Yun-Fei Ji (; born 1963) is a Chinese-American painter who has been based largely in New York City since 1990.Yau, John "Alone and Together on The Stage of The World," ''The Brooklyn Rail'', June 2004. Retrieved May 19, 2023.Fateman, Johanna "Yun-Fei Ji," ''The New Yorker'', January 2023. Retrieved May 22, 2023. His art synthesizes old and new representational modes, subverting the classical idealism of centuries-old Chinese scroll and
landscape painting
Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent compo ...
traditions to tell contemporary stories of survival amid ecological and social disruption.Shen, Danni "Yun-Fei Ji's Ghost Stories of the Living," ''Hyperallergic'', June 29, 2016. Retrieved May 19, 2023.Wilson, Michael "Yun-Fei Ji, Pratt Manhattan Gallery," ''Artforum'', May 2003, p. 171. Retrieved May 22, 2023. He employs metaphor, symbolic allusion and devices such as caricature and the
grotesque
Since at least the 18th century (in French and German as well as English), grotesque has come to be used as a general adjective for the strange, mysterious, magnificent, fantastic, hideous, ugly, incongruous, unpleasant, or disgusting, and thus ...
to create tumultuous,
Kafka
Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typi ...
-esque worlds that writers suggest address two cultural revolutions: the first, communist one and its spiritual repercussions, and a broader capitalist one driven by industrialization and its effects, both in China and the US.Yau, John "An Artist Conjures the Ghosts of Displacement," ''Hyperallergic'', May 12, 2018. Retrieved May 19, 2023.La Rocco, Ben "Yun-Fei Ji: mistaking each other for ghosts," ''The Brooklyn Rail'', April 2, 2010. Retrieved May 19, 2023. ''ARTnews'' critic Lilly Wei wrote, "Ancestral ghosts and skeletons appear frequently in Ji’s iconography; his work is infused with the supernatural and the folkloric as well as the documentary as he records with fierce, focused intensity the displacement and forced relocation of people, the disappearance of villages, and the environmental upheavals of massive projects like the controversial
Three Gorges Dam
The Three Gorges Dam is a hydroelectric gravity dam that spans the Yangtze River by the town of Sandouping, in Yiling District, Yichang, Hubei province, central China, downstream of the Three Gorges. The Three Gorges Dam has been the world' ...
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
Whitney Museum
The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...
New Museum
The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side.
History
The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Sch ...
Rome Prize
The Rome Prize is awarded by the American Academy in Rome, in Rome, Italy. Approximately thirty scholars and artists are selected each year to receive a study fellowship at the academy. Prizes have been awarded annually since 1921, with a hiatus ...
,American Academy in Rome All Fellows Retrieved May 22, 2023. and his work belongs to the art collections of MoMA, the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...
(1966–1976), during which his mother was sent to a labor camp for re-education. For those two years he was cared for by his grandparents, who introduced him to calligraphy and ghost stories, both of which have figured in his art; at age ten, he began studies with a military officer who created illustrations for the People's Liberation Army.Spears, Dorothy "Part Traditionalist, Part Naturalist, Part Dissident," ''The New York Times'', February 20, 2010. Retrieved May 19, 2023. Ji attended the
Central Academy of Fine Arts
The Central Academy of Fine Arts or CAFA is an art academy under the direct charge of the Ministry of Education of China. The Manila Bulletin calls the school "China’s most prestigious and renowned art academy". It is one of the most selectiv ...
(CAFA) in Beijing (BFA, 1982), learning oil painting in the still state-sanctioned style of
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II. Socialist realism is c ...
; he was among the first generation to study there after its post-Cultural Revolution reopening.Heinrich, Will "Yun-Fei Ji," ''The New York Times'', May 16, 2018. Retrieved May 19, 2023.
After graduating, Ji taught for two years at the School of Arts and Crafts in Beijing and secretly studied calligraphy and classical painting in the imperial
Song dynasty
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...
University of Arkansas
The University of Arkansas (U of A, UArk, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System and the largest university in the state. Founded as Arkansas ...
, where he earned an MFA in 1989. In the US, he discovered the German Expressionists and
Philip Guston
Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980), was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. Early in his five decade career, muralist David Siquieros described him as one of "the most promising ...
