About the Artist:

 

Frank WANG Yefeng (b. Shanghai, China) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Providence (RI, USA) and New York (NY, USA). He received his MFA in Art and Technology Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2011, and currently serves in the Digital Media Art program as an Associate Professor at Rhode Island College.  Yefeng’s work has been exhibited in numerous venues, including BRIC Biennial (Brooklyn, NY), File Festival (Sao Paulo, Brazil), Governors Island Art Fair (NY), Currents New Media at El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe (NM), Gene Siskel Film Center (Chicago, IL), International Festival Les Instants Video (Marseilles, France), Festspielhaus Hellerau (Dresden, Germany), K11 Museum (Shanghai, China), Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art (Shanghai, China), and others. He was also an artist in residency at GlogauAIR (Berlin, Germany, 2020) and The New York Art Residency and Studios (NARS) Foundation (Brooklyn, NY) in 2013).

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Artist Statement:

 

I am an interdisciplinary artist who works across multiple media, including 3D animation, video art, installation, and poetry. Through CGI simulations of hyperreality and absurd cinematic compositions, my practice produces peculiar and poetic entanglement of reality and fantasy.

 

Traversed from China to North America, my existential position as a multicultural individual illuminates my creation and makes me investigate the questions related to Nomadism and liminality. As a migrant who turned nomad, my experience hatches whimsical characters that are often post-anthropocentric, and imageries that weave together the real and the virtual. The narratives in my time-based works are often in-between frontiers, multi-linguistic, and in the state of becoming. 

 

A nomadic body is in constant transformation. My expelled kin identity becomes the breeding ground for new creativities. The essence of Nomadism is closely associated with the action of travel and the sense of “groundlessness.” Thus, travel is not so much a trivial task one undertakes as it is a metaphysical practice. How does one search for truth during an endless journey that is full of instability and unpredictability? My practice often resonates with this question, and at the same time, anticipate such unknown futures. Simultaneously, the moving-image, as a temporal object of retention and an intangible media, becomes the primary vehicle for me to capture, display, contemplate, and explore our subjectivities under fluctuating circumstances.

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CV

 

Solo Exhibitions

2022       Title TBC, Solo Exhibition, E.M.Bannister Gallery, Rhode Island College, Providence, RI, USA (up-coming)

2021       Title TBC, Solo Exhibition, Chazan Gallery at Wheelers, Providence, RI, USA (up-coming)

2020       BIRDS (Title TBC), Vanguard Gallery, Shanghai, China (up-coming)

               The Groundless Protag, GlogauAIR Public Showcase, Berlin, Germany

               The Expelled New, Multispace NYC, New York, NY

2019       Arthub Asia, The Table and Online Artist Screening Series, Shanghai, China

2017       [‘Penthaus], Between Art Lab, Beijing, China

2016       The Drifting Stages, Arthub Asia Artists Screening Program, Shanghai, China

2015       New Games, V Art Center, Shanghai, China

2014       I - Generation, Solo Exhibition of Yefeng Wang, Art Projects Gallery, Central, Hong Kong

2013       Impersonal - Solo exhibition: Yefeng Wang:, HEREArts Center, New York, USA

 

Group Exhibitions (Selected)

2020

• World on Fire - Supernova Animation Festival 2020, Denver Digerati, Colorado, USA (up-coming)

• In Praise of Love, Hyundai Motor Studio, Beijing, China (up-coming)

• Resonance, Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, China

• GlogauAIR Open Studios (Virtual Edition), Online

2019

• BRIC Biennial, Brooklyn, NY, USA

• Art021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair, Shanghai, China

• Beijing Contemporary Art Expo, Beijing, China

• File Festival, Sao Paulo, Brazil

• Terranes, The Border Project Space, Brooklyn, NY, USA

• New & Improved, Index Art Center, Newark, NJ, USA

• Travels Through the Unreal, Outpost Artist Resources, Queens, NY, USA

• The Temperature: Something Utopian, The Neon Heater Gallery, Findlay, OH, USA

• Ocean (with Slime Engine), MadeIn Gallery, Shanghai, China

2018

• International Festival Les Instants Video, Marseilles, France

• Cynetart 2018, Festspielhaus Hellerau and Pylon Lab, Dresden, Germany

• Permeable Boundaries, Plexus Projects, Brooklyn, NY, USA

• Liminality, The Border Project Space, Brooklyn, NY, USA

• Off The Wall, Arts + Literature Laboratory, Madison, WI, USA

• Immortal City, Tianjin Binhai Museum, Tianjin, China

• Dyspepsia - Mattia Casalegno x Frank Wang Yefeng, Arete Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, USA

• dream-space.net, online, New York, USA

2017

• Real-Fake 2.0, Connecticut College, Connecticut, USA 

• NARS foundation open studios, Brooklyn, USA

• Forever Fornever, Wrong Biannual, Rhode Island College, USA and online

• Body Farm, Paradise Palace Gallery, Brooklyn, USA

• Parallel Reality - Wang Yefeng/Shamus Clisset, Amelie A. Wallace Wallace Gallery, SUNY, Long Island, USA

2016

• Shenzhen MAF Media Art Festival, Shen Zhen, China

• Real-Fake.2.0, Bronx Art Space, NY, USA 

• Threshold Frequency, Art Museum of Nanjing university of the Arts, Nanjing, China

