WANG KEPING

Wang Keping is a sculptor born in 1949 in Beijing, who currently lives and works in Paris. In 1979, Wang Keping was one of the founding member of the first non-conformist artist’s group in China, «The Stars» (Xing Xing), together with Huang Rui, Ma Desheng, Li Shuang, Ai Weiwei, setting the stage for avant-garde art in China.

Wang's unique wooden sculptures, including one that featured a Buddha-like Mao figure, shocked the art world in Beijing in the late 70s and early 80s. Wang Keping continues to create these signature sculptures that juxtapose vivid emotion with a marked sense of introversion. Many of his bodies reveal torn, twisted and distorted shapes; some have lost limbs, lack eyes or mouths, or display swollen genitals. Wang is particularly interested in exploring and negotiating the possibilities of rendering the female body. Visually informed by an amalgam of prehistoric ice-age statuettes and 20th century artists like Constantin Brancusi he carves heavy thighs, enormous breasts and bulbous buttocks. This eroticism is countered by the solitary tone of these sculptures, as stoic and as subtly abstracted as a Totem.His figures are of a powerful vividness although they also have a touch of melancholy. A lot of them show strangely torn, twisted and distorted shapes. Some seem to have lost limbs, lack eyes or mouths or have over-dimensional genitals. In one string of his work, Wang is particularly interested in exploring and negotiating the possibilities of how to artistically render the female body. Visually informed by an amalgam of prehistoric ice-age statuettes and 20th century artists like Constantin Brancusi he carves heavy thighs, enormous breasts and big butts. But there are also restrained and subtly abstracted forms like Masque or Totem.

 

He has also had numerous solo shows in major institutions around the world as :

 

HISTORICAL EXHIBITIONS

1979

Exhibition "Wild" of the STARS on the gates of the National Museum of Fine Arts in Beijing.

1980

Second Exhibition of the STARS, National Museum of Fine Arts, Beijing, China.

2007

The Stars retrospective exhibition, Origin Point,  at the Today Art Museum in Beijing.

 

MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS

2010    Musée  Zadkine, Paris

2008   

He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen, China

Musée Maillol, Paris, France

Groninger Museum, Groningen, the Netherlands

2007

Museo d´Arte Contemporanea, Génova, Italy

2005

Kunstmuseum, Bern, Switzerland        

2004

Musée d’Art Contemporain, Marseille, France

2000

Contemporary Art Museum, Chengdu, China

1998

Museum of Contemporary Art, Stuttgart, Germany

1997

National Museum of Fine Arts, Beijing, China

1993

Chinese Modern Art Center, Osaka, Japan

1989

Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France

1983

Brooklyn Museum, New York

 

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

 

Aidekman Art Center, Boston, U.S.A.

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, United Kingdom

Collection de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France

International Sculpture Park, Pu-Yeo, South Korea

He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen, China

Museum of Asian Contemporary Art, Fukuoka, Japan

Museum of Modern Art, Taizhong, Taiwan

The Olympic Sculpture Park, Seoul, South Korea