Pu Yingwei
Red Cosmopolitanism, 2021-2022
Since 2017, and his stay in France, he has more specifically addressed post-colonial themes. When he returned to Beijing in 2018, he incorporated these elements of political history into contemporary Chinese art. The tools for analyzing Chinese art were then based on a post-Marxist or post-structuralist framework. They must be replaced by a new set of values and understanding. For several years, the artist has been developing a typography that combines the memory of Soviet Russia (communism), that of the Chinese ideogram (tradition), and that of the Western alphabet (globalization). He deploys this triple typographic identity in paintings where the color red is very present as a symbol of national identity. He addresses the impact of these three politico-ideological axes on contemporary China through architecture, landmark events such as the arrival of Coca-Cola on Chinese territory, or the colonial-type relationship that China maintains with Africa (“Chinafrica”), in which he is particularly interested.
In January 2023, in response to the easing of the Chinese regime’s health control measures regarding COVID and the gradual reopening of borders, Pu Yingwei decided to undertake a politico-artistic journey related to his research. He set out from Yan’an in China, the cradle of Mao Zedong’s communism where it was declared that art must serve the people, to reach Paris.
He then left France at the beginning of February for Sarajevo and crossed Bosnia and Herzegovina in search of political monuments and post-Soviet traces. He then went to Africa, to Kenya, where his uncle, an agronomist engineer, had built hydraulic dams at the request of the Chinese government. Upon his return to Paris on February 20, before heading back to China at the beginning of March, Pu Yingwei invites you to share a moment of reflection on this journey. In the form of private meetings at the Marais gallery, in front of two of his paintings specifically sent from China, the RED RENDEZ-VOUS will be an opportunity for one-on-one dialogue with the artist to reflect together on this new mapping of the world.
From Paris as his base of work, Pu Yingwei launches his project “Global Exotic.” From monuments in former socialist countries to Chinese companies in Africa, Pu Yingwei seeks to create his own cartography, itself closely linked to the internal history of contemporary China as well as to its international strategy. Through his work, he aims to connect the political evolution of China, its geostrategic position in the world, with the development of national contemporary art.
