Stories & Videos
Contemporary Art

8 Chinese Contemporary Artists

Launch Slideshow

The Contemporary Chinese Art Online | No Reserve sale highlights eight rising Chinese artists, who have each established complex and distinct artistic practices that explore the shifting culture of their homeland over the past decades. Click ahead to view the works.

Contemporary Chinese Art Online | No Reserve
22–27 June | Online

8 Chinese Contemporary Artists

  • Qin Feng
    Born in the Xinjiang province of China, Qin Feng brings a dynamic and modern approach to classical Chinese ink painting. Feng has received awards from both the City of Berlin and the Vermont Art Center. His works have been exhibited at the Asia Society , New York, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York. 

    Share
  • Yan Lei
    Born in the Hebei Province of China, Yan Lei is a multimedia artist, but is best known for his canvases based on photographs. He explores his relationship to art in an increasingly global art market by typically using imagery from popular culture as the subject of his works and digitally altering the colors. Lei’s work has been shown at international institutions, including the Guangdong Museum of Art , China, the Centre Pompidou , Paris, and the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003.

    Share
  • Lin Yilin
    Lin Yilin is a Chinese conceptual artist, sculptor and performance artist as well as a founding member of the 1990s “Big Tail Elephant Group”, which aimed to disrupt the existing state-run art system by using multimedia art forms such as installations in alternative spaces. His large fiberglass sculpture of a sheep, Missing Dolly 2005, exemplifies the politicized narrative of his work, as he juxtaposes the traditional symbol of the sheep, an icon of his city Guangzhou, with Dolly, the first cloned animal.

    Share
  • Zheng Lianjie
    Zheng Lianjie studied traditional Chinese painting at the Palace Museum in Beijing and went on to found one of the first painting schools in Beijing – the Beijing Earth Calligraphy and Painting Art School. Lianjie emerges from a generation of contemporary artists who grew up during the Chinese Cultural Revolution during the 1960s. Consequently, his work is the antithesis of conservative Chinese art, as he experiments with a variety of mediums, ranging from performance art and installation to video art and ink. The present images come from the controversial series, Binding the Lost Souls: The Huge Explosion, which documents Lianjie carrying out performance and installation art across the Great Wall of China to highlight its deep-rooted yet changing political significance.

    Share
  • Yang Yong
    Growing up during the Chinese economic reform, which resulted in an opening of the Chinese economy and unprecedented economic prosperity, Yang Yong captures the new realities which come with economic growth and rapid urbanization. In the series from which this work belongs, Yong uses photography to poignantly portray the socioeconomic side effects which the reform has caused, particularly focusing on the banality in day-to-day activities and isolation in the lives of the newly urban youth. The artist has participated in the 50th Venice Biennale, the Shanghai Biennale as well as other major exhibitions.

    Share
  • Su-en Wong
    Su-en Wong is a Singapore-born, New York-based artist who explores the worlds of fantasy, identity and culture. She had her first solo exhibition at the age of 14 before moving to the United States. In 2000, Wong won The Painters and Sculptors Grant Program from the Joan Mitchell Foundation for her multitude of artistic achievements. Her works have been included in numerous international exhibitions and are featured in important permanent collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art , New York and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art .

    Share
  • Chen Shaoxiong
    Chen Shaoxiong was born in the Guangdong province and graduated from Guangzhou Fine Art Academy. He works in a variety of media including painting, photography and video. Shaoxiong was a founding member, along with Lin Yilin, of the “Big Tail Elephant Group”, a collective of conceptual Chinese artists in the 1990s. These artists were politically engaged in a time of rapid social and economic change in China. His work has been exhibited worldwide at festivals and museums, including the 2003 Venice Biennale, MoMA PS1 , New York, the Victoria & Albert Museum , London, and the Mori Art Museum , Tokyo.

    Share
  • Chen Haiyan
    Chen Haiyan is widely recognized as one of the most important contemporary Chinese female artists. Her work explores the subconscious mind using a traditional Chinese woodcut print technique fused with a raw artistic style. As a member of the China Avant-Garde — a group which critiqued the state ideology and pioneered art as an individualistic pursuit — she has exhibited her work in shows around the world including Marlborough Fine Art, the British Museum , London, and the Shanghai Art Museum .

    Share
/
Close