Wang Guangyi

© Photo credit：Tony Metaxas

© Photo credit：Tony Metaxas

In traditional Chinese culture, the trinity of Water, East Wind and Golden Dragon is the best propitious concept. Wang Guangyi's artwork, a car made of steel, is the product of the dream and belief of China's industrial revolution, a quasi-industrial product praising faith and the imperial power. Wang Guangyi reproduced it in the name of art, illustrating the conflicts between faith and material desires. In the 1950s, China was still at a "three-none" stage without technologies, the experience or equipment to manufacture domestic cars. The car is the product of the FAW group after less than a year's work. It is the first car made in China on May 12th, 1958, named from Mao Zedong's 1957 slogan "East wind (Dongfeng) overwhelms the west wind." On May 21st, 1958, Mao Zedong symbolically rode in the car in Zhongnanhai. With this car, the artist is re-building a native materialist visual myth, like a remote archeology of the future.

Wang Guangyi

Born in 1957 in Harbin, China.
Lives and works in Beijing, China.

Wang Guangyi is one of China's most interesting new artists who appeared in the early nineties and is known as a leading figure in "political pop art". In his artwork, he evokes the ironic effect produced by the juxtaposition of icons, cultural or other, from different eras of anatomic structuralism. Over the past decade, Wang Guangyi has consolidated his reputation as an artist who has completely renewed Chinese painting, before starting to create impressive sculptures. His work has been exhibited in many large international exhibitions such as the 45th Venice Biennial in 1993, the 1st Guangzhou Triennial in 2002, Alors la Chine?, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris in 2003.

Recent solo shows:
2008: Cold War Aesthetics: Wang Guangyi, Louise Blouin Institute of Louise Blouin Foundation, London, U.K.; Visual Polity: Another Wang Guangyi, He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen, China. 2007: Wang Guangyi, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, France. 2006: Wang Guangyi, Galerie Arario, Seoul, Korea. 2004: Wang Guangyi, Galerie Urs Meile, Lucerne, Switzerland.