Wang Gongyi: Selected Works 2020-2024

EVENT DESCRIPTION

gdm Hong Kong is pleased to present Wang Gongyi: Selected Works 2020-2024, the artist’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery. Presenting eleven important works by pioneering Chinese artist Wang Gongyi, this exhibition includes the artist’s iconic wild cursive calligraphy, Leaves of Grass series, and Winsor Blue series.

Wang Gongyi’s works are imbued with vitality. Through bold brushstrokes, Wang captures the unfiltered essence of her subjects. Her lines are unrestrained, devoid of traditional conventions that often mark ink painters. Born in Tianjin in 1946, she has always discovered, evolved, and embodied an attitude unexpected of her age.

Since early in her career, she has demonstrated avant-garde ideas. In 1993, during her time in France, Wang created Listen, Look, Taste, Smell, But Do Not Ask as a reaction against the educational systems of the time, highlighting the tyranny of words. On a large piece of Xuan paper, Wang writes a series of conjunctions in black ink, repeating until most of the paper is covered in overlayed text.

Twenty years later, she presented another iteration of this installation at the Zhejiang Art Museum, titled Forgive Me for Being Free, Unconstrained by Reality (2013). Much larger than the original, Wang created this piece with twenty other participants, encouraging them to write freely. Less structured in form and content, the words—and their meanings—in this version of the work are deconstructed. The result is a playful composition far removed from the rebellious nature of the original.

ABOUT THE ARTIST / ORGANISER

Born in Tianjin, China in 1946, Wang Gongyi joined the Tianjin People’s Fine Arts Publishing House as an editor after the Cultural Revolution. In 1978, she pursued a master's degree in the Printmaking Department at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (now the China Academy of Fine Arts) in Hangzhou, and after graduating in 1980 she stayed at the academy as a teacher. Wang Gongyi gained national recognition after being awarded first prize in the National Youth Fine Art Exhibition for her powerful suite of seven woodcuts depicting the Chinese revolutionary martyr Qiu Jin. In 1986, Wang Gongyi was invited by the French Ministry of Culture to study art as a visiting artist, and in 1992 she went to Aix-en-Provence and Lyon to further her studies in printmaking. After her residencies at the Museum of Oregon State University and the Pacific Northwest College of Art, she relocated to the United States in 2001 and has since been based in Portland.

Wang Gongyi’s works are in many important institutions and collections internationally, including: Ashmolean Museum, UK; China Academy of Art; M+ Museum, Hong Kong; Portland Art Museum, US; The National People’s Congress, China; The National Art Museum of China; Shanghai Art Museum, China; USC Pacific Asia Museum, US; and Zhejiang Art Museum, China, among others. In 2022, Wang Gongyi's works were featured in Centre Pompidou's “Women Artists of the 20th Century” program.