The Meeting

About the Artwork

The Meeting was originally exhibited at the 2007 G-8 summit meeting in Heiligendamm, Germany. Typical for Wang Shugang's figurative sculpture is the bitter ironic tension between the present moment and traditional cultural knowledge. His art practice is deeply influenced by the Western art tradition and realism, while incorporating Buddhist iconography and Chinese everyday culture. According to the artist, “… the colour red has multiple cultural meanings in China, historically representing happiness but during the Cultural Revolution it symbolized terror...red is the colour of the faded lettering praising Mao on the ceilings of the factories, coats of the Buddhist monks and the colour of wedding decorations.” 

About the Artist

Wang Shugang (born 1960) studied sculpture at Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. In 1989 he immigrated to Germany. He lived and worked as a sculptor in the Ruhr-area but returned in 2000 to his homeland. Wang Shugang is one of the leading Chinese contemporary artists in the post-revolutionary breakout period of the mid 1990s, referred to as Cynical Realism. He, together with his contemporaries Yue Minjun and Ai Weiwei, playfully and astutely mocks the history and political events of the Cultural Revolution and Maoist China. Since 1991, Wang Shugang’s works are regularly seen in solo exhibitions around the world.