“Kaifan Wang stood out for their sensitive exploration of cultural identity and selfhood. Exploring the collective experience of the pandemic on local communities, Wang’s proposal explores questions of isolation and connectivity that remain central to our contemporary moment. I look forward to following Wang’s promising career for years to come.” [英语]
— Osei Bonsu，泰特现代美术馆国际艺术部策展人，2023年，伦敦
Wang’s work is characterised by his reckoning with shifting social and cultural identities. He was awarded the Ivan Juritz Prize in Image for his graduate show Wall woodpeckers, which he describes: “In my installation, I use mattresses which were discarded by Chinese students who had to return to their home country from Germany due to the pandemic. I tightly tied the mattresses, in which the student’s bodies are inscribed. They appear full of tension. Small ceramic objects, resembling nails, encircle the rolled up mattresses, creating a threatening and fearful atmosphere. Building walls – to make borders visible, to include and exclude people – has always been a national principle and political concept. Since 2020, I have been collecting traces of broken and cracked walls, from different cities, and arranging them in my paintings. Hung as a background to the mattresses, the paintings create a hopeful yet ominous mood.” [英语]
Il lavoro di Wang è caratterizzato dalla sua resa dei conti con le mutevoli identità sociali e culturali. Ha ricevuto l’Ivan Juritz Prize nella categoria Image per la sua mostra di diploma Wall woodpeckers, che descrive: “Nella mia installazione utilizzo materassi che sono stati scartati da studenti cinesi che sono dovuti tornare nel loro paese d’origine dalla Germania a causa della pandemia. Ho legato strettamente i materassi, in cui sono incisi i corpi degli studenti. Sembrano pieni di tensione. Piccoli oggetti in ceramica, simili a chiodi, circondano i materassi arrotolati, creando un’atmosfera minacciosa e paurosa. Costruire muri – rendere visibili i confini, includere ed escludere le persone – è sempre stato un principio nazionale e un concetto politico. Dal 2020 raccolgo tracce di muri rotti e crepati, provenienti da diverse città, e le dispongo nei miei quadri. Appesi come sfondo ai materassi, i dipinti creano uno stato d’animo pieno di speranza ma di presagio”. [意大利语]
— 2022 英国伊万·朱尼兹（Ivan Juritz）奖 & 马勒和勒维特工作室（Mahler & LeWitt Studios），2022年6月，伦敦
[…] One is an act of building walls, and the other is an act of tearing down walls. The demolition of the wall is the result of globalisation, which to a certain extent provides an economic equality of cooperation, but at the same time, there have also been numerous dilemmas under the peers. The existence of the ‘other’, as an artist, ‘the existence of the other’ is a difference that not only maintains the individuality, but also advertises the ‘I’ in a world of great unity.
In the context of globalisation, it seems out of place to put forward the concept of ‘wall’, but it is an existence that cannot be ignored. Under the premise of blurring boundaries, should we be wary of what is our own and what is foreign?
One of the reasons paintings have become important to me again since the Covid-19 pandemic is that I have started to focus on understanding myself. Paintings carry a lot of my memory about me, including muscle memory and daily chores. Under the quarantine, I have discovered that a lot of people don’t get along with themselves. As a generation that grew up with the Internet, we have been surrounded by all kinds of voices from short videos and social media, letting ‘I’ become a microcosm of the masses, so I want to re-explore myself through painting, to construct an intrinsic value. […]
There has been always a wall somewhere. As long as we question the future, there will be a wall in front of us, which exists in different ways. In my Wall Woodpecker series, I want to raise a question about how individuals can break through an established ‘fortress of thought’ in different ‘Wall’ states, while providing the audience with such a reasonable ‘middle ground’? [英语]