Yan Xing (Chinese characters: 鄢醒, born 1986) is an artist known for performance, installation, video and photography. He grew up in Chongqing and currently lives and works in Beijing and Los Angeles.
Early life and education Yan Xing was born in Chongqing in 1986. He studied at the Oil Painting Department of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute from 2005 to 2009. After receiving his B.A., he moved to Beijing.
Artistic career Yan Xing is known for his interdisciplinary projects which have built a complex, compelling body of work that reflects critically on how history is manufactured today. He interrogates literature, history, and history of art. His work explores themes of negativity, resistance and order and the complexity of their connectivity. Yan Xing's works involve an extremely broad range of media, including performance, video, photography, installation, and painting, among others.
Yan Xing's career in art began with Daddy Project (2011), it was an hour-long performance he gave an account of his absent "father". The work was first performed in a group exhibition curated by Carol Yinghua Lu, art critic Holland Cotter wrote in the New York Times: "First-person public exposure of a personal life, particularly related to family, is relatively rare in China, and Mr. Yan has become a controversial star." The first institutional solo exhibition of his works was held in 2012 at Chinese Arts Centre, Manchester, UK; On 2016, his first solo exhibition in America opened at Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. From June 2 through August 27, 2017, the Kunsthalle Basel presented Yan Xing: Dangerous Afternoon, curated by Elena Filipovic, this was the artist's first institutional solo exhibition in Switzerland.
Yan Xing has exhibited and performed extensively, at institutions such as the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA), Beijing; OCT Contemporary Art Terminal (OCAT), Shenzhen and the Power Station of Art, Shanghai. He has also been featured at 7th Shenzhen Sculpture Biennale (2012); 3rd Moscow International Biennale for Young Art (2012) and 3rd Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art (2015).
Yan Xing is both the initiator and a participant of artists' collective COMPANY. His works have been public collections include: Rubell Family Collection, Miami; M+ Museum for Visual Culture, Hong Kong; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris; He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen. Yan Xing has also curated exhibitions such as: Dream Plant, Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Chongqing; Mummery, Art Channel, Beijing; and the Fact Study Institute, Yangtze River Space, Wuhan.
Exhibitions Selected solo exhibitions
2017 Dangerous Afternoon, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, Switzerland 2016 Yan Xing, Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, US 2015 Thief, Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing, China 2013 Recent Works, Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing, China 2012 Yan Xing, Chinese Arts Centre, Manchester, UK 2011 Realism, Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing, China
Selected group exhibitions
2017 Spectrosynthesis, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, Taipei, Taiwan 2016 Sui Generis, Tenuta Dello Scompiglio, Capannori, Italy De leur temps 5: Le temps de L’audace et de l’engagement, Institut d’Art Contemporain, Villeurbanne, France We Chat: A Dialogue in Contemporary Chinese Art, Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Center for the Arts, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, US 2015 Teetering at the Edge of the World, Espacio de Arte Contemporáneo, Montevideo, Uruguay Chercher le garçon, Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne, Vitry-sur-Seine, France Traveling Alone, Tromsø Kunstforening, Tromsø, Norway 2014 My Generation: Young Chinese Artists, Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, Florida, US. Travelled to Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, US, 2014; Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California, US, 2015 The 8 of Paths, Uferhallen, Berlin, Germany 2013 28 Chinese, Rubell Family Collection, Miami, Florida, US. Travelled to Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, California, US, 2015; San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, Texas, US, 2015 Unlimited, Art Basel, Messe Basel, Messeplatz, Basel, Switzerland Future Generation Art Prize, Collateral Event of the 55th Venice Biennale, Palazzo Contarini Polignac, Venice, Italy China China, Pinchuk Art Centre, Kiev, Ukraine ON | OFF: China’s Young Artists in Concept and Practice, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China 2012 Unfinished Country: New Video from China, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston, Texas, US Becoming Peninsula I: Symptoms, Iberia Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China
Awards As a young artist, Yan Xing made an impressive result during recent years. He has received several notable awards, in 2012 he won the Best Young Artist Award by Chinese Contemporary Art Award (CCAA). The same year, he was a finalist in the Future Generation Art Prize by Victor Pinchuk Foundation and Focus on Talents Project from Today Art Museum.
References
External links
Yan Xing: Dangerous Afternoon at Kunsthalle Basel Yan Xing at Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University Yan Xing at Kadist Art Foundation Yan Xing at Rubell Family Collection