, and integrated elements of their humor and stylized figures into his scroll-style watercolor and ink works.Sheets, Hilarie M "Underrated/Overrated," ''ARTnews'', January, 2005, p. 106–07. Retrieved May 19, 2023.
Ji moved to New York in 1990. Between 1997 and 2004, his work began receiving wider attention through group exhibitions at the Bronx MuseumCotter, Holland "A Flock of Fledglings, Testing Their Wings," ''The New York Times'', August 1, 1997. Retrieved May 19, 2023. and Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art,Zimmer, William "Surveying New York's Art World," ''The New York Times'', December 2, 2001. p. CN14. Retrieved May 22, 2023. the
Whitney Biennial
The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition ...
(2002),Cotter, Holland "Spiritual America, From Ecstatic To Transcendent," ''The New York Times'', March 8, 2002. Retrieved May 19, 2023. and solo shows at Pierogi,Smith, Roberta ''The New York Times'', June 29, 2001. p. E35. Retrieved May 19, 2023. Pratt Manhattan GalleryJohnson, Ken The New York Times'', April 4, 2003. Retrieved May 19, 2023. and Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis.
In his later career, Ji has had solo exhibitions at
UCCA Center for Contemporary Art
UCCA Center for Contemporary Art or UCCA () is a leading Chinese independent institution of contemporary art. Founded in 2007. Located at the heart of the 798 Art District in, China, it welcomes more than one million visitors a year. Originally k ...
Cleveland Museum of Art
The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian ...
Kalamazoo Institute of Arts
The Kalamazoo Institute of Arts (KIA) is a non-profit art museum and school in downtown Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States.
History
In 1924, members of the Kalamazoo Chapter of the American Federation of Arts established an art center "to further ...
Biennale of Sydney
The Biennale of Sydney is an international festival of contemporary art, held every two years in Sydney, Australia. It is a large and well-attended contemporary visual arts event in the country. Alongside the Venice and São Paulo biennales and ...
Prospect New Orleans
Prospect New Orleans is a multi-venue contemporary art event in New Orleans.
"Prospect.1 New Orleans" ran from November 2008 to January 2009. Conceived in the tradition of the international biennials, such as the Venice Biennale, São Paulo Bienn ...
Ji draws upon personal, historical, cultural and political sources for inspiration: his memories of
Maoist
Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Ch ...
rule, classical and folk art, literature and deep research into instances of human displacement and environmental destruction in the name of modernization. For most of his career, he has worked in the scroll-painting traditions of the
Tang
Tang or TANG most often refers to:
* Tang dynasty
* Tang (drink mix)
Tang or TANG may also refer to:
Chinese states and dynasties
* Jin (Chinese state) (11th century – 376 BC), a state during the Spring and Autumn period, called Tang (唐) b ...
, Song and Yuan dynasties, using ink, mineral pigments and brushes on
rice
Rice is the seed of the grass species '' Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima'' (African rice). The name wild rice is usually used for species of the genera '' Zizania'' and '' Porteresia'', both wild and domesticat ...
and
mulberry paper
The paper mulberry (''Broussonetia papyrifera'', synonym (taxonomy), syn. ''Morus papyrifera'' L.) is a species of flowering plant in the family Moraceae. It is native to Asia,La Rocco, Ben "Yun-Fei Ji: mistaking each other for ghosts," ''The Brooklyn Rail'', April 2, 2010. Retrieved May 19, 2023. His paintings often have the weathered, crinkled and creased look of premature age, making a sense of the passage of time physically tangible. He characteristically paints with a wide range of marks derived from observations of nature: supple brushstrokes and line, mottled areas, abstract drips and precise evocations of rock, water, flora and fauna.Ji, Yun-Fei "Artist Yun-Fei Ji on how he paints," ''The Guardian'', September 20, 2009. Retrieved May 22, 2023. Compositionally, he employs dissonant perspectives and shifts in scale that undercut the consistency of landscapes, narrative flow, or simple interpretations.
