Taking personal inquiries as a point of departure, contemporary Chinese artist Pu Yingwei investigates overlapping histories of the globalised world. Recurring themes in Pu's works include national propaganda, colonial histories and legacies, and cultural identity.
Read MoreUpon graduating with a BFA from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 2013, Pu Yingwei moved to France to study at École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Lyon (National School Fine Arts of Lyon), where he gained an MFA in 2018. While studying in Lyon, Pu's uncle Li Guiping moved to Kenya to work as a hydraulic engineer at the Karimenu II Dam, spurring the artist's interest in exploring historic and contemporary relations between China and Africa. In the resulting 'Chinafrica' series of multimedia works, Pu examined Chinese-African connections and flows of cultural exchange.
In France Pu extended his research into colonial histories and geopolitical shifts. His solo presentation at the 2020 Jimei x Arles International Photo Festival, Photo Ethics: Chinafrica, featured works from the 'Chinafrica' series including his collection of colonial postcards, his uncle's photographs from Kenya, and images of African and Chinese construction workers in 1970s East Africa. The images of the construction workers were hand-coloured in a style pioneered by the 19th century Italian-British photographer Felice Beato, who was one of the first people to take photographs in East Asia.
The video work Dam Theater (2020–2021) also forms part of Pu Yingwei's 'Chinafrica' series, the title of which refers to the Karimenu II Dam built by the artist's uncle. Bringing together temporal and geographic differences, Pu explores recent economic and cultural developments in China, and maps the world as a web of entangled histories and relations. Dam Theater was included in the 13th Shanghai Biennale in 2021.
Between August and October 2021, Pu Yingwei was the inaugural artist in residence at MAMOTH, London. The artist's diary entries, written before and during the residency, reflect his interest in the connotations of the colour red across different cultures—whether associated with war and blood, radical politics, or fashion. For Pu, the colour red serves as the background for the paradoxes in the contemporary world; He writes, 'Today's super-states in the world are like hybrid and bloodthirsty monsters; freedom and violence, capital and communism, are completely coexisting and becoming entangled.'
A Study in Scarlet: The Re-origin of Revolutionary Realism (2021), Pu's resulting solo exhibition at MAMOTH, included sculptures, wall-based works, manuscripts, videos, and spray-painted drawings on the floor, with the colour red dominanting. Elements of the exhibition reflect the artist's continued investigation of China's recent history. The painting Sovereign Police (Celebration) (2021) comprises rows of national flags, American dollar bills, and a police symbol all overpainted in red, while the assortment of images inspired by the British Museum in Anglomania (Museum) (2021) point to the entangled history of imperialism and early museum practices.
Selected solo exhibitions by Pu Yingwei include Time, History, Why We Fight, Hive Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2020); Pu Yingwei and ChinaCapital, MadeIn Gallery, Shanghai (2020); Double Empire, Le Nouvel Institut Franco-Chinois, Lyon (2018); Roman Nomade, Hive Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2017).
Selected group exhibitions include Bodies of Water, 13th Shanghai Biennale (2021); Beijing Contemporary Art Expo (2020); Dance With It, Taikang Space, Beijing (2018); Frontier: Re-assessment of Post-Globalisational Politics, OCAT Shanghai/OCAT Beijing (2017/2018); Fiction Art, OCAT Shenzhen (2018).
Pu Yingwei's website can be found here.
Ocula | 2021
