Shen Yuan (b. 1959, Xianyou, Fujian Province) is an artist who lives and works in Paris. Shen Yuan’s work reflects broadly on cultural and political realities, covering issues such as workers (including women workers and child labourers), slums, cultural conflict. When making art, she often employs sociological methods. In trips to Africa or rural China, she lives with local people and works together with them to create a work. Shen Yuan’s work also raises some of the thorny political issues of our time. Of the parties in a conflict, who is legitimate and who is illegitimate?
Her major solo exhibitions include Without Wall (Beijing Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing, 2017), Shen Yuan: Hurried Words (UCCA, Beijing, 2009). Major group exhibitions include Art and China After 1989 (Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2017), Reactivation: Ninth Shanghai Biennale” (Shanghai, 2012), The 52nd Venice Biennale China Pavilion (Venice, 2007), Gwangju Biennale (Gwangju, 2006), La Force de l’Art (Grand Palais, Paris, 2006), Sao Paulo Biennale (Sao Paulo, 2002), China / Avant-Garde (National Art Museum, Beijing, 1989).
Text courtesy Tang Contemporary Art.
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