Wen Fang Exhibition Opening and Roundtable

The University of Chicago Center in Beijing
20th floor, Culture Plaza
No. 59A Zhong Guan Cun Street
Haidian District Beijing 100872

For more information and pictures of the opening.

文芳的艺术是与世界的合作。在她的摄影作品中，我们不仅看到建筑工人的安全帽与笑脸，也能听到寒冷的建筑工地上他们与摄影师之间的玩笑。在大地艺术中，我们见到孩子、花朵、石头、墙缝——人与物相聚，并与自然交融。《第二性》上的那些刺绣让我们仿佛置身于宁夏百花刺绣合作社的姐妹之间，听她们一边闲聊彼此的生活一边分享母亲传下来的手工鞋底的纹样。面对一盒“白卷”，我们读到的是玄奘和悟空师徒从印度带回“无字真经”的故事。而那些把玩材料限度（铜、宣纸、摄像机）的独立作品，也是艺术家以开放的心态与活跃、敏感的物质世界的合作。文芳通过她的事业成为万物的朋友：阳光与大地，生活与工作，人群与花朵，舞蹈与欢笑；万物之深刻的联结在她的艺术中得以体现。文芳的艺术可以改变我们，疗愈我们。

——冯姝娣 （策展人）

Wen Fang's art is a collaboration with the world. In her photographic works we see not only the hard hats and warm smiles of urban workers, we can almost hear them joking with the photographer in wintry construction sites. In the land art, we witness gatherings of people and things – children, flowers, rocks, cracks in walls – joining nature in its changes. Admiring the figures we see threading through The Second Sex, we hear the women of the Ningxia Hundred Flowers Needlework Collective chatting about women's lives and sharing their mothers' designs for the soles of hand-made shoes. And, facing a box of "void scrolls," we recall the wordless "true sutras" carried away from India by the monk Xuan Zang and his monkey sidekick Sun Wukong. Even those more solitary works that play conceptually with the constraints of materials (bronze, thick paper, a video camera) are a collaboration between the artist's welcoming disposition and a living and responsive human and material world. Wen Fang throughout her career has made friends with light and earth, living and working spaces, people and flowers, dancing and laughing. And like all such deep connections, Wen Fang's art can change and heal us.  

——Judith Farquhar, Curator

文芳的线索，像一条带着倒刺的植物。这倒刺给她伤痛，也给她力量。当她呼唤来生命里更宽阔的方向，那些倒刺就渐渐柔软下来，变成羽毛，托起她，也托起和她一起创作的孩子、朋友。

——艺婷 （策展人）

The thread of Wen Fang’s life is like a thorny bramble. Its barbs can both injure and bring strength.  When she finds a broader landscape for life, thorns transform into floating down, soft and light, carrying along Wen Fang, and her friends, and the children who create with her.

——Tara Wang, Curator

“众里寻她千百度，蓦然回首，那人却在灯火阑珊处。”走到今天，这句话的滋味才体会到了一点点。此次的展览是我不同生命时期的见证。很有趣，我从土里来，又回到了土里。但是这个“土”，已经不是那个“土”了。人生中总有某个时刻，我们会发现，兜兜转转寻找的，原来一直在身边。所以这次展览，我们做一个开放式的研讨会，或者说聊天会。不设VIP，每个人都有机会讲讲自己的“阑珊处”，我们相信每一段对生命真诚的探寻，都能在另一个那里听到回音，等你。

——文芳

文芳，艺术家。

1976年生于中国北京。毕业于法国巴黎路易.卢米埃尔国家高等艺术学院L’ENS Louis-Lumière摄影系。她经常和普通民众合作创作艺术作品，如打工者、农村妇女、儿童等，作品形式涉及摄影、装置、雕塑、行为等。她说：“艺术不该只是高高在上的，和普通人没有关系的，只是一个锦上添花的工作。”作品在法国、瑞士、瑞典、意大利、韩国、日本等国家、上海、北京及亚洲其他地区展出，被LVMH集团、法国雷诺艺术基金会、法国纳夫利兹OBC银行等机构收藏。

个人网站：www.wenfangart.cn

Wen Fang, artist.  Born in 1976 in Beijing, she graduated from the Department of Photography at L’ENS Louis-Lumière, France.  When creating art, she often collaborates with ordinary people: migrant workers, women farmers, children.  Her works include photography, installation, sculpture, performance, and more.  She believes that “art should not be something that sits on high while having nothing to do with ordinary people.  And it is not just the icing on the cake either.”  Her works have been exhibited in France, Switzerland, Sweden, Italy, Korea, Japan, Shanghai, Beijing and in other parts of Asia.  LVMH, Renault Art Foundation, and Banque Neuflize OBC, among other agencies, have collected Wen Fang’s art.  Find out more about Wen Fang from www.wenfangart.cn.