ART CITIES:Paris-Chen Fei
The work of Chen Fei is part of a new trend in Contemporary Chinese Art that represents a clear thematic as well as aesthetic departure from the Avant-Garde art of the ‘80s and ‘90s. Trained at the Beijing Film Academy and faced with the limitations of the film industry, Chen Fei chose the individualistic freedom of painting. Subjects and composition are drawn from his extensive knowledge in cinema. In terms of technique, he was trained in the traditional ways of painting, but chose to simply do it in a personal way.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Galerie Perrotin Archive
Chen Fei’s solo exhibition “Fine Art” is on presentation at Galerie Perrotin in Paris. Focusing on his everyday life the artist dwells on individualistic preoccupations, or obsessions as opposed to societal concerns. This is a common trend found in the attitude of the post ‘80s generation, influenced by the world of anime, and more importantly, an era of consumerism and globalisation. Chen Fei challenges the concept of good and bad taste, both aesthetically and morally, by representing violence and sex. Since studying at the Beijing Film Academy, Chen Fei has cultivated a persona more at home with Beijing’s youth subcultures, the tattoo parlors and punk music scene, than the so-called fine art world. What counts is not how the painting is painted but the images themselves, clean-lined depictions of a dirty real world. Even so, Chen Fei does not ignore art history but sardonically exploits it, raiding the canon, marking its otherness. In “Natural History” (2016) a woman dressed for clubbing or the gym, stands in an idyllic field surrounded by random animals, such as an armadillo, a squirrel and a penguin. In another domestic setting “National Conditions” (2017) depicts a Chinese family in an apocryphal ‘60s American living room, father reading a newspaper, mother sipping tea, an Afro-American child approaching the mother, while in the center of the painting a bust of Chen Fei looks on.
Info: Galerie Perrotin, 76 rue de Turenne, Paris, Duration: 7/9-7/10/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, https://www.perrotin.com/
