World-renowned painter and Beijing native Yun-Fei Ji has had solo and group exhibitions in such locations as worldly as Hawaii, Belgium, Iceland, and Italy. He has works in collections at the Museum of Modern Art, the Drawing Center in New York, the Worcester Art Museum, and Brandeis University.
SAMPAN recently had the opportunity to speak with Ji, regarding his fifth solo exhibition at the James Cohan Gallery in New York City, The Sunflower Turned Its Back, running through January 7, 2023. Ji’s stunning evocations of the migrant laborer and their belongings and environment as they travel from job to job speaks as much to Chinese history as it does to migrants everywhere. His work considers the details in spaces we don’t inhabit, the dignity of a humble dwelling where the inhabitant may only be a temporary resident. What follows is an edited transcript of his responses to our questions.
SAMPAN: What brought you to the U.S. in the 1980s as a 26 year old graduate of Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Arts? How do you see yourself within the generation of many Chinese artists, and writers like Ha Jin, who found themselves in the United States in 1989? It was such a tumultuous year for China.
YUN-FEI JI: In November of 1985, I arrived in Fayetteville, Arkansas. I was 21 years old. I left Arkansas in 1990 for New York City the same year. The reason I left China had to do with the change in culture policy from the top. Before that, so many things seemed more possible. The generation of artists before me were not able to make the kind of work they wanted and I did not want my life to repeat what happened to them if I could help it. In 1989, hope and dreams for a more free and tolerant China came crushing down. Things had to be rebuilt. I was in New York City and I supported myself with a series of odd jobs for many years. I used my free time to work in the studio.
SAMPAN: There is a deep Chinese history to all your work, characteristics that can be traced back through many generations. What did you risk when some of your work was censored at the Shanghai Biennale?
YUN-FEI JI: The risks and difficulties for an artist are many. It is difficult to keep yourself fed and housed using the leftover energy to try to do what you want to do. In Ha Jin’s book, A Free Life, the main protagonist is a poet, but he also has to feed his family with odd jobs. He also has a different relationship and disagreements with those other immigrants. Ha Jin works from memory and imagination which I do as well. Yes, my work was censored at Shanghai Biennale along with four others. [But] many people saw my work in China and felt connected.
SAMPAN: In a 2016 interview you noted that we were in an Anthropocene age and having a disastrous impact on the earth and its ecosystems. Today, are you more hopeful as an artist?
YUN-FEI JI: When viewing the big picture of our world one cannot help but feel pessimistic, but my current show has to do with migrant lives, their struggles and their small triumphs; their moments of regret as well as hopes for a better life. In the last thirty years, so many people have left the countryside to move to the big city for jobs. Every day we lose a village or two, completely disappeared.
SAMPAN: Among the most compelling recurring traits of your work is both its timelessness and timeliness. The colorful nature of Going Home in High Spirits and The Woman in the Pink Shirt is balanced with the stark solitude of The Man with Glasses. Can you speak to the connection between the sanctity of space and what happens when your people inhabit it?
YUN-FEI JI: I like what you said about the timelessness and timeliness. Thank you. My interest has been seeing people in the things they process, and space is very important as you mentioned. I am interested in spaces with traces of people’s inhibition without their presence.
SAMPAN: Other traits common in your work, especially in current pieces as Everything Moved Outside and Migrant Worker’s Tent, are the transitory nature of the migrant labor experience. The atmosphere you create is warm, welcoming, and melancholic. What should your viewer understand about the environmental destruction of the land the migrants work and its effect on the people themselves?
YUN-FEI JI: You are right about the transitory nature of the migrant experience. It happens in America and many other places as well. I also like what you said about the warm welcoming and melancholic atmosphere. For me, it is also a painting, paint on canvas. Every painting will do different things and people may or may not get anything from it. That is out of my control.
SAMPAN: Your work, and perhaps your life itself, seems to be about movement and transition, identifying atmospheres and representing temporary inhabitants and assessing their connections. Will Yun-Fei Ji be setting down roots in 2023 as he turns sixty, or are there still unexplored journeys to take? YUN-FEI JI: Every empty canvas is an unexplored journey for me to take. You are right. I have been moving around a lot. I make my home wherever I find myself.