Into these classical approaches Ji has introduced expressionistic figurative modes that have been likened to artists such as George Grosz and
James Ensor
James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor (13 April 1860 – 19 November 1949) was a Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for most of his life. He was associated with the artistic g ...
.Yau, John "Yun-Fei Ji’s Great Leap Forward," ''Hyperallergic'', January 4, 2023. Retrieved May 19, 2023. His work often derives impact from deliberate juxtapositions of anachronistic techniques and symbols—flattened and stacked perspective, idyllic settings, ghost-like characters inspired by folktales—with contemporary elements such as abstraction and modern events, buildings and technologies. Critics have described the resulting sociopolitical critiques as multilayered, disturbing and fantastical, compassionate, satirical and blackly humorous.John Yau characterized Yi as "a chronicler with a novelist's eye for rich, reverberating detail," whose work evokes the contradictions, ruptures and elisions of both "rapid, irrevocable change and tradition's glacial pace … with immense tenderness and inconsolable mourning."
Works and exhibitions, 2001–10
Ji's painting in early solo exhibitions at Pierogi (2001) and Pratt Manhattan (2003) resembled friezelike, all-over fields whose ruptured decorative backdrops and landscapes revealed calamitous scenes of disaster and decay, populated by Goyaesque figures in grotesque masks and costumes.Knafo, Robert. "Yun-Fei Ji: Moral Vistas," ''Art in America'', June 2003. ''Artforums Michael Wilson wrote that this work (e.g., ''Wedding Ballad'', 2002) "conjured a world in turmoil that oscillates between the safety of centuries-old tradition and resent-daymortal terror."
Throughout the 2000s, Ji rooted surreal allegories of modernization in field research he conducted on communities affected by man-made and natural disasters.Genocchio, Benjamin "Through Ink and Brush, A Melding of Traditions," ''The New York Times'', May 4, 2003. Retrieved May 19, 2023. These included entire Chinese villages involuntarily dislodged by colossal hydroelectric projects and Hurricane Katrina-ravaged New Orleans, which he connected through the theme of government failure.Lau, Venus "The Tenth Shanghai Biennale," ''Artforum'', February 2015. Retrieved May 19, 2023.Garcia, Carnelia. "Interview: Yun-Fei Ji," ''Modern Painters'', April 2010. The "Empty City" paintings (Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, 2004) centered on the Chinese Three Gorges Dam project, specifically, its displacement of an estimated 1,500,000 people (largely minorities) and submergence of thousands of villages and significant archaeological sites, forever altering both landscape and culture.Richard, Frances "Yun-Fei Ji," ''Artforum'', January 2004, p. 64. Retrieved May 22, 2023. His fractured, panoramic scrolls (e.g., ''Empty City—calling the dead'', 2003) presented multiple perspectives and self-contained vignettes that moved between past, present and future, refusing any easy message.
In exhibitions at James Cohan Gallery ("Water That Floats the Boat Can Also Sink It," 2007; "Mistaking Each Other for Ghosts," 2010), Ji's epic, cautionary scrolls delved further into the project, portraying migration in physical and psychic terms that emphasized loss and a literal haunting of those supplanted by melancholic wraiths and scraggly scavengers (e.g., ''Last Days Before the Flood'', 2006). In the latter show, Ji was inspired by the ghost stories of the 18th-century Chinese writer
Pu Songling
Pu Songling (, 5 June 1640 – 25 February 1715) was a Chinese writer during the Qing dynasty, best known as the author of ''Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio'' (''Liaozhai zhiyi'').
Biography
Pu was born into a poor merchant family from ...
and the French writer, Marquis de Sade, in several works linking Sade's decadent noblemen to contemporary Chinese political leaders. The show included the ten-foot-wide horizontal scroll, ''Migrants of the Three Gorges Dam'' (2009), which was hand-printed from 500 carved woodblocks. It portrayed dispossessed farmers and flooded landscapes alongside calligraphic reports and descriptions of the flooding of the
Yangtze River
The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest list of rivers of Asia, river in Asia, the list of rivers by length, third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in th ...
based on Ji's own research, interviews and observations.
