Feng Boyi

b. 1961, Beijing

Art curator, critic

After his graduation in 1984 from the Department of History at Beijing Teachers’ College (now Capital Normal University), Feng Boyi was assigned to work as an editor of The Artists’ Bulletin, an internal publication sponsored by China Artists’ Association, a government-controlled organization based in Beijing. In the early 1990s, Feng studied at the Art History Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, where he became involved in contemporary Chinese art. He was the editor of The Black Book (1994) and The White Book (1995), the first privately sponsored publication in China about contemporary art, published by Ai Weiwei. In 1996, he was one of the five organizers of ‘Reality: Present and Future’, the first show of contemporary art ever associated with the auction market (see auctions (art and antiquities)). His first independent curatorial work was ‘Traces of Existence: A Private Show of Contemporary Chinese Art’ (1998), where local Beijing artists Wang Jianwei, Song Dong, Gu Dexin