• Art in the City, Chi K11 Museum, Shanghai, China

• Governors Island Art Fair, NY, USA

• Concept, CICA Museum, South Korea

• Do you wanna play with me?, Between Art Lab, Shanghai, China

2015

• Affordable Art Fair, Hong Kong

• Yami-ichi NYC, Knockdown Art Center, NY, USA

• Myth and Mutations, Reverse Art Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, USA

2014

• Chiaroscuro, The Research House For Asian Art, Chicago, IL, USA

• Affordable Art Fair, Singapore

• A Fake-Real World, Media City, Xi An, China

2009-2013  

• Art Sanya, Hainan Province, China

• Constellations, NARS foundation, Brooklyn, NY, USA

• There is A Body on Screen!, Museum of Luxun Academy of Art, Shenyang, China

• InVisible, Co-prosperity Sphere Culture Center, Chicago, USA

• Currents 2012, Santa Fe International New Media Festival, El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe, Santa Fe, NM, USA

• 100 Years, Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago, USA

• Mischief, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, USA

• Asian Artists Art Festival, Hong-ik University, Seoul, Korea

• Videos on the Front, Interstate Projects, New York, USA

• Hypercapitalism - East Meets West, Herald Square, New York, USA

• Sexier, Zhou B. Art Center, Chicago, USA

• Communicative Commonality, Boomerang space, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA

• Channel, Channel, Channel, Channel, Channel, Channel, Channel, Channel, Sullivan Gallery, Chicago, USA

• Effervescent Condition, Gallery X at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA

• Power of Copying, Xuzhou Museum of Art, Xuzhou, China

• Adhocity, Op Shop, Hyde Park, IL, USA

• Around the Coyote, Chicago, USA

 

 

Artists Residency / Fellowship

2021        ISCP Summer Artist in Residency, Brooklyn, New York (Up-coming, Summer, 2021)

2020        Fellowship, Vermont Studio Center Artist in Residency (August 30th - September 25, 2020)

2020 GlogauAIR, Berlin, Germany (January - April, 2020)

2013 New York Art Residency & Studios Foundation, Brooklyn, NY (July - September, 2013)

 

 

Honor/Awards / Grant (Selected)

2020 Rhode Island College Faculty Research Grant, through Rhode Island Faculty Research Committee

2018 Rhode Island College Faculty Research Grant, through Rhode Island Faculty Research Committee

2016 Rhode Island College Faculty Research Grant, through Rhode Island Faculty Research Committee

2014 Rhode Island College Faculty Research Grant, through Rhode Island Faculty Research Committee

2012 “CAAP” Grant, through the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events

2011 The Leadership Award, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago

2010 World Less Traveled Grant, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago

2009 Enrichment Scholarship, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago

2008 The Best Mixed Media Prize, Spring Show, San Francisco

 

 

Lectures and Artist Talks (Selected)

2020        Artist Talk in the Department of Photography & Imaging, NYU Tisch school of the Arts, Online

Artist Talk in the Expanded Media Program, Connecticut College, Online

2019        Travels Through the Unreal, Screening and Artists Panel Discussion, Outpost Artist Resources, Queens, NY, USA

2017        Artist Lecture, Independent Curators International (ICI), New York, USA

Transnational Hub Panel Discussion and Artist Lecture, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, USA

Artist Lecture, Clarkson University, Potsdam, USA

2013 There is a Body on Screen: Reflections on Humanity in Contemporary Computer Aided Art, Lecture at Fines Arts College of Shanghai University, Shanghai, China

2011 Brown Bag Lecture, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA

2010        Dorkbot Lecture, Enemy Sound, Chicago, USA

 

 

Publications (Selected)

2019        Unreal Estate, Brooklyn Paper, reviewed by Julianne Cuba

BRIC Biennial Puts Spotlight on Artists Working in South and Southern Brooklyn, Brownstone, reviewed by Craig Hubert

At BRIC Biennial, Diversity is Not A Trend, AFROPUNK, reviewed by Diana McClure

2018        Marseille 2018, (p.6-p.7), Turbulence Vidéo magazine, n°102, reviewed by Jean-Paul Fargier

Artist to Watch: Hottest Talent in 2018, Take Magazine, USA

Liminality & Mind-State Journeys Explored at The Border, HAMPTONS ART HUB, reviewed by Jonathan Goodman

Limitless Potential, QUIET LUNCH, reviewed by Audra Lambert 

Dyspepsia: A Techno-Existential Intrusion Into The Human Body, BROKELYN, reviewed by Tansy Xiao 

2017        Artist interview, Digital America Issue #9, online

2016        Meanwhile01 – Wang Yefeng, Newhive, interviewed by Chris Romero, online

From Nipple Fountains to Holographic Keith Haring, Artfcity, online

Screening and Artist Interview, Arthub Asia, online

2015 Ephemera-art, interview by Brain Chidester, New York, New York

2012 Radio Interview: Speaking of the Arts, Santa Fe Radio Cafe Broadcasting, Santa Fe, NM, USA, Interview by Mary Charlotte

2010        Effervescent Condition, Art 21 Blog: How do we Experience Art, by Allison Glenn

2009 The Eroded 10x10’, TimeOut Magazine, Chicago, USA

 

 

Academic Experience (Selected)

2013 - present

• Associate Professor, Digital Media Curriculum, Art Department, Rhode Island College

 

 

Educations

2011 Master of Fine Arts, Art and Technology Studies, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago

2007 Bachelor of Fine Arts, Sculpture, Fine Arts College of Shanghai University