HAN BING
Han Bing, Dionysus Bridge Garbage Station, 2005, Single-Exposure C-Print Photograph 39 x 59 inches, 100 x 150 cm
Han Bing, Coiled Dragon Pillars: Urban Amber, 2007, Single-Exposure C-Print Photograph, 39 x 59 inches, 100 x 150 cm
Han Bing, Endless Road, 2005, Single-Exposure C-Print Photograph, 39 x 59 inches, 100 x 150 cm
Han Bing, Twilight Hi-Rise, Single-Exposure C-Print Photograph, 39 x 59 inches, 100 x 150 cm
Han Bing, Fallen Leaves, Polluted Water, Street walkers, and Johns, 2005, 39 x 59 inches, 100 x 150 cm
Han Bing, Gold Autumn, 2005, Single-Exposure C-Print Photograph, 39 x 59 inches, 100 x 150 cm
Han Bing, East Wind II, 2005, Single-Exposure C-Print Photograph, 39 x 59 inches, 100 x 150 cm
Han Bing, Grove, 2005, Single-Exposure C-Print Photograph, 39 x 59 inches, 100 x 150 cm
Han Bing, Indigo Night, 2005, Single-Exposure C-Print Photograph, 39 x 59 inches, 100 x 150 cm
Han Bing, Moon Stained Darkness: Urban Amber, 2005, 39 x 59 inches, 100 x 150 cm
Han Bing, Lotus Pond Sketch, 2011, Single-Exposure C-Print Photograph, 59 x 39 inches, 100 x 150 cm
Han Bing, The Rain of Petalstus Pond Sketch, 2011, Single-Exposure C-Print Photograph, 39 x 59 inches, 100 x 150 cm
Han Bing, Tower: Urban Amber, 2005, Single-Exposure C-Print Photograph, 59 x 39 inches, 100 x 150 cm
Han Bing, Plaza of Dionysus Bridge, 2005, Single-Exposure C-Print Photograph, 39 x 59 inches, 100 x 150 cm
Han Bing, Rose River, 2011, Single-Exposure C-Print Photograph, 30.5 x 53 inches, 78 x 135 cm
Han Bing, Polluted Veil of Lace, 2005, Single-Exposure C-Print Photograph, 39 x 59 inches, 100 x 150 cm
Han Bing, The Stars Light Our Way, 2005, Single-Exposure C-Print Photograph, 39 x 59 inches, 100 x 150 cm
Han Bing, The Commercial Center on Sewage River Bank, 2011, Single-Exposure C-Print Photograph, 39 x 59 inches, 100 x 150 cm
Han Bing, Red Flags Flying on Skyline Cranes, 2005, Single-Exposure C-Print Photograph, 39 x 59 inches, 100 x 150 cm
BIOGRAPHY
Han Bing
Han Bing grew up in an impoverished village in rural China. After fifteen years of labor in the rural areas, in Beijing, he was moved by the harsh contrast between the urbanized “Chinese dream” propelling the nation’s struggle to become “modern”, and the cruel realities of those left behind, or trodden underfoot in this stampede. Exploring the struggles and desires of ordinary people in China’s “theater of modernization”, his works invert quotidian practice, reinvent everyday objects and ask us to rethink the order of things. Han Bing’s works are dedicated to Social Praxis of Art.
In Urban Amber, Han Bing’s visual interventions also raise questions about the paradoxes of desire. Desire for Han Bing is an irreducibly bifurcated modality, that is, it has powerful manifestations and effects that can be both beautiful and poisonous. In his conceptual photography series of single-exposure images, Urban Amber, this paradox takes on a different form. The spectre of glamorous high-rises, those icons of middle-class China’s dream of home and a better life, are juxtaposed to the rundown, temporary dwellings of the urban poor living in their shadows. These fantasy high-rises appear resplendent and dream-like until you realize that their inverted images are reflected in Beijing’s ubiquitous, industrial-waste and garbage-infested “stink rivers”. Like amber, these rivers capture sediment of the times, showing us through a mirror darkly, the underbelly of China’s fantasy of modernity.
