Xiong Wenyun

Xiong Wenyun

Born in Chongqing China
1979---1983  Graduated From The Dept.of Chinese Painting,Art Institute of Sichuan Prov.
1991---1993  M.A.student of the Japanese Painting in the Art Research Dept .of Tsukuba University.
1994---1997  Guest Research Member of Fine Arts Research Section of Bunkyo University, Japan
Living and working in Beijing

solo exhibition

1989.10  Personal Exibithion - Hasegawa Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1992.12  Personal Exibithion, Scotsdel Gallery, Ginza Tokyo, Japan
1994.4   Personal Exhibition, Tsukuba Art Museum , Japan
1995.10  Personal Exhibition, O Museum, Tokyo, Japan
1996.11  Personal Exhibition, National Fine Art Museum, Beijing
1998.4   Chuo Wei, National Fine Arts Museum of China, Beijing
2001.7   "Rainbow Road" Beijing - Everest Environmental Protection Art Activity
2002.5   "Rainbow Road"Exhibition at the FUJIKAWA Gallery,Osaka, Japan
2006     "Cai Hong" Exhibition , Galleria dell'Arco, Palermo, Italy
2008     " Cai Hong - Arcobaleno " Exhibition , Galleria dell'Arco,Palermo,Italy
2008     Ten Years of Moving Rainbo w: Photography by Xiong Wenyun , THREE SHADOWS photography art centre, Beijing China
2010     "KongKong " LDX  contemporary art center , Beijing

group

1979     Art Exibithion of Sichuan, China 
1981     Chinese Art Works Exhibition, (Excellent work prize),National Fine Art Museum, Beijing
1984     6th Edition of Chinese Art Exhibition, National Fine Art Museum, Beijing
1993.3   28th Liqi Spring Exhibition, National Art Museum, Tokyo
1994.10  Asia Modern Art Exhibition (International Prize), National Art Museum, Tokyo
1996.12  Personal Exhibition, Art Center of Nan Kai University, Tian Jing, China
1999.3   Media Intervention, Contemporary Art Exhibition,Hong Kong,China
1999.11  Tachikawa International Art Festival,Japan
2000.4   Group Exhibition - Tokyo Plaza Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2001.12  Chinese Contemporary Photography,Gallery Steinek-Halle, Vienna, Austria
2004     Between Past and Future-New Photography and Video from China,NewYork,Chicago,Seattle,London,Berlin,Santa Barbara
         Golden Harvest—Chinese Contemporary Art, Croatia
2005     Shanghai Modern Arts Festival in the Pudong,China
         Chengdu Biennale,Chengdu
         "A cartoon"taikang top space gallery,beijing     
         "The other end"He Xiang Ning Museum, Shenzhen
2006     Group Exhibition,1/2 Space,Chong Qing,China
         "Art game—An experience of agency in contemporary art" ,He Xiang Ning Museum,Shenzhen
2007     Dragons_Evolution: Chinese Contemporary Photography，New York
         Boundless Reality  Beijing
         Floating-New Generation of Art in China   Seoul Korea
2008     "DIE WAHREN ORTE II" exhibition , ALEXANDER OCHS GALLERIES,  Berlin Greman
"Heart Rooms" Installation Exhibition LDX contemporary art center , Beijing
2009     europalia— “Still Life“  Chinese Contemporary Photography,Bruxelles
         " BEIJING SHIJIAN /URBANO DEMASIADO URBANO ",Madrid, Spain
2010     "RESHAPING HISTORY" Chinaart from 2000 to 2009,China National Convention Center Beijing 

From Moving Rainbow to KongKong

Among Chinese female artists involved in contemporary art, Xiong Wenyun is unique; she has a talent for combining the externalization of personal emotions with certain aspects of the social environment. Her works all originate from the most basic personal emotions, and in combination with the outside world form an intricate form and unique language. These works are not only limited to exhibition halls, rather they are located in a much more expansive space where they attract a much broader audience. At the same time, the works maintain a very simple and direct power. 

