Wang Youshen / John Walker and Yuan Yunsheng / The Crescent and the Full, or a Dichotomy of the Sunrise

Wang Youshen: Codes of Culture

Curated by: Carol Yinghua Lu

The exhibition Wang Youshen: Codes of Culture brings to the public for the first time the artistic experiments and practice of Wang Youshen, an oeuvre spanning more than three decades. Born in 1964, Wang Youshen has been active in making conceptual art since 1989. The exhibition showcases 30 groups of works of different mediums and provides a comprehensive survey of the social issues and personal concerns that inform the artist’s practice. Wang Youshen’s art has evolved alongside the historical process of contemporary art in China since the second half of the 1980s, while developing a distinctive presence of its own. His works from the 1990s onwards bear the marks, consciousness, and methodology of cultural studies. As studies of individual cases can lead to the formation of laws, thoughtful individual case studies will assist us in loosening, or even subverting existing historical impressions and narratives. This exhibition is a much-needed mid-career retrospective of the artist.

John Walker and Yuan Yunsheng in the United States

This is the first exhibition celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Beijing Inside-Out Art Museum. This small display focuses on a modest group of works by UK-born, US-based John Walker and Chinese artist Yuan Yunsheng, two post-war figures in two artistic worlds of nearly opposing ideological contexts during the Cold War. Walker and Yuan, both born in the late 1930s, arrived in the US at a stage when their artistic careers were beginning to take shape. Their talent had already been shining brilliantly in their respective country’s art scene prior to their departure for the US. The works in this display were both made during their time in America. Both working with expressionist languages in their art, their distinctive artistic styles provide glimpses into two different trajectories of expressionism situated in two disparate ideological structures during the Cold War.

The Crescent and the Full, or a Dichotomy of the Sunrise
Zhao Wenliang and Yang Yushu: Their Time and Their Paintings
Curated by: Miao Miao

Visit by appointment only.

This exhibition of Zhao Wenliang and Yang Yushu’s works is curated by artist Miao Miao. It inaugurates a series of projects directed by artists. The lifestyle of Zhao Wenliang and Yang Yushu–intentionally keeping their distance from the outside world–allows their artworks to be a kind of time capsule. The Zhao Wenliang & Yang Yushu Art Center has gathered the oeuvres of the two artists since the 1950s, and this by itself is unique. Apart from large-size paintings, there are abundant packages of small-size works, wrapped in newspaper and organized chronologically. This leads to the idea of inviting artists to unwrap them in blind boxes and hold artworks in their hands to inspect as closely as possible. What’s next? Will today’s artists react to artworks made in a repressive era? Will they be inspired to make some moves? They can do anything they are inclined to, without getting restricted to the mediums they normally practice with. The upcoming projects are rooted in this kind of informal but attentive contact.