H. Wang Keping

Wang Keping was born in China in 1949, the year that the People’s Republic of China was created. Self-taught, he began sculpting wood in 1978 and became co-founder of one of China’s first contemporary art movements, the Stars Group. Their work gave voice to the Chinese revolution at a pivotal moment in its transformation, following the end of the cultural Revolution and the death of Mao Zedong. The first exhibition by the Stars Group was not officially authorised: the artists displayed their work on railings outside the China National Art Gallery. They were removed by the police two days later. The artists then organised a protest march demanding the freedom to create. A year later, the same group of artists was invited to exhibit inside the museum. Wang Keping’s works were among the most politically engaged of the group. His sculpture Silence showed a man who was blind and deaf as an analogy for the age. Another work, Idol was perhaps the first to dare to caricature Chairman Mao, who was depicted as a Buddha. Along with Huang Rui and Ma Desheng, he was one of the leading members of the Stars Group. In 1984 he went into exile in France and moved away from political work to concentrate on the simplification of sculpture, both figurative and abstract. Inspired by the smooth lines of the modernist Constantin Brancusi, the elegance of the Chinese Han dynasty and the rawness of African sculpture, Wang Keping has followed a unique and completely personal path in sculpture for the past 40 years.

Since 2017, Wang Keping has been represented in Paris and Brussels by the Nathalie Obadia gallery. He has been represented in Hong-Kong by the 10 Chancery Lane Gallery since 2001. From 1986 until 2016 he collaborated with Galerie Zürcher (in Paris and New-York).