 Xiong Wenyun’s early years were spent as a young intellectual in a production brigade in the Tibetan region to the west of Sichuan. Young intellectuals’ lives of exile in the countryside and their later return to the city was a prominent theme of Chinese social life in the Cultural Revolution and the early Reform era. Apart from all the struggles of life, Xiong Wenyun was directly influenced by the natural and spiritual aesthetics and human qualities of the Tibetan region. After being accepted by the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, she began an extended process of studies. In 1998, after traveling and living in Japan for more than ten years, she returned to Beijing to hold a solo exhibition. Works shown on this exhibition demonstrated what she had learned about the use of arrays of color in Japan. The regularity of color embodies a natural order and spirit; she began with a choice of colors influenced by Tibet and arranged them according to the color spectrum; she combined these colors with elements of abstract art while also borrowing the form of traditional Tibetan textiles. She used a simple and primitive state and order to produce a correspondence with people’s thoughts and emotions; completing a visual and psychological correspondence experiment.

After the exhibition, she returned to Tibet with an artist’s vision and spirit. Applying the subtle and rich emotional forms that were produced in psychological experiments in color, she conducted a series of artistic experiments in Tibet. She was no longer interested in academic expressions, but wholeheartedly began to build a dialogue between the soul and broader nature and society. She began to discuss the conflict between mechanization and nature, and the process whereby harmony could be reached. She used sequential colors to decorate the small sheds used to refill water and repair cars along the Tibetan and Sichuan border; she also undertook other experiments with color on rocks, streams, houses and tents. The harsh conditions of existence and the frail ecological environment of the highlands produced a direct connection between her artistic exploration and the local natural and cultural environment, after multiple abstractions and purifications, Xiong Wenyun has adopted traffic lines, passing carrier trucks, small stones and temporary sheds as her artistic media. She used colorful tent fabric to replace the heavy canvases on trucks, and used simple colors to decorate doors. Using the giant stage of the snow covered highlands to showcase a simple form, she appropriately and fittingly adapted art organically into the local natural and cultural environment. 

Chinese society in a state of transition has provided her with another unique angle and space. Xiong Wenyun continuously experiments with establishing connections to an even broader social system. Along the road from China proper to Tibet, Xiong Wenyun and her companions held various kinds of promotional activities on environmental protection in the name of art: using innovative and enjoyable techniques, they held photo exhibitions, gave out promotional material, collected signatures, invited audience members to take Polaroid photos. The events served the purpose of both environmental protection and artistic appreciation. As the time, place and participants changed, unpredictable touching scenes continuously came up; the participation of different groups comprised an important part of these artistic events.
 Xiong Wenyun uses a fresh and powerful artistic language and style in service of a rapidly changing society. This language carries psychological connotations of human interiority and character – it demonstrates her love and concern for life. Her artistic creativity requires an unusual intelligence and courage, as well as a serious and genuine attitude. The new direction in contemporary art requires that art not be limited to traditional media and methods of expression; artists need to go beyond these various limitations and restrictions, to face life directly, interacting and communicating with the populace; furthermore, in cooperation with wider organizations, institutions or individuals at various levels, they have to work harder to spread the influence of art. Xiong Wenyun uses her warmth and sincerity in artistic creation to bring surprises and evoke reflection, involving powers and efficiencies at every social level, and, further, being effective. 

While Xiong Wenyun’s works are produced for a broader nature and society, and emerge out of a sense of mission, she also pours her enthusiasm into things of a more microscopic scale. The recently appearing plastic pearls captured her attention, she was enamored with connecting and combining these materials and endowing them with variation and symbolic meanings of life through shapes and forms; she was touched by their intricate and simple power. To begin with the miniature symbolization of life, Xiong Wenyun created “Kongkong” cartoon images, these combined popular culture and fashionable elements and brought them even more into the space between the directness of individual life and every-changing society and history. They became the spokesmen of free souls and life energy.

Xiong Wenyun’s Moving Rainbow and KongKong have already been all around the world, their combination with different natural environments and cultural backgrounds is worth pondering. Moving Rainbow constructed a time-transcending historical ambiance; it is a display of life and spirit in a naturally and culturally formed environment. And Empty, through its working out and directing, focused on and criticized contemporary life. They both come from the artist’s love and response to life.

Knowing about the change in background allows Xiong Wenyun’s works to be more accessible to the general audience; at the same time, the works are able to encourage their participation. A large number of people who have no relation to art have participated with sincerity and warmth. Such unskilled acceptance and involvement originates directly from the initial intention of the artwork. Xiong Wenyun broke away from the dogma of the concept of “artwork”, and instead entered into social events with more general significance. In the process, she has continuously summarized the path of the human soul. Such a combination of methods allows us to see the new energy that contemporary art is able to bring forth.

Zhang Li
Janurary 2007