He Jian 何健—The Traveling Artist “Der Reichtum des Reisenden Jian He ist seine Kunst” “The wealth of the traveler Jian He is his art” Dorothee von Windheim, Cologne, January 2012 Portrait of the artist in his Beijing studio, 2020, © DE TELEGRAAF I met He Jian while working at Faurschou Foundation in connection to a collaboration with the painter Liu Xiaodong. At the time, He Jian was an assistant at Liu Xiaodong’s studio. I had no idea that he was an artist in his own right until he gave me a catalog documenting his early work up until 2012, right after the young artist had graduated from the ..read more

My blue tooth headphones don’t connect right away, but with a satisfying chime, I’m in – on our last-minute WeChat call with “photo artist” Li Zhang, one of the winners of the UP21 global open call competition for young photographers, supported by MUSEC and the Lugano culture and museum foundation. Born in Tongling, Anhui Province, China in 1991, Li Zhang (张郦) first began studying biotechnology. After moving to Germany, where he still lives, he decided to embrace photography, training at the “Hochschule der Bildenden Künste in Essen“. With the project When I was a child, the photo artist propo ..read more

Dou Jianyong (1976), also known as Dou Liangyu, is a native of Loling, Shandong province. He graduated from The Department of Chinese Painting of Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts with a bachelor’s degree in 2000. In 2007, he graduated from the Department of Chinese Painting of Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts with a master’s degree, where he is today an associate professor. Ink wash Art / Painting (水墨畫) Ink wash painting is a type of Chinese ink brush painting based on black ink, such as in Chinese calligraphy, in different concentrations. It emerged in the Tang dynasty (618–907), when it overturned e ..read more

Artist Interview: Yu Linhan’s Abstract Medical Art Yu Linhan is a Chinese artist whose “medical art” fuses painterly abstraction with concise prints of medical equipment and highly complex hospital environments. Portrait of the artist, © the artist After receiving his BA from China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), Yu Linhan studied at the University of the Arts Bremen, where he received his diploma and Meisterschüler (Master Student) degree in 2018. Although Linhan was already represented by the Hive Center for Contemporary Art 蜂巢当代艺术中心 – an internationally recogni ..read more

Artist Interview: Chinese script, friendly monsters, mysterious aliens and mind-controlled music Zhé Wang (also known as Wang Zhe, according to the Chinese name-order), has a wide range of interests – from ancient Chinese script to aliens and artificial intelligence. At the same time, her use of media varies from painting to installation to film (including stop motion), as well as essay videos, which explore the written word and storytelling. e gong yan, 2011. BW/C-print ,© the artist “U.O.0001” , 2015. Styrofoam installation, © the artist Screenshot f ..read more

Artist Interview: Liu Yuehui’s Ballpoint Pen Art Liu Yuehui is an artist who takes ballpoint pen art to a rarely seen level. Both technique and concept is equally important to the artist and the use of the pen as a tool has a deep-rooted meaning. Liu Yuehui grew up in a small village in China – a settlement of roughly 300 families. When locating her village on the map, one would have to look into China’s Shandong Province, then further into Yuhuangmiao Township 玉皇庙镇, Yuncheng County 郓城县, and then, finally, the prefecture-level city Heze 菏泽市, where one would find Yuehui’s village  Zhangzhu ..read more

The Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung (Alexander Tutsek Foundation) in Munich recently published a book featuring over 200 photographs by 40 different Chinese photographers, About Us: Young Photography in China. Published shortly after an exhibition of the same title, the book not only shows how huge the community of contemporary photographers in China has become – It presents a diversity within Chinese photography that is still virtually unknown to Western audiences. Cover image of the publication ABOUT US. Young Photography in China © Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung The beginnings of Chinese Contemporary ..read more

How ethnic visual culture influenced Chinese contemporary art In the Western art historical canon, it is all too common to focus on the Euro-American influences that inspired and formed Chinese contemporary art during the beginning of the country’s transformative Reform and Opening-up policy, starting in the late 1970s. However, much less is known about domestic sources of inspiration, such as the influence that Chinese ethnic visual culture had on young artists during this time period. I would like to shed light on this important development by looking at the artist movement known as the Yunn ..read more

How Chinese Art Became Contemporary: In the year 1989, China witnessed a moment which would be later marked as the bravest demonstration of defiance against a controlling government – a young man standing resolutely in front of an army of marching tanks. While most consider the incident at Tiananmen Square to be the zenith of China’s dissent against the Chinese Communist Party, few have acknowledged the incidents which had preceded this demonstration. Months before the protest, an artist named Xiao Lu shot two bullets into a sculpture she was exhibiting, called the Dialogue. While many ha ..read more

What places attract Chinese artists today when they leave home to build careers abroad? The first Western country that might come to mind is the United States. American cities such as New York and Los Angeles have a history of attracting international creatives. Cai Guo-Qiang, is perhaps the most notable New York-based Chinese-born contemporary artist. In Europe, Paris has also attracted a number of artists from China, such as the recently deceased Huang Yongping (1954-2019), as well as the much talked about auction-house-wonder Zao Wou-ki (1921-2013), whose abstract paintings have made auctio ..read more