Solo Exhibitions
2013 Han Bing: Reversed Dreamscapes, Hua Gallery, London
2010 A cry from the narrow between: Han Bing with Tejal Shah, Escape Gallery, New Delhi, India
2010 Forever-Were desecrated in order to be tried: Han Bing, Khoj Space, New Delhi, India
2008 The Walking the Cabbage Project (2000-2008), The International 3, Manchester, UK
2007 Everyday Desire in the Theater of Chinese Modernization, Beursschouwburg Art Center, Brussels, Belgium
2007 The Fatalistic Language of Things: Han Bing, Columbia Museum of Art USA
2007 Age of Big Construction, Beijing New arts Project Space, Beijing
2007 On the stage of Modernization: Han Bing, Deborah Colton Gallery, Houston, USA
2007 Walking the Cabbage Across America, Los Angeles, Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, Houston, Miami, Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, Natchez, Columbia, Baton Rouge, USA
2006 Other Modernities: Han Bing Solo Exhibition, Bamboo Lane Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
2006 The Other Shore of desire, UCLA Center for Chinese Studies, Los Angeles, USA
2006 Love in the Age of Big Construction, IEAS Center, University of California, Berkeley, USA
2006 Han Bing – Quotidian Iconic & Orimoto Tatsumi – Quotidian Holy Mother, Tokyo Jing art Gallery, Shanghai, PRC
2006 Walking the Cabbage in Tokyo, Ginza, Harajuku, Akihabara, Shinjuku, Tokyo subway lines, Shin Tokorazawa, Shibuya, Japan
2002 Strolling Bones II, Guangzhou Art Museum, PRC
2000 Fixed in Place, Beijing Train Station, Dianmn, Bell Drum Tower, National Art Museum of China, Beijing, PRC
2000 Walking the Cabbage Projects (2000-20008), Beijing Film Studios, Beijing Subway, Jiaoshan, Shanhaiguan, Jinshaling Great Wall, Beijing Subways and bus-lines, Military Museum, Wangfujing, Tiananmen Square, Beijing, Dali and Shanghai locales, PRC
Selected Group Exhibitions
2011 10th Korea Performance Art Spirit (Kopas) Korea Experimental Arts Festival (KEAF), Seoul, Korea,
2011 Homologous the actual and virtual - - Beijing New Media Arts Exhibition 2011, Shong Zhuang Art Center,
2011 Excrescence exhibition, Guilt Gallery, Mumbai, India NEW AGE: Australia-China International New Media Arts Exhibition, Chinese Central Academy of Fine arts Museum, Yuanboyuan International Exhibition Center, Hangzhou Art Expo, Sichuan Art Academy, Chongqing, Songzhuang Art Museum. The Art Yard, Lhasa. Beijing, PRC
2011 The Document Exhibition of Chinese Performance Art - - 1985-2010, Shong Zhuang Art Center
2010 Pot Luck: food and art, PM Gallery & House, London, UK
2010 The 12th Venice Architecture Biennale, Venice, Detour International Exhibition
2010 Some place else, LIMN Gallery, San Francisco, USA
2010 Pot Luck: food and art, PM Gallery & House, London, UK
2010 Detour-ShangHai, Bund 18, Zhongshan Dong Yi Road, ShangHai
2009 The 10th Open International Performance Art Festival, Open Contemporary Art Center, Beijing, PRC
2009 Proyecto Genero III, Espace Cultural Ample, Barcelona, Spain
2009 Detour – Tokyo, MoMA, Tokyo
2009 Pot Luck: food and art, New Art Gallery, Walsall, UK
2009 Made in China, Museum of New Art (MONA), Art Channel Gallery, Beijing
2009 Journey to the End of the Night, Yan Club Arts Center 798 Art Factory, Beijing, PRC
2009 China Avant-Garde – Landscape in Transit, LIMN Gallery, San Francisco, USA
2009 Action – Camera: Beijing Performance Photography, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
2009 Made in China – Five Year Anniversary Exhibition, Espace Cultural Ample, Barcelona, Spain
2008 Asia Triennial Manchester 2008 (ATM 2008), Manchester, England, UK
2008 Texas Collects Asia: Contemporary Art, The Trammell and Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art Muse, Dallas, USA
2008 China…Forward!!!! Tsum, Moscow, Galerie Albert Benamou, Paris, France
2008 Memory, Red Star Gallery, 798, Beijing, PRC
2008 Proyecto Genero II, Espace Cultural Ample, Barcelona, Spain
2008 Multiple Realities, F2 Gallery, Beijing, PRC
2008 Interval of Silence, Red Star Gallery, 798, Beijing, PRC
2008 Kitai Vperod!!! China, Forward!!! Tsum, Moscow, Russia
