Wang Bing
Co-curated by
Dominique Païni, critic and curator
and Diane Dufour, co-director of LE BAL
In collaboration with
The BLACK MOVIE INTERNATIONAL INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL
and LE BAL (Paris)
Unveiled from May to November 2021 at LE BAL (Paris), the exhibition entitled Wang Bing, l’œil qui marche is presented for the first time in Switzerland in the context of the 23rd edition of the Black Movie International Independent Film Festival Geneva and adapted for the CPG exhibition space by the two Genevan teams.
Based on a selection of sequences from Wang Bing's films, the exhibition, conceived as a "general installation", allows visitors to experience the documentary and plasticity of Wang Bing's cinematographic œuvre. The exhibition proposes a journey through Wang Bing’s works which themselves map out a peculiar journey through China, tormented by the major questions this country must face in the 21st century: human under constant threat, the dissolution of last century’s large industrial complexes, confinement, forced and closely surveilled migration, the body’s submission to the expectations and demands of the labor market. This physical experience recreates the apprehension of the people to whom the filmmaker is stubbornly attached, characters crossing territories undergoing profound industrial and natural changes, characters on the run or cloistered, but resistant in their survival and in their search of unknown horizons.
Fiche d'artisteArtist file
Wang Bing was born in 1967 in Xi’an, China. After studying photography at the Lu Xun School of Fine Arts and then at the Beijing Film Academy (BFA), he worked in television for a while before starting his career as a freelance filmmaker. He reveals himself to the public with WEST OF THE TRACKS (1999-2003), a 9-hour trilogy that traces the decline of a vast dormant industrial site located near Shenyang in the northeast. east of China. The film has received numerous awards and disti [...]
Wang Bing was born in 1967 in Xi’an, China. After studying photography at the Lu Xun School of Fine Arts and then at the Beijing Film Academy (BFA), he worked in television for a while before starting his career as a freelance filmmaker. He reveals himself to the public with WEST OF THE TRACKS (1999-2003), a 9-hour trilogy that traces the decline of a vast dormant industrial site located near Shenyang in the northeast. east of China. The film has received numerous awards and distinctions, including the Grand Prize of the International Documentary Film Festival in Marseille, the Robert and Frances Flaherty Prize of the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival in Japan and the Grand Prize of the Lisbon International Documentary Film Festival. This first work establishes Wang Bing as a prominent figure in contemporary Chinese cinema.
He then directed numerous documentary films such as FENGMING, A CHINESE MEMOIR (2007), THREE SISTERS (2012), ‘TIL MADNESS DO US PART (2013), TA’ANG (2016), BITTER MONEY (2016), and DEAD SOULS (2018), as well as a fiction, JIABIANGOU (2010). These films are all presented at international festivals, in Cannes, Venice, Berlin, or Locarno, where he won the Golden Leopard in 2017 for his film MRS. FANG. At the same time, Wang Bing engages in the creation of video installations such as MAN WITH NO NAME (2009), CRUDE OIL (2008), 15 HOURS (2017), BEAUTY LIVES IN FREEDOM (2019).
