Pékin Fine Arts is pleased to host the China premier of Wang Qingsong’s three latest video works, following his first solo exhibition in a United States museum, at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, (March 24 – June 14, 2009 and curated by UCLA Hammer Projects director Jaime Elaine).

Wang Qingsong is a leading – and influential - figure in the generation of pioneering artists whose work critiques the rapid-fire transformation of Chinese society, changes all to often justified by over-reliance on ill-defined slogans imploring all to “Modernize!” and to “Build A More Civilized Society!”.   

Originally trained as a painter, today Qingsong moves freely between theatrically staged digital photography, large-scale installation projects; and single-channel video, (using 35 mm film and digital stop-motion techniques). The new video works Qingsong presents today at Pekin Fine Arts all look beyond obvious societal and environmental changes, to uncover what lies beneath. In these latest art works, Qingsong uses arresting and seemingly unrelated subject matter, to grab the viewers’ attention, in impossible-to-forget sound and visual imagery.

The common denominator in all three videos is a subtle shift in attitude and perception invoked relying solely on one single channel image of physical or material transformation. Within the course of viewing, we realize that things that once shocked or disturbed us no longer cause a stir.  Contemporary urban life is often characterized by frequent changes in one’s living space and environment, and the constant presence - whether good or bad - of excessive visual and sound stimuli.  Inevitably, Qingsong posits, our spiritual as well as material worlds’ are affected.

Over the next ten weeks, we will present the three new video works simultaneously, giving audiences ample opportunity to move freely from room to room enjoying these three entirely different presentations of Qingsong’s ever-broadening oeuvre, in their own personal way.