2008 Detour Paris, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
2008 China Under Construction II, Fotofest 12th Photography Biennial, Deborah Colton Gallery, Houston, USA
2007 Rencontres D’Arles Photography Festival, China – Chai-na Exhibition, Arles, France
2007 Third Annual Sino – Japanese International Performance Art Exchange, Beijing, PRC
2007 Performance Festival Pasage de la Paz, Espace Cultural Ample, Barcelona, Spain
2007 Love Expo, OFF*Ample, Espace Cultural Ample, Barcelona, Spain
2007 Dragon’s Evolution: Chinese Contemporary Photography, China Square, NYC, USA
2007 Detour Exhibition, Director’s Art Club, New York City, USA
2007 Night and Day Contemporary Art Exhibition, AKA Gallery, Rome, Italy
2007 China’s Performance Art Photography, Inter Arts Center, Beijing
2007 The First Exhibition of Art Documents, Shangshang Art museum, Beijing, PRC
2007 Barcelona – Paris – Pekin, Espace Cultural Ample, Barcelona, Spain
2007 Three Dimensions, Front Line Contemporary, Beijing, PRC
2007 Mortal Worlds Contemporary Art Exhibition, Reflex Gallery, Paris, France
2007 Dragon’s Evolution, 798 International Art Festival, Beijing, PRC
2007 Fractured Visions: Chinese Video Art, Center for Asian Studies, University of South Carolina
2007 The Fragmented Gaze: Video Art from the PRC, Deborah Colton Gallery, Houston, USA
2006 Proyecto Genero, Espace Cultural Ample, Barcelona, Spain
2006 Misalignments: Chinese Performance Art Documenta, University of California, Berkeley, Institute of East Asian Studies, USA
2006 Engagements and Estrangements, Contemporary Chinese Exchange, Toronto, Canada
2006 The Nekromantics, Temporary Contemporary, London, UK
2006 Open International Performance Art Festival, Must Be Contemporary Art Center, 798, PRC
2006 Beyond Experience: The New China, Arario Beijing, PRC
2006 UNESCO’s Together with Migrants Festival, SOHO, Beijing, PRC
2006 China – Chai-na Exhibition, Dashanzi International Art Festival, 798 Factory, Beijing, PRC
2005 Tian An Men-Gate to Heaven, Fotografiemuseum (FOAM) Amsterdam, Netherlands
2005 China Action 1: Video Art Exhibition, Centre Choregraphique National de Tours, France
2005 Ambiguity: Hide Dily, Zero Field Art Center, 798 Factory, Beijing, PRC
2005 Transborder Language Performance Art Exhibition: DIAF & Beijing Tokyo Art Projects, Beijing, PRC
2005 Vehicle and Mirror Exhibition, Beijing New Art Projects, 798 Factory, Beijing, PRC
2004 Performance Art in 798: Photographic Memory, Thinking Hands Projects, Beijing, PRC
2004 Tian An-Men, Chinese-Eyes Gallery, Paris, France
2004 Sense of Fragility Exhibition, Italian Embassy, Beijing, PRC
2003 The First Dadao Live Art Festival. 798 Festival, Beijing, PRC
2003 I’m China – China Photography and Video 2003, SOHO, Beijing, PRC
2003 The Beautiful Life Exhibition, SOHO, Beijing, PRC
2003 DNA Visual Exhibition, Nanxincang, Beijing, PRC
2002 Pingyao International Photography Festival: New Chinese Photography, Shanxi, PRC
2002 Act of Flying Live Art Performance Exhibition, Red Square Art Center, Beijing, PRC
2002 Post-Revolutionary Era Video Exhibition, China New Media Art Space, Beijing, PRC
2002 Sino-Japanese Performance Art Exhibition, Waterside Space, Guangzhou, PRC
2001 Knowledge is Power Exhibition, Beijing Book Building, PRC
2001 Zero Degrees Contemporary Art Exhibition, Beijing Bridge Art Factory, PRC
2001 Healing Contemporary Art Exhibition, Damu Space, Beijing, PRC
2001 Dang Dot Com Performance Art Exhibition, Kaixin Leyuan, Beijing, PRC
2000 Man and Animal Performance Art Exhibition, Nanjing, PRC
1999 Chinese Central Academy of Fine Arts Oil Painting Advanced studies Program Graduate Exhibition, Chinese Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Beijing, PRC
Publications
Theater of Modernization: Han Bing, artist monograph (Futurista Art, 2008)
“Theater of Modernization: Possible Futures and Shifting Alliances,” 2008 Contemporary Chinese Art Guide, Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, 2008
Asian Triennial Manchester, ART iT, May 2008, Maya Kovskaya
Texas Collects Asia, (Texas: The Trammel & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art, 2008)
