Wang Guangyi

王 广义

Painter *1957 Harbin, Heilongjian, lives in Beijing



Wang Guanyi, 2008, photo wikipedia

Wang Guangyi was born in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province in 1956 or 1957. In 1984 Wang Guangyi graduated from the oil painting department of Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts. He currently lives and works in Beijing, China. Wang Guangyi is the leading protagonist of the post-1989 Political Pop movement - one of the major artistic movements to have developed in the aftermath of the events of 1989 - Tiananmen Square and the closure of the China/Avant Garde exhibition at the China National Gallery.

Great Criticism Series
1988-2004



Mao-AO Triptych, 1988,

Alongside Yue Minjun, Zeng Fanzhi and Fang Lijun, Wang Guangyi is among China's most successful contemporary artists. His Mao AO-Triptych from 1988 was sold for £2,036,000 ($4.1 million) at a Phillips de Pury & Company auction in London in December 2007.


Coca Cola, 1993


The Eternal Halo, 2003


Chanel No 5, 1993

His work is characterized by the combination of propaganda images, Pop Art and commercial advertising. Wang Guangyi's Great Criticism series combines the propaganda posters of the Cultural Revolution with the brand names of famous western consumer products. Idealised peasants and workers yield pens instead of hammers or shovels and appear to extol the virtues of Coca Cola, Chanel No 5, or Swatch. Wang Guangyi calls the ironic effect produced by the juxtaposition of icons, cultural or other, from different eras “anatomic structuralism.” This anatomic structuralism destroys the original intent of each image resulting in an absurdity.
Text: terminators

Materialist's Art
2006




Materialist's Art, 2006


Art-Go, 2006


Art-New, 2006

Wang Guangyi's “Materialist's Art” is exemplary of a new "cultural revolution". The dramatically outlined figures brandishing red book gospel, set against flat planes of colour, are rendered in a style specific to Chinese government issue posters of the late 60s and early 70s. Emblazoned with the words " Materialist's" and "Art" the messaging is both condemnation and incitement, a statement of radicalisation and power, repositioning the aesthetics of totalitarian authority as a signifier of absolute and extravagant decadence.
Text: Saatchi Gallery London

Aesthetics of (Cold) War Series
2006-2008




Aesthetics of War - Blue No. 3, 2006


Warhol, 2005




Guangyi Wang, 2006

Wang's “Aesthetics of War - Blue No. 3” operates as a dual narrative. Combining the graphic styles of comic books and instructional manuals with scrawled blackboard-like text his work points to a visual analysis that's equally personal and pedagogical. Rendered in X-ray tones, his tableau is situated in the realm of science fiction and adventure, giving a sense of toxicity and danger to the pop motifs and generic script, questioning the implications of public images as coded messages and the tacit role of the artist as producer.
Text: Gallery Saatchi London

The Saatchi comment is too serious for my taste. As a Wang-style counter-weight I inserted the Warhol poster (genuine Wang Guangyi!). Perhaps Wang is truly anxiety ridden: The remainder of the series are a number of naive sculptures with long Chinese explanations showing a woman in a dugout shelter and people wearing gasmasks, or lying flattened on the ground in an airraid exercise - not worth showing here.... There are no more examples of Wang's work in the internet after 2008. - He too got too rich.