Hakgojae Shanghai is pleased to announce Jin Yangping’s solo exhibition from November 20 to December 14, 2014. This exhibition presents Jin’s recent works in the past two years, which are related to self-consciousness and identity of urban subjectivity.
To construct his unique structure in Chinese Contemporary Art, Jin constantly visualizes social phenomena and tries to reveal the truth behind these occurrences strongly. His earlier works were focused on urban landscape, and the works reflect his shift of interest to interpretation of self-consciousness and identity of urban subjectivity in the past two years. Jin Yangping turns his focus toward human beings that constitute cities– the urban creatures. The theme of works stretches from the illusions of the urban landscape to an emphasis on human portraits; he uses canvas and video to capture the various phenomena and events of our generation. As a result, compared to the impetuous reality, a very calm and serene image is portrayed in the works. Jin continually breaks down the restraints upon the language of painting, and tries to lead us through a face-to-face method to reflect our self-identity through artworks. This exhibition consists of three parts, each indicating one status. The first is FaceTime, which contains a group of paintings portraying faces and bodies. In this everyday face-to-face setting, the ego inserts itself and reflects. The second part is Speaker. The pamphlets and images of this part show the images and sounds of power strengthening, while the democracy decreases and individual identity blurs. The third is Eradication of Four Pests, a series of figurative paintings with the four kinds of pests as the subject matter. They are assigned social class status, being dragged among identity, power and institution. All these three parts are based on the face-to-face situation with ‘me’ as both subject and object. Facing the questioning from myself, Jin paints the self-portrait with stereotype expressions. With tense and sudden touches, he would like to deliver the confusing identity and alienation of body in everyday observation and contemplation.
Born in Yue Qing, Zhejiang Province in 1971, Jin has a BFA in oil painting from China Academy of Art in 1997 and is currently teaching at department of oil painting of same academy. Now He is participating a group exhibition “Future Returns: Contemporary Art from China,” which is held in Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University in U.S., curated by Wang Chunchen. Jin Yangping had a solo exhibition at Shanghai Art Museum in 2012 and plans to have new solo show in Today Art Museum in Beijing next year(2015).