Later exhibitions
Ji's survey "The Intimate Universe" (Wellin Museum, 2016) and exhibition "Rumors, Ridicules, and Retributions" (James Cohan, 2018) presented more than a decade's work, ranging from sketch studies to his first sculptures (skeletal figures made from paper pulp) to finished paintings and monumental scrolls. The scrolls included the cinematic, nearly 60-foot-long ''The Village and its Ghosts'' (2014) and the ironically titled ''Village Wen’s Progress'' (2017).Weinberg, Bill. "Of dams, displacement and the ripple effects," ''The Villager'', May 31, 2018. Both offered a sense of perpetual transition and history repeating itself through an amalgam of settings and signifiers: the devastation of New Orleans, migrants piled with their meager, worldly goods, details of the Nan Shui Bei Diao megaproject, and scenes of Columbus Park in Manhattan.Yau, John "An Artist Conjures the Ghosts of Displacement," ''Hyperallergic'', May 12, 2018. Retrieved May 19, 2023. The imagery of ''Village Wen’s Progress'' functioned both literally and symbolically, with collapsing scaffolding, ominous ever-present ghosts and thematic movement from mundane drudgery to hallucinatory chaos that related physical dislocation to mental disintegration. ''The New York Times'' called these works subversive in their contradictions, while ''Artcriticals
Robert C. Morgan
Robert C. Morgan (born 1943) is an American art critic, art historian, curator, poet, and artist.
Biography
Robert C. Morgan received his M.F.A. in sculpture from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1975 and his Ph.D. in art education f ...
wrote "Ji draws intentionally and purposefully on the past as a means to exorcise the hidden realities of the present … the brush becomes an indirect signifier of revolt."
Critics noted a significant turn in Ji's exhibition, "The Sunflower Turned Its Back" (James Cohan Gallery, 2022), toward new imagery (flowers, a portrait) and a new medium (acrylic on canvas) that further conveyed the global, universal nature of his subject matter. Stylistically less caricatured or expressionist, these works were painted in thickly applied, dry, chalky colors that exploited the saturation and opacity of acrylic and created interplay between abstraction and representation, flat pattern and volumetric form. In paintings such as ''Bunk Bed'' or ''Satellite Dish on a Bed'' (both 2023), ''New Yorker'' critic
Johanna Fateman
Johanna Rachel Fateman (born May 16, 1974) is an American writer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. She is a member of the post-punk rock band Le Tigre and founded the band MEN with Le Tigre bandmate JD Samson.
Early life and educati ...
noted juxtapositions of "dappled light and dynamic clutter ecallingearly
Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, and sculptur ...
" with the disarray of jumbled belongings on streets and hasty departures, which created tonal shifts between gaiety and gravitas.
Baltimore Museum of Art
The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of ...
,Baltimore Museum of Art Yun-Fei Ji Collection. Retrieved May 22, 2023. The British Museum, Brooklyn Museum,Brooklyn Museu Yun-Fei Ji Collection. Retrieved May 22, 2023. Cleveland Museum of Art,
Grand Rapids Art Museum
The Grand Rapids Art Museum (GRAM) is an art museum located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States, with collections ranging from Renaissance to Modern Art and special collections on 19th and 20th-century European and American art. Its holdings ...
Milwaukee Art Museum
The Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) is an art museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its collection contains nearly 25,000 works of art.
Location and Visit
Located on the lakefront of Lake Michigan, the Milwaukee Art Museum is one of the largest art museu ...
, Museum of Modern Art,
Norton Museum of Art
The Norton Museum of Art is an art museum located in West Palm Beach, Florida. Its collection includes over 8,200 works, with a concentration in European, American, and Chinese art as well as in contemporary art and photography. In 2003, it overt ...
, Philadelphia Museum of Art,
Rose Art Museum
The Rose Art Museum, founded in 1961, is a part of Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, US. Named after benefactors Edward and Bertha Rose, it offers temporary exhibitions, and it displays and houses works of art from the permanent col ...
,Rose Art Museum ''Public Grain'', Yun-Fei Ji Objects. Retrieved May 22, 2023. Smart Museum of Art,Smart Museum of Art Yun-Fei Ji Collection. Retrieved May 22, 2023.
Toledo Museum of Art
The Toledo Museum of Art is an internationally known art museum located in the Old West End neighborhood of Toledo, Ohio. It houses a collection of more than 30,000 objects. With 45 galleries, it covers 280,000 square feet and is currently in th ...
,Toledo Museum of Art ''High Noon'', Yun-Fei Ji Objects. Retrieved May 22, 2023. US Department of State,Art in Embassies, US Department of State Yun-Fei Ji Artists. Retrieved May 22, 2023.
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, or VMFA, is an art museum in Richmond, Virginia, United States, which opened in 1936. The museum is owned and operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Private donations, endowments, and funds are used for the s ...
Worcester Art Museum
The Worcester Art Museum, also known by its acronym WAM, houses over 38,000 works of art dating from antiquity to the present day and representing cultures from all over the world. WAM opened in 1898 in Worcester, Massachusetts, and ranks among th ...
American Academy in Rome
The American Academy in Rome is a research and arts institution located on the Gianicolo (Janiculum Hill) in Rome.
The academy is a member of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers.
History
In 1893, a group of American architects, ...
(Rome Prize, 2005), Sharp Foundation (2004),
MoMA PS1
MoMA PS1 is a contemporary art institution located in Court Square in the Long Island City neighborhood in the borough of Queens, New York City. In addition to its exhibitions, the institution organizes the Sunday Sessions performance series, the ...
(2003) and Bronx Museum (1996),Bronx Museum AIM Fellowship, Past Fellows Artists. Retrieved May 22, 2023. and grants from the
New York Foundation for the Arts
The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) is an independent 501(c)(3) charity, funded through government, foundation, corporate, and individual support, established in 1971. It is part of a network of national not-for-profit arts organizations ...
(1999),
Joan Mitchell Foundation
Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) was an American artist who worked primarily in painting and printmaking, and also used pastel and made other works on paper. She was an active participant in the New York School of artis ...
(1998) and
Pollock-Krasner Foundation
The Pollock-Krasner Foundation was established in 1985 for the purpose of providing financial assistance to individual working artists of established ability. It was established at the bequest of Lee Krasner, who was an American abstract expressio ...
(1997).New York Foundation for the Arts. ''Directory of Artists’ Fellows & Finalists'', New York: New York Foundation for the Arts, 2021, p. 39.Joan Mitchell Foundation Yun-Fei Ji Supported Artists. Retrieved May 19, 2023. Ji has been awarded artist residencies by Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art,
Headlands Center for the Arts
Headlands Center for the Arts hosts an internationally recognized artist-in-residence program, and interdisciplinary public programs. It is situated in a campus of artist-renovated military buildings in the Marin Headlands, in Marin County, Cali ...
Ucross Foundation
The Ucross Foundation, located in Ucross, Wyoming, is a nonprofit organization that operates an internationally known retreat for visual artists, writers, composers, and choreographers working in all creative disciplines.
History
Founded in 1981 ...
,
Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity
Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, formerly known as The Banff Centre (and previously The Banff Centre for Continuing Education), located in Banff, Alberta, was established in 1933 as the Banff School of Drama. It was granted full autonomy as ...
and MacDowell, among others.Wei, Lilly "Yun-Fei Ji: The Sunflower Turned Its Back," ''The Brooklyn Rail'', December 13, 2022. Retrieved May 22, 2023.Art Omi Yun-Fei Ji Residents. Retrieved May 22, 2023.Ucross Foundation Retrieved May 22, 2023.MacDowell Yun-Fei Ji Artists. Retrieved May 22, 2023.
Publications
* Adler, Tracy L., Robert C. Morgan & Stephen J. Goldberg, ''Yun-Fei Ji: The Intimate Universe'', Prestel Publishing, New York, 2016,
* Cox, Jessica Lin, Christopher Rawson, & Leo Xu, ''Yun-Fei Ji: Mistaking Each Other for Ghosts'', James Cohan Gallery, 2010
* Chiu, Melissa, Tan Lin, Gregory Volk, Paul Ha & Yun-Fei Ji, ''Yun-Fei Ji: The Empty City'', Shannon Fitzgerald Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, 2005
* Tsai, Paula, ''Yun-Fei Ji: Water Work'', Ucca Books, Beijing, 2013