Weng Yunpeng
Weng Yunpeng
Obscure Realities
Show dates: 09•06 through 10•25•2008
Reception: 09•5th from 6:00 to 8:00 pm
LIMN gallery is pleased to present Weng Yunpeng’s second solo exhibition in the United States. Weng’s paintings invariably include the television set which is a defining part of Chinese culture;
If you were a TV viewer in China before 1980, pickings were slim. One option was a program that scrolled Chairman Mao's quotations across the screen to music praising Mao; not that you would likely have had a TV in the first place as ownership was tightly controlled. By the end of the 1980s, though, nearly every region in the country received at least one or two channels. “Soap operas” and movies have been the dominant entertainment form in Chinese culture just as they have been in the West and gathering around a TV set in the streets in a common form of social interaction.
But in Weng’s large paintings, the TV sits alone like a sculpture as though it were part of the urban setting or the desolated streets of the Chinese countryside. There are no people in Weng’s compositions and deliberately so, as the narration of the painting is focused on the TV screen. Weng often asks what is this power of the TV that is casting a spell over the masses. For him, it is not a political ideology, but simply political. Recent events such as 9-11, the war in Iraq or the capture of Saddam Hussein are the only indication of passage of time and bring to our attention the comparison between old and new, reminding us that globalization has brought China a little closer to the rest of the world.
Weng Yunpeng works and lives in Beijing and currently teaches at the prestigious Central Academy of Art.
Obscure Realities
Show dates: 09•06 through 10•25•2008
Reception: 09•5th from 6:00 to 8:00 pm
LIMN gallery is pleased to present Weng Yunpeng’s second solo exhibition in the United States. Weng’s paintings invariably include the television set which is a defining part of Chinese culture;
If you were a TV viewer in China before 1980, pickings were slim. One option was a program that scrolled Chairman Mao's quotations across the screen to music praising Mao; not that you would likely have had a TV in the first place as ownership was tightly controlled. By the end of the 1980s, though, nearly every region in the country received at least one or two channels. “Soap operas” and movies have been the dominant entertainment form in Chinese culture just as they have been in the West and gathering around a TV set in the streets in a common form of social interaction.
But in Weng’s large paintings, the TV sits alone like a sculpture as though it were part of the urban setting or the desolated streets of the Chinese countryside. There are no people in Weng’s compositions and deliberately so, as the narration of the painting is focused on the TV screen. Weng often asks what is this power of the TV that is casting a spell over the masses. For him, it is not a political ideology, but simply political. Recent events such as 9-11, the war in Iraq or the capture of Saddam Hussein are the only indication of passage of time and bring to our attention the comparison between old and new, reminding us that globalization has brought China a little closer to the rest of the world.
Weng Yunpeng works and lives in Beijing and currently teaches at the prestigious Central Academy of Art.
