J: GALLERY announces that the solo exhibition of Pu Yingwei, "If only it were true" will be opened on June 23 at Galerie Sator in Paris, France. This exhibition will be the first solo exhibition organized by the artist in France, and will be a new chapter in the comprehensive cooperation between J: GALLERY and the Galerie Sator.
Pu Yingwei, used name Pu Yingtong, is the only child in an ordinary family. His motheris a doctor at a municipal hospital, she likes watching TV dramas; the fastest place his mother has been to is Hainan. Pu Yingwei's father is a civil servant at a health supervision Institute, and he likes writing calligraphy and collecting antique, the fastest place his father has been to in Shanghai. During Pu Yingwei's childhood, his family lived in a fifty-square-meters two-bedroom apartment. He walked to primary school from home everyday. In 2000, his family moved to an eighty-square-meter apartment with three bedrooms, this place is distributed by his father's employer, since then, Pu Yingwei started to go to school by bicycles. Because Pu Yingwei's school record was barely scraped through, his father thought the reason is that Pu Yingwei's original name "Putong" has the similar pronunciation with the word "common". So before he got in middle schoolin 2002, he decided to use the new name, Pu Yingwei.
In the same year he entered the municipal secondary school, partner of his primary school. The school was distant from his home, therefore his father borrowed the minivan allocated to his company to drive him to and pick him up from school. Meanwhile, his family bought the first time a computer, which allowed Pu Yingwei to learn to use the internet and play games. The most intensive period was in early 2013 when the SARS outbreak caused the closure of schools, Pu Yingwei’s mother was also sent to take care of the patients in the quarantine. He played on the computer during the day and shut it down before his father came back from work. Several months later, his mother came back from the quarantine, the SARS was over, and life carried on as usual. In 2005, Pu Yingwei received an o?er from a high school in the city because of his ability on fine art, he entered into a “common” class to continue his education. Because that his study was still pretty average, and that his parents learned that specialty on fine art can get him into a relevant better university, they therefore, decided his very first life plan: the Artist—Pu Yingwei.
About Figure 2 / 4
Pu Yingwei conveyed me to write down these words: He said in his current twenty years of life, he never saw himself clearly, and never remembered himself. The way he talks always like a day dreaming, often forget what have been talked about, but expresses true feelings. Then through the mouths of those who talked to him, I vaguely aware that he is an erratic person. Some people once said that he was a Black, a White,or an Asian; some people have seen him in a city square, a country's trails, ora tropical rainforest, no one can reemerged his appearance in mind. While just as his few trusted partners, for each of his important discourse I know a thing or two. I gradually weave a portrait through these fragmentary conversations; the resultis surprising and gratifying: it is the most common portrait that I have seen; one can catch a shadow of any person and any event in his face. As referring to the following insights, he repeatedly insisted that these words were as true as Philippe Sollers' book, A True Novel - Memoirs, and he also mentioned Timothy Garton Ash's File: Personal History in quite a number of occasions. Out of curiosity, I found the two books to read; I beganto understand a cunning Pu Yingwei, but also began to sympathize with him. WhenI wrote these words, he told me that he treated the whisper words as an absolutesense of theory that he is committed to his study, or a symbol of everything.
About Figure 3 / 4
Can you imagine a new identity like this will arrive: one will not be defined by any existing forms, nor will it become a toast proposed for any power, lurking inthe complexity of reality it’s ready to stir at right time; it can be reproduced anytime, anywhere, as a context in which all problems can be discussed.
——The Memo of New Action Ethic *
*“The Memo of New Action Ethic” is a fiction. The original edition is published in the Art World, 2017, August, Chinese and French long reading special issue, “AnEssay About Post-Identity Politics-Pu Yingwei”
About Figure 4/ 4
Pu Yingwei, 1989 Born in Taiyuan, China. Lives and works in Lyon and Beijing, received his BFA from Sichuan Fine art Institute, DNSEP (MFA with Félicitation du jury)from école nationale supérieure des beaux- arts de Lyon. Pu Yingwei’s creation based on his research of literature and archive, he believes that the individual experience and memory are evidence for one exists in the world. Through di?erent medias such as video, installation, painting, and texts; the artists cross the boundaries of race, country, language, finally, he created a perceptual archive and his autobiography. Recent solo exhibitions/projects: If only it were true, Galerie Sator, Paris (2018); Pu Yingwei and Jim Thompson Architects, J: GALLERY, Shanghai (2017); Roman Nomade:Pu Yingwei Solo Project, Hive Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2017); Recent group exhibitions: Frontier: Re-assessment of Post-Globalisational Politics, OCAT Shanghai/OCAT Institute, Shanghai/Beijing (2017-2018); Fiction Art, OCAT Shenzhen, Shenzhen(2018); I Do (not) Want To Be Part Of Your Celebration, Qiao Space & TANK Shanghai Project Space, Shanghai (2017); Reciprocal Enlightenment, CAFA, Beijing (2017). He won the John Moores Painting Prize (2012). The article “Animismand Vulgar Materials” has been shortlisted for the IAAC ( International Awardsfor Art Criticism) prize (2015). His film “Interview” has been shortlisted for CaenSi Cinéma Festival (2018). In 2016, When “post-truth” became the Word of the Year, Pu Yingwei started fictional writing, and he contends that native-tongue writing and translation is an activity of constructing identification and context-production which is set on a position as the “other”. Pu Yingwei's works attempt to describe the reference relationship of the Chinese local situation in different cultural contexts, In this context, his first institutional solo exhibition will be held at Nouvel Institut Franco-Chinois.
About J: GALLERY
Founded in Shanghai, J: GALLERY takes Chinese emerging artists as the principle line, further look widely at Asia even the scope of globe, constantly presents experimental exhibition and projects with prospective view. We are trying to break through the method and thinking of curating, meanwhile aiming to dig out avant-garde potential young artists driving by creative power and gather them together. Jumping out from the limitation of formalization, encourage the blending of divers medias and presenting ways. Moreover, motivate the crossover between art and other areas such as architecture, film, music, publication and performing, to explore more possibilities of contemporary art in the current society, also the brightness and heat it can emit in the wave of present age.
About the exhibition
Dates: Jun 23, 2018 - Jul 13, 2018
Opening: Jun 23, 2018, 15:00, Saturday
Venue: Galerie Sator
Courtesy of the artist and J: GALLERY.
