Yun-Fei Ji
From Provisions
About the Artist
Artist Biography (.pdf)
"For over five years, the living individuals who have held Ji’s attention are those affected by the construction of the Three Gorges Dam along the Yangtze River in China. A public work so massive it could only be realized by China’s one-party government, the dam is a controversial symbol of the country’s progress and drive to modernize, at the cost of displacing over one million people ... Ji’s paintings do not depict the dam directly, but focus on displaced villagers with their bundles loaded atop mules and buses. Intending to foster debate about the controversial dam, Ji says, “It is not simplistically right or wrong. The issue is complex… it physically represents what we have done for so many years,” alluding to the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) which erased much heritage and culture."
-Profile: "Yun-Fei Ji: Dead and Alive" by Christopher Lew, Art Asia Pacific, Feb 2007
"I think it's not that you don't want to do political art, but under the tutelage of the party no art was possible. The only paintings we saw in exhibitions were stilted and uninteresting socialist realism paintings about the history of the revolution. Because I studied the work of these history painters I saw a whole different side to the methods behind artworks, which has influenced my work today. For example, when I start a project I spend a long time studying and researching, making notes and sketches. Sometimes the history painters would spend a month or two living in a village and working with the farmers. The sketches they brought back from these trips were great, but when they started to make the final work they had to mold them to political codes of representation. Through this process the work would evolve into a complete lie. In my own art, I follow all of the preparatory methods except this last stage."
-Ghosts, Three Gorges, and Ink: An Interview with Yun-Fei Ji by Melissa Chiu, from The Empty City Exhibition Catalogue
More on the Three Gorges Dam and its Effects
"Three Gorges Gates Close on Chinese History" by Jan Knippers Black, Z Magazine, July/August 2003
Under construction since 1994, the Three Gorges project is to be the world’s largest dam and perhaps its most audacious public works project since the Great Wall. But not all Chinese are celebrating.
Three Gorges Probe covers the social, environmental, scientific and economic impacts of big dams and other large-scale water projects in China, as well as alternatives to such schemes.
