Huang Yong Ping

French artist

Huáng Yǒng Pīng (; February 18, 1954 – October 20, 2019) was a Chinese French contemporary artist and one of the most well known Chinese avant garde artists of his time. Born in Xiamen, he was recognized as the most controversial and provocative artist of the Chinese art scene of the 1980s. Huang was one of the earliest contemporary Chinese artists to consider art as strategy. Xiamen Dada was a group formed by Huang Yong Ping with Zha Lixiong, Liu Yiling, Lin Chun and Jiao Yaoming in 1986, as a postmodernist, radical avant garde group. However, their works were often perceived as modern. The group publicly burned their works in protest, and Huang stated, “Artwork to artist is like opium to men. Until art is destroyed, life is never peaceful.” The group later withheld from any other public showings. Huang was represented by Gladstone Gallery in New York, Kamel Mennour in Paris, and Tang Contemporary in Beijing. He died of illness in Paris at the age of 65 on 20 October 2019.

Huang incorporated many different Chinese philosophies into his works, like Chan Buddhism, Taoism, some western philosophies and Dada, which led to the formation of the Xiamen Dada group. There are many similarities between Chan Buddhism and Dada as the common phrase suggests, “Chan is Dada, Dada is Chan." Both Chan and Dada are direct and reflective about aesthetic importance and the impossible reality of reality. However, Chan Buddhism and Taoism are constantly changing, and since Dada is Chan and vice versa, this should be the case for Dada. However, they are opposed to adding more movements making it a paradox and essential having this idea work against Dada's main ideas. The use of these philosophies are an example of “cross cultural exchange” and manifest in many of his works such as “A Concise History of Modern Art” after Two Minutes in the Washing Machine and A “Book Washing” Project.

Roulette Series is a three series project from 1985–1988 including portable roulettes consisting of six turntables. In this piece, Huang focused on chance, divination, and a non subjective way of creating his art works. His finished abstract works were determined either by dice, a roulette wheel and other apparatuses that help create his pieces by chance or accident. This process determined anything from the color to the juxtaposition of each element. His theory is that one cannot escape destiny, and that destiny itself is not separate from accident or chance. Huang's artworks tend to diverge from their original ideas, as "his method always involve a deferring process," and this series is very much so a product of those ideas. As a stage in his anti self expression phase, Huang let external forces influence his artwork and determine the final product based on the outcomes of inanimate objects, such as the roulette wheel or dice. Marcel Duchamp was a big influence on these pieces, as Huang not only eliminated the aesthetic taste and added spontaneity, but also created the portable roulettes as did Duchamp. He also looked Wittgenstein's theory on ontology and representation. Huang categorized it in three ways, as a process of art saying "work of art is bigger than the thought", conceptual art saying "the thought is bigger than the work of art" which is contradicting the first statement and then the last way to categorize it is the "Eastern Spirit" the Taoist and Chan Buddhist concept. "A Concise History of Modern Art" after Two Minutes in the Washing Machine has a simple premise but a complex idea. It is much like A "Book Washing" Project, a performance piece done in the artist's home in Xiamen, which came three years earlier than A Concise History of Modern Art. Often described as having a “radical anti art history,” these works are a part of two of his early anti art and anti history periods. In A "Book Washing" Project, he took all the books from his bookshelf and put them in the wash to create a pulp like he did in A Concise History of Modern Art but on a larger scale. He took the pulp created by the washing process he then stuck it back on the wall. The two pieces share the same premise and concept, but the specific materials (i. e. which books) he used in producing the pieces were different.

After Tiananmen Square massacre occurred while Huang was in Paris for the Magicians of Earth (1989) exhibition, and he decided not to return to China. His works subsequently changed dramatically and focused prominently on Taoist and Buddhist philosophies. He suddenly was immersed in western ways.

The House of Oracles Retrospective on Huang's work was shown at the Walker Art Center, from October 16, 2005 through January 15, 2006, at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art from March 18, 2006 to February 25, 2007, at the Vancouver Art Gallery from April 5 to September 16, 2007, and Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing from March 22 to June 8, 2008. The program to this retrospective describes Huang's work as:Huang's sculptures and installations—drawing on the legacies of Joseph Beuys, Arte Povera, and John Cage as well as traditional Chinese art and philosophy—routinely juxtapose traditional objects or iconic images with modern references. The House of Oracles features more than forty of Huang Yong Ping's works starting from his first exhibition Magicians of Earth (1989) up until this shows, showing the most significant ones of the past two decades. These works include: Bat Project II (2002), The Nightmare of King George V (2002), Python (2000) and many more. Renowned Curator, Fei Dawei says: "This first retrospective of Huang Yongping originated at the Walker Art Centre in the United States. It was shown at Mass Moca, the biggest contemporary museum in America and then Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada, before traveling to its final venue, UCCA in Beijing. And even before the inauguration of UCCA, I've decided to put on this exhibition because as a Chinese Museum, we feel obliged to introduce the best Chinese artists. This is of great importance for the artist, as well as for the audiences in contemporary art and especially, for UCCA's image, as an institution in the art world." His art pieces show portray historical events and the influences of political powers. The Nightmare of King George V portrays a 1911 hunting excursion that King George V went on to poach game in the juggle. Bat Project II historical background was Huang Yong Ping was going to recreate an exact replica of the U. S spy plane that crashed into a Chinese fighter, leading to controversy with in politics.

In 1996, Huang participated in Manifesta, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art in Rotterdam, and in 1997, the "Skulptur. Projekte" in Münster, Germany with his sculpture "100 Arms of Guan yin". The Guanyin figure is associated with Buddhism and has multiple arms. Huang Yong Ping interprets this famous deity through his own 100 Arms of Guan in by placing mannequin arms holding various objects on a metal structure which is itself an enlarged version of Marcel Duchamp's 1914 readymade Bottle Rack. During 2008, Huang's work was on display at the Astrup Fearnley museum of modern art in Oslo, Norway. This is his first solo show in Norway. For his first UK solo show in The Curve, Barbican Art Gallery, London, Huang Yong Ping created a new installation that explores the imperial history between Britain and China in the 19th century, focusing on the Opium Wars. The exhibition takes its title Frolic from the name of a ship built to transport goods between British India, China and Great Britain. The exhibition was on from 25 June 21 September 2008.

In 2012, Huang's serpent d'océan, a monumental sculpture depicting the skeleton of a giant sea serpent, was installed in Saint Brevin les Pins.

Bat Project II (2002) was planned as a massive 20 x 15 x 6 m steel outdoor installation at the opening of China's First Guangzhou Triennial at the Guangdong Museum of Art. Two days before the show opening, on November 16, 2002, foreign ministry officials removed the work, then partially completed. The work, which was recreated in part in Huang's House of Oracles retrospective, was a full scale model of the cockpit section and left wing of an American EP 3 spy plane, filled with taxodermically preserved bats. The plane modeled the one that collided with a Chinese fighter jet in March 2001, killing the Chinese pilot. The 2008 exhibition of his piece, Theatre of the World, at the Vancouver Art Gallery met with Animal Rights protests and legal threats due to its reliance on the violent interaction between insects in an enclosed space. The work was part of House of Oracles, his travelling retrospective exhibition.