Wang Luyan’s Solo Exhibition “Diagramming Allegory” Opens at Beijing Parkview Green Exhibition Hall
This exhibition, curated by Wu Hung, a worldly renowned curator, is to be our inaugural exhibition as well. We will offer an overview of Wang Luyan’s major art concepts and unique art methodology by displaying a number of installations, murals, sculptures, paintings and sketch designs the artist did in recent years. The exhibition will be a showcase for long-term exhibition in C Tower.
As one of the leading conceptual artists on the contemporary art scene, Wang Luyan has been an active participant since avant-garde art emerged in China. As a member of the “Stars Painting Society,” he took part in two highly historic art exhibitions organized by that group in 1979 and 1980. Then following the overwhelming “85 New Wave in Art” in China, he formed with several other artists some pioneering groups, like the “Tactile Sensation Group”, ”Analyst Group”, and “New Measurement Group”, and carried a series of ontological studies of art and artists as subject between 1988 and 1995. In the subsequent ten years, he chose to retreat from the public and dedicate himself to contemplation on art with sketches and notes as media, accumulating vast conceptual resource and material.
The title is a combination of two dimensions involved in these works: “a diagram” refers to the visual form, whereas “an allegory” is directed at contents and concepts. More specifically, “a diagram” and “a painting” first stand for two different logics in visual art since the latter is expressive and the former rational and inductive. They are different visual presentation systems with unique law and heritage. Formal logically speaking, Wang Luyan’s works belong to “diagrams”, something special that are to be fully studied in contemporary art. “Yu”, in Chinese language, moreover, originally meaning “implied words”, is a way of reasoning, more or less equivalent to “allegory” in English in the sense that the latter refers to “an expressive style that uses fictional characters, events or plot in drama or images to represent an abstract idea or principle”. Wang Luyan succeeded in expressing abstract concepts and law by presenting concrete images as unique “diagrams” and “allegories”. The two huge and cold dimensional designs are employed as art media to approach important global events, international relations, political theories and religious cults, leading to his visual demonstration in a paradoxical perspective which is then turned into a logical and speculative visual form for us to watch and reflect on in our visual thinking.
This exhibition will be a rich collection of important contemporary works with distinctive features that go beyond such dichotomy of “concrete” and “abstract”, “expressive art” and “conceptual art”. “Diagramming” and “allegory” combine to develop a unique visual medium for our review of important issues in the contemporary world.
Accompanying the exhibition, we also organized a seminar titled “Wang Luyan’s Art Career” in the conference hall of hotel Éclat Beijing at Parkview Green, in order that there will be in-depth exploration about Wang Luyan’s art approach and principles. Wu Hung will be present to hold inspiring dialogues on Wang Luyan’s works with important art critics and art historians from home and abroad.
Wang Luyan, born in Beijing in 1956, has attended, as one of the most important and active participants in the progress of modern art in China , a series of historic exhibitions, including “Stars Exhibition” (1979), “New Scale Group” (1988-1995), “China/Avant-Garde” (1989), “Chinese Avant-Garde Artists: Exceptional Passage” (1991).
Wang Luyan’s Solo Exhibition “Diagramming Allegory” Opens at Beijing Parkview Green Exhibition Hall
This exhibition, curated by Wu Hung, a worldly renowned curator, is to be our inaugural exhibition as well. We will offer an overview of Wang Luyan’s major art concepts and unique art methodology by displaying a number of installations, murals, sculptures, paintings and sketch designs the artist did in recent years. The exhibition will be a showcase for long-term exhibition in C Tower.
As one of the leading conceptual artists on the contemporary art scene, Wang Luyan has been an active participant since avant-garde art emerged in China. As a member of the “Stars Painting Society,” he took part in two highly historic art exhibitions organized by that group in 1979 and 1980. Then following the overwhelming “85 New Wave in Art” in China, he formed with several other artists some pioneering groups, like the “Tactile Sensation Group”, ”Analyst Group”, and “New Measurement Group”, and carried a series of ontological studies of art and artists as subject between 1988 and 1995. In the subsequent ten years, he chose to retreat from the public and dedicate himself to contemplation on art with sketches and notes as media, accumulating vast conceptual resource and material.
The title is a combination of two dimensions involved in these works: “a diagram” refers to the visual form, whereas “an allegory” is directed at contents and concepts. More specifically, “a diagram” and “a painting” first stand for two different logics in visual art since the latter is expressive and the former rational and inductive. They are different visual presentation systems with unique law and heritage. Formal logically speaking, Wang Luyan’s works belong to “diagrams”, something special that are to be fully studied in contemporary art. “Yu”, in Chinese language, moreover, originally meaning “implied words”, is a way of reasoning, more or less equivalent to “allegory” in English in the sense that the latter refers to “an expressive style that uses fictional characters, events or plot in drama or images to represent an abstract idea or principle”. Wang Luyan succeeded in expressing abstract concepts and law by presenting concrete images as unique “diagrams” and “allegories”. The two huge and cold dimensional designs are employed as art media to approach important global events, international relations, political theories and religious cults, leading to his visual demonstration in a paradoxical perspective which is then turned into a logical and speculative visual form for us to watch and reflect on in our visual thinking.
This exhibition will be a rich collection of important contemporary works with distinctive features that go beyond such dichotomy of “concrete” and “abstract”, “expressive art” and “conceptual art”. “Diagramming” and “allegory” combine to develop a unique visual medium for our review of important issues in the contemporary world.
Accompanying the exhibition, we also organized a seminar titled “Wang Luyan’s Art Career” in the conference hall of hotel Éclat Beijing at Parkview Green, in order that there will be in-depth exploration about Wang Luyan’s art approach and principles. Wu Hung will be present to hold inspiring dialogues on Wang Luyan’s works with important art critics and art historians from home and abroad.
Wang Luyan, born in Beijing in 1956, has attended, as one of the most important and active participants in the progress of modern art in China , a series of historic exhibitions, including “Stars Exhibition” (1979), “New Scale Group” (1988-1995), “China/Avant-Garde” (1989), “Chinese Avant-Garde Artists: Exceptional Passage” (1991).