Interval of Silence: Contemporary Art from Asia, (Beijing: Red Star Gallery, 2008)
“Han Bing’s Unfinished Road to Modernization,” Evan Garza, Theater of Modernization, (Futurista Art, 2008)
“Quotidian Amor Mundi: Orimoto Tatsumi: Quotidian Holy Mother,” Maya Kovskaya, Art Picks, ArtPost, 19 June 2006
"China's Art Factory," Jessica Au, Newsweek International, 20 November, 2006
"Critical Mass: Six artists and art industry experts select their favorite exhibitions of 2006," David Teh, Art & Australia, Vol. 44, No. 2, December 2006
"Han Bing: Quotidian Iconic, Orimoto Tatsumi: Quotidian Holy Mother," Maya Kóvskaya, Art Picks Art iT, Fall/Winter Issue, 2006
"Field of Vision: Center Stage," David Drakeford, Beijing Today, 15 September, 2006
"Together with Migrants—Chinese Contemporary Art and Social Criticism," Nathaniel M. Stevens, NY Arts Magazine, September/October, 2006
"Beyond Experience," Luna Fenichel, NY Arts Magazine, September/October, 2006
"Arario Brings The New China," Maya Kóvskaya, Art Picks Art iT, Summer/Fall Issue, 2006
"China's Happiness and Pain Exhibition at the UNESCO "Together with Migrants" Festival," Maya Kóvskaya, ArtPost, 19 June, 2006
"Eroticizing the Everyday: Han Bing, the Power of Desire and the Drama of Modernization, " Eyemazing International Contemporary Photography Magazine, August, 2007
"Seeing What Is To Be Forgotten: The Photography, Video and Performance Art of Han Bing," Shannon May, Yishu: Journal of Chinese Contemporary Art, Summer, 2007
"Han Bing: A Profile," Update Art Magazine, 2007
"China Under Construction: Chinese Contemporary Art of the Everyday Comes of Age," Maya Kóvskaya, Futurista Art, 2007
"Space City Looks Eastward: Contemporary Asian Art in Houston, Arts Houston, August, 2007
"Deconstruction Workers: Deborah Colton Gallery presents China sans pop," Kelly Klaasmeyer, Houston Press, August 9, 2007
"Asian Invasion," Patricia Johnson, Houston Chronicle, 7/28/2007
"The Other Shore of Desire: Han Bing," Zhuang Jia, Dragon's Evolution: Chinese Contemporary Photography, New York, 2007
"Critical Mass: Six artists and art industry experts select their favourite exhibitions of 2006," David Teh, Art & Australia, Vol. 44, No. 2, December 2006
"Bittersweet: Han Bing's Meditations on the Humble Cabbage," Lisa Movius, That's Shanghai, December, 2006
"All You Knead is Loaf, Say Cabbage Patch Kids," Lisa Movius, South China Morning Post, 12 November, 2006
"Beyond Experience: The New China and the Landscape and Forms of its Selfhood," Zhu Qi, Arario Beijing Press, 2006
"Field of Vision: Center Stage," David Drakeford, Beijing Today, 15 September, 2006
"Together with Migrants—Chinese Contemporary Art and Social Criticism," Nathaniel M. Stevens, NY Arts Magazine, September/October, 2006
"Beyond Experience," Luna Fenichel, NY Arts Magazine, September/October, 2006
The "China--Chai-Na (Demolish There);" Exhibition Rocks the DIAF's Soldiers at the Gate Forum," Maya Kóvskaya,
"Tectonic Shifts in the Beijing Art Scene," Maya Kóvskaya, Art iT, Spring/Summer Issue, 2006
"Modulating Space: Negotiating the Aesthetic and the Semantic, Maya Kóvskaya, Artpost, Feb 2-11, 2006
"Engaging the Everyday," Luna Fenichel, City Weekend, Issue 4, February 09, 2006
"Han Bing: Chinese Performance Art Engaging Life on the Margins," Maya Kóvskaya, NY Arts Magazine, November-December, 2005
"Indeterminate Expression—Ambiguity Exhibition Preview," Maya Kóvskaya, Art iT, Fall/Winter 2005
"The Raw and the Reel," He Chang, City Weekend, Issue 15, August 1, 2005
"China Witnesses a Boom in Performance Arts," Lev, Micheal, Taiwan News, June, 12, 2005
"Artistic Revolution Emerges in China: From Torpedo-in-a-Cart to a Pet Cabbage, the Ultra Avant-Garde Movement Pushes the Changing Societal Limits," Lev, Micheal, Chicago Tribune, June 5, 2005
"Beyond Shock Value: Chinese Performance Art Make the Ordinary Extraordinary, " Hao Chong, City Weekend, Issue 10, May 24, 2005
"Starving Artist Pet Theory: Han Bing Asks Pet Owners: Who’s Really in Charge?" Ching, Dixie, That's Beijing, January 01, 2005