PROVENANCE:

Shanghart Gallery, Shanghai

ILLUSTRATED:

Elle China, April, 2006, illustrated

AD Spain, October, 2007, illustrated

Wang Guangyi is one of the leading contemporary Chinese artists today. Painting in the style of Political Pop, he has taken this contemporary American art form and given it a new and unique Chinese voice, as he juxtaposes images and icons of the Cultural Revolution with major emblems of Western Consumerism. He poses ironic questions concerning the role of symbols in our life, whether they are authoritarian revolutionary images, or iconic Western consumer brands. Wang creates images that are emblematic of China's contemporary struggle, grappling with its past while figuring out its future.

In "Eternal Halo" created in 2004, Wang Guangyi returns to a spare, pared-down formal style. Rather than the classic product brands of Western Pop Art, he uses images of human figures with historic significance, employing powerful, wild brushwork reminiscent of woodcut prints. The painting deconstructs the political imagery of the Cultural Revolution era, skillfully integrating the representation of soldiers, workers and peasants with the expressive techniques of political posters to explore the power of textual dialog within the framework of socialist ideology, and the conflicted, contradictory nature of Chinese social phenomena.