Featured H.A.L. Artist Xiong Wenyun

About H.A.L. Featured Artist Xiong Wenyun

Born in 1953 in Congqing, Sichuan Province, Xiong Wenyu is a contemporary multidisciplinary artist currently living and working in Beijing. After teaching for several years in Japan, Xiong returned to China where she spent three years in the late 1990s working on her multimedia project, “Ten Years of Moving Rainbow,” on the Sichuan-Tibetan highway. The terrain and climate of the area proved challenging, with frequent earthquakes, mudslides, and other natural disasters. But the Tibetan people, Xiong notes, live a very unique life, providing her with bountiful inspiration. The colorful clothing and Buddhist prayer flags enabled her to apply her keen sense of color. She relies on these symbols to approach the conflict between modern civilization and ancient traditions, examining the intersection of man and nature, and the attempt of harmonious living.

For more information, or to purchase some of Xiong’s work, please visit http://www.StudioDoorChina.com/, or http://www.ArtSpeakChina.org/.

Featured H.A.L. Artist Wang Qiang

About H.A.L. Featured Artist Wang Qiang

Wang Qiang’s simple sculptures and paintings are unusually diverse but are untied by a single theme–the challenging of social taboos. Though his work often seems brusque, it is usually sharply political, and aims to offer insight into the psychological functioning of society.

Wang’s well-known Currency series is subtly derisive, setting out to highlight and challenge the commercialization of life for the “new Chinese,” the blurring of notions defined by material wealth, and the politicization of China’s Renminbi. Images of international currencies are joined with varying images from China’s communist heritage, along with depictions of the artist himself. Wang examines the bills removed from their original context, articulating his view of the personal effect globalization and economic policy has had on China’s people.

The No Subject series deals with our veiled sexual desires, critiquing the traditional Chinese thinking that calls for preserving the principles of nature and eliminating human desire–an impossible and dangerous ideal. Using fashion, painting, and performance, the artist asks the viewer to consider how sex has been covered up in contemporary society, and how clothes, one of civilization’s primary markers, have literally and symbolically facilitated this phenomenon. He questions the validity of such a trend by peeling back the garments to expose the naked female body.^[1]

For more information, or to purchase some of Wang’s work, please visit http://www.StudioDoorChina.com/, or http://www.ArtSpeakChina.org/.

Left Behind

by Angel

I’m Bonny. I have mummy and daddy, I live with my grandma and grandad though. Mummy and daddy work in Suzhou, but I don’t know where it is. It must be very far away, as they don’t come to see me much, only two to three times a year.

My grandparents run a small drugstore at the corner of a street, and we live behind it. Most of time, I play by myself, grandma does the housework and grandpa takes care of the business. Sometimes, I sit with grandpa behind the counter, watching him talk and sell things to our customers. A lot of kids come to our store with their parents, they usually get gadgets and snacks if they ask. Continue reading…

Featured H.A.L. Artist: Robert van der Hilst

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Geneng

Secret Talk

Couple

Untitled

Schoenberg

Illustrated Groupthink May 9th

Ni hao Shanghai. Are you happy like me?

Things are hotting up in anticipation of the Expo and I for one am excited! This year’s theme is 城市,让生活更有美好. For those of you who don’t read Chinese it translates roughly as “Welcome to the eighth circle”.

As is natural in the lead up to these kind of things, the citizens of Gotham must be kept safe from the evils of electronic music, cheap drinks and dancefloor make-outs with strangers. Accordingly the Shelter is being shut down and rumblings indicate the fate of Yuyintang will be uncertain in coming weeks. Continue reading…