“I am a Chinese artist, but I do not make Chinese art. ”
Born in Beijing in 1949, Wang Keping is a key figure in contemporary Chinese art. A member of the "Xing Xing" ("Stars") group, along with Ai Weiwei, Huang Rui, and Ma Desheng, Wang Keping is a committed artist who opposes the aesthetic imposed by the Communist Party of his country. His critical role in the Chinese avant-garde of the 1970s as a free speech defender led him to exile in France in 1984. It was during his years in France that the artist would discover his aesthetic language based around a single material: wood. The spiritual aspect of wood is intrinsically linked to Zen philosophy; it is this material which allows the artist to connect to nature and sculpt knots with smooth strokes in a very organic fashion. Keping does not hesitate to involve traditional techniques of his home country, blackening his sculptures with fire. His passion for what he terms "the flesh of the forests" is thus rooted in every one of his scupltures.