Zheng Guogu is a conceptual Chinese artist who emerged in the 1990s amid the profound shifts of China’s opening to a globalised world. Working with photography, calligraphy, painting, video and installation, Zheng revamps the local culture of his hometown Yangjiang and New China against the contexts and trends of global contemporary art. Zheng is also a member of Yangjiang Group, an art collective founded in 2002 in Yangjiang.
Zheng Guogu is one among a growing number of postmodern artists who have been reacting to the rapid shifts taking place in China over the past ten years by giving artistic shape to the phases of social and economic transformation. What distinguishes him is his commitment to the local culture of his hometown and his role in directing attention to it, while engaging with trends in global contemporary art. The international art world has fallen in love with contemporary Chinese art, and somehow Zheng Guogu, although often included in group exhibitions in Asia and Europe, has not been singled out often enough. He juggles fact with fiction or myth, while controlling the entry points to his community for visitors from the art world, who make the trek to visit him in the small town where he lives and work.
Zheng currently lives and works in Yangjiang, China.
Courtesy Tang Contemporary Art


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