artist gazes at ordinary Chinese people who partake in capitalist consumer culture in downtown Beijing after the introduction of a capitalistic market economy while capturing and emphasizing each individual’s urban life and characteristics. He concretizes underlying aspects of life masked by the structure through an individual’s quotidian experience that incessantly interacts with his or her surroundings while exploring the true meaning and value of each individual’s life.
