Interests: Chinese social reality in the age of globilization.
Bio: Born in 1966 in Hubei Province, China, trained as an oil painter at Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts where he received a BFA degree in 1991, Wang Qingsong turned to photography to present his staged narratives about Chinese life in contemporary times. His subsequent body of large-scale photographs critiques the dramatic economic and cultural changes that have swept over China in the past decade, focusing in particular on the impact of global initiatives typified in corporate commerce and consumerism on Chinese people’s frame of mind.In a representative large-scale photograph, Another Battle no.6, Chinese troops in camouflage fight their way up a hill amid clouds of smoke and dust to capture the golden arches of a McDonald’s. His use of some of the most garish symbols of globalization links Mr. Wang to a movement in China that leading art critic Li Xianting has named as “Gaudy Art”.
Wang Qingsong’s work have been widely exhibited and published in museums and art centers internationally including the Biennale Arte Emergente, Turin, Italy, San Diego Museum of Art, USA, Kwangju Biennale, Korea, Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, USA, and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, USA. In addition, his work is held in public collections which include the International Center of Photography, New York, USA, Art Tower Mito, Japan, Queensland Art Gallery, Australia, Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP), France, and Hong Kong Museum of Art, China.