{"id":2584,"date":"2015-04-01T16:00:53","date_gmt":"2015-04-01T16:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.galerieloft.com\/artist\/wang-keping-2\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T14:03:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T14:03:31","slug":"wang-keping","status":"publish","type":"artist","link":"https:\/\/preprod.galerieloft.com\/en\/artists\/wang-keping\/","title":{"rendered":"Wang Keping"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span class=\"s1\">Wang Keping is one of the most eminent members of Stars Art Group (<i>xing xing<\/i> <\/span><span class=\"s2\">\u661f\u661f\u753b\u4f1a<\/span><span class=\"s1\">) , a foundational movement of the contemporary Chinese avant-garde active in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Wang&#8217;s wood sculptures and his early theatre play uncovered the political opponents\u2019<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>detention conditions, which also gave rise to sharp polemics in the press in Taiwan and in China. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span class=\"s1\">Presented by Hanart Gallery in Taiwan and Tokyo Gallery in Tokyo very early, Wang achieved great success with the collectors and the support of the press. <\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span class=\"s1\">His sculpture \u201cSilence\u201d of wood and then of bronze is an icon at the beginning of the Chinese Avant-Garde and has been<\/span><span class=\"s1\">\u00a0reproduced many times.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span class=\"s1\">Wang Keping played a decisive role in the Post-89 Exhibition (1992) in Hong Kong. It was he who selected the artists with Li Xianting and presented them to Johnson Chang.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span class=\"s1\">Married to a French person living in Beijing, he benefited from a related immunity, but he still had troubles. Therefore, he immigrated to France in 1984. In Paris, he got to know Gao Xingjian, the future winner of the Nobel Prize for literature.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span class=\"s1\">His wood sculptures, blackened by fire, were first inspired by totems and by idols that reminded him of folkloric tutelary figures in northern China and in Korea. Then his creation turned to the simple forms with the themes: women wearing a bun, kiss\/couple, bird, masculine figures with tails, and a pair of teats. The simplification and purification were embodied in his sculptures; moreover, in the best cases reminded one of Constantin Brancusi\u2019s works. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span class=\"s1\">Asked by the Ministry of Culture (like several sculptors at that time), Wang Keping created a large portrait of wood of Fran\u00e7ois Mitterrand.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span class=\"s1\">He was one of the artists who were invited for the exhibition \u201cChamps de la Sculpture\u201d on the Champs Elys\u00e9es (Paris) in 1999. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wang Keping is one of the most eminent members of Stars Art Group (xing xing \u661f\u661f\u753b\u4f1a) , a foundational movement of the contemporary Chinese avant-garde active in the late 1970s and early 1980s. His wood sculptures blackened by fire and were firstly inspired by totem and by idols who reminded of folkloric tutelary figures in north of China and in Korean. Then his creation turned to the simple formes with the themes : women wearing a bun, kiss\/couple, bird, masculine figures with tail, and a pair of teat. The simplification and purification were embodied in his sculptures, moreover, in the best cases reminded of Constantin Brancusi\u2019s works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1219,"template":"","artist_cat":[21],"class_list":["post-2584","artist","type-artist","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","artist_cat-sculptor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preprod.galerieloft.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist\/2584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preprod.galerieloft.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preprod.galerieloft.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/artist"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preprod.galerieloft.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preprod.galerieloft.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preprod.galerieloft.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist_cat?post=2584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}