Ming Contemporary Art Museum presents "Hu Yinping: Weaving Realities" in Shanghai

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TEXT：CAFA ART INFO DATE： 2022.8.3

Ming Contemporary Art Museum announces Weaving Realities, a solo exhibition of artist Hu Yinping will open to the public from September 3, 2022. It is the artist’s first institutional solo. Hu Yinping was born in Sichuan. She establishes and weaves social networks through fabricating and transforming events, characters, and personas while enabling innate human agency. Her work often responds to her immediate reality in a witty and vibrant tone.

Weaving Realities will present “Xiao Fang,” a project of Hu’s that has been ongoing since 2015 and the debut of “Qiao Xiaohuan,” the hidden figure behind the character “Xiao Fang.” “Xiao Fang” emerged from a discovery Hu made on a trip back to her hometown in rural Sichuan. The elderly women in town, including her mother, hand-wove traditional woolen hats, which they sold in bulk at a low price at the time. The artist then hired a friend to play a character named “Xiao Fang” and introduced her to her mother, Yin Sanjie. Xiao Fang was a conscientious and generous acquirer and bought Yin’s woven hat for a high price. The act built and nourished Yin’s confidence and the story began spreading through the network of weavers in town, and more and more elderly women started selling their hats to Xiao Fang over time. The white lie of “Xiao Fang” rolled on like a ball of wool, weaving together an entire community. The elderly women designed collections of woven objects based on their own living conditions and imaginations of the outside world: bikinis (the “Snow White Dove” stage), imaginary enemies and arms (the “Sense of Security” stage), urban household essentials, such as cars (the “Standard Configuration” stage), and so on. The social ecology of this rural town and the women’s private lives transformed drastically as a result.

“Xiao Fang” recalls women’s life as factory workers in the twentieth century and Hu’s upbringing among them. Hu Yinping plays the role of a mediator to liberate marginalized women from their traditional roles in repetitive rural and domestic labor and bestow upon them tools for imagination and aesthetic pursuit. At the same time, “Xiao Fang” further deepens and complicates “events fabrication” as a throughline in the artist’s practice. The figure behind this long-running scheme is Qiao Xiaohuan, a highly accomplished commercial artist and Hu’s alternate persona. The success of “Qiao Xiaohuan” in the art market patronizes Hu’s practice and the operation of “Xiao Fang.”

“Xiao Fang” and “Qiao Xiaohuan” are two of Hu Yingping’s fictional personas. Hu’s work travels fluidly between fiction and reality by fabricating events and connections and often results in a unique mode of production. Such ambiguity mirrors her own marginalized position in the art world. Who is to say the exhibition is not just another event in her fabrication?

About the artist

Hu Yinping was born in Sichuan in 1983, and currently lives and works in Beijing. Despite earning her MFA at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2010, her works are not limited to the materiality of sculpture. Instead, she channels chance meetings and fortuitous situations into insightful scenarios. Hu Yinping defines her art as a state between "matter" and "work", implying a deep connection between artistic practice and real life. Hu often labels the medium of her works as “matter” and this kind of works usually last for a period of time or are even ongoing. Such practices can be traced back to the three art groups she initiated after obtaining her MFA.

Major solo exhibitions include Hu Yinping: Weaving Realities, McaM, Shanghai, CN(2022); White, Andre, PLATESPACE, Beijing, CN (2020); Snowy White Dove, Arrow Factory Space, Beijing, CN (2018); Tourist, IAER, Venice, IT (2017); Xiaofang, Arrow Factory Space, Beijing, CN (2016); Thank you, Space 3, Chengdu, CN (2016); Identity, Mocube, Beijing, CN (2016); Born Savage, Heiqiao, Beijing, CN (2016).

Important group exhibitions include: The Endless Garment, X museum, Beijing, CN (2021); I Recognized the World: Born in the 80s and 90s, MOCA Yinchuan, Yinchuan, CN (2021); Body Vision, Cloud Art Museum, Shenzhen, CN (2021); Curtain, Para Site, Hong Kong, CN (2021); International Fiber Art Triennial, Hangzhou, CN (2019); Airport Biennale, Guangzhou, CN (2019); International Triennial of Fiber Art, Zhejiang Art Museum, Zhejiang, CN (2019); Chinese Contemporary Art Yearbook Exhibition, Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing, CN (2018); Sweet Home, Power Station of Art, Shanghai, CN (2017); Image& Source Code: Anren Contemporary Art Biennale, Anren, CN (2017); The Second Chinese Video Artists Exhibition, Digital Culture Center, Mexico City, MX (2017); God Created Women, FIAC, Paris, FR (2017); The Migration of Fission, Kommunale Galerie Berlin, Berlin, GER (2017); Close to the Beautiful World, Klein Sun Gallery, New York, US (2017); Trace in the Hidden Silence, Shenzhen, CN (2017); Yishu 8 Young Artist Award, Beijing, CN (2017); In And Out: The Show of Chinese Experimental Video, Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Arts, Nanjing, CN (2016); Not Acting in Images, PACE Gallery, Beijing, CN (2014) .