“Folding: Wang Yanping Solo Exhibition (1992-2012)” was inaugurated at the Art Museum of the Beijing Fine Art Academy in the afternoon of November 21, 2012. The exhibition featured the creations by Wang Yanping spanning 20 years, with a comprehensive oeuvre of the changes of her artistic creations, with special emphasis on a series of works of “Wang’s Folding”.
The opening was held at 2:00pm, presided over by Yuan Wu, Vice President of the Beijing Fine Art Academy, guests present at the opening included: Hu Wei, Deputy Director of the National Art Museum of China, Chen Lvsheng, Deputy Director of the National Museum of China, Ms. Tao Yongbai, a famous theorist and a researcher of the Chinese National Academy of Arts, Li Jianqun, Professor of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and a famous theorist, Jia Fangzhou, a famous art critic, Jia Pingxi, a famous artist, Chen Xiaoxin, a famous art critic, Zhao Lizhong, a famous theorist, Ma Wenbo, Director of Yangtze River Arts Center in Taiwan, Zhang Guangwei, Director of the Standing Committee of the Boxing People’s Congress, Shandong Province, Wang Meng, the curator of the exhibition and a youth critic from the National Art Museum of China, Jia Jiegong, the organizer and Director of the exhibition, as well as Ms. Wang Yanping, the artist of the exhibition.
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Initially Mr. Hu Wei made an opening speech, he said, Wang Yanping was a famous female artist actively performing in the Chinese art circle, and with decades of years of diligence and hard work, and a rigorous scholarship, she received countless rich fruits. Wang Yanping performed a hearty and drifting smooth ink and brush piece, with a strong and vivid breath, correspondence to the object with a deep color, and unique style in the plastic, reflecting her remarkable artistic talent.
Wang Meng, a youth curator of the National Art Museum of China, as the curator of the exhibition, also said, the biggest feature of Wang Yanping was that her works go beyond the artificial constraints of tradition and modern, as well as Eastern and Western dualistic thinking. She had studied a variety of possibilities in dealing with forms and structures and spatial arrangements using ink and wash, enlightening the development and innovation of contemporary ink and wash.
The related seminar was held on the 6th floor of the Beijing Fine Art Academy. Wang Meng was leading the academic seminar of the exhibition with more than 20 art scholars, including: Wang Yanping, Jia Pingxi, He Guiyan, Tao Yongbai, Li Jianqun, Duan Jun, Wang Jing, Chen Xiaoxin, Yang Wei, Zhao Lizhong, Liu Libin, Peng Feng, Wang Chunchen, Jia Fangzhou, Sheng Wei, Gu Zhenqing, Yang Chunxiao, Zhu Qi, Shang Hui, Li Xiaonan, etc., participated the seminar, through which scholars discussed Wang Yanping’s art from several aspects such as her personal living environment, creative ideas, ink and brush, and color, etc., and gave her a high evaluation.
There were two parts of the “Folding: Wang Yanping Exhibition(1992-2012)” , that early “Illusion” and the latest “Folding” vision, displaying her exploration of ink and wash as well as the transformation of styles in the last 20 years, based on an important art form “Wang’s Folding” produced by Wang Yanping was thus launched to the art circle.
Among her newest artworks, she shifted her focus onto folding-screens, transforming this important item of furniture in Chinese culture into an independent cultural symbol, revealing the mystic character of Chinese culture “folding-screens psychology”: the need to veil and hide, the cultural identity of the Chinese. Upon the “folding” and “dramatizing” of these folding-screens, the artist orchestrated the phenomena of Chinese “socializing culture” in her newest works “Folding-Screens: Socialization Culture”, by pacing human figures in the same settings onto the folding screens, she expressed her definition of “initiation” and “folding” both visually and conceptually. In the “departing whilst arriving” state of being between the individual and the crowd, and between the different sheets of the screens, Wang Yanping brought her works and cultural contemplations into what is referred to by Umberto Eco as “open artwork”, leaving the audience with room for the imagination. From this perspective, Wang Yanping had created the “folding”, an art form of ink and wash, which had also been the academic theme of the exhibition.
The exhibition was on view from November 21 to 26, 2012.
Text and photo by Gao Sisi/ CAFA ART INFO
Translated by Chen Peihua/ CAFA ART INFO
