9.04.2009

CHINA CONTEMPORARY ARTIST: Yang Jinsong


A Gutted Fish Painting, Fei Jia Cun, Beijing, China 
Photograph (c) William Avedon/All rights reserved

Yang Jinsong Painting in his Studio, Fei Jia Cun, Beijing, China
Photograph (c) William Avedon/All rights reserved

YANG JINSONG, a leading Chinese painter from the Chong Qing municipality, in his studio in the Fei Jia Cun Artist Village in Beijing, China. Yang explains his 'consumerist-critical' paintings depicting fish, traditionally a symbol of wealth in Chinese culture, critique China’s construction boom and over-development by depicting bulldozers infesting the fish’s gutted innards. Yang often paints himself with his wife, She Cai, surrounded by emblems such as pollution, electrical appliances, and cigarette butts (2nd image, center painting), symbolizing China’s rapid development and embrace of consumerism.

The Fei Jia Cun Artist Village is one of several art communities surrounding Beijing where leading painters, sculptors and photographers from across China work and exhibit. These art villages represent the forefront of China’s Abstract, Pop, and Neo-Realist artists. – by William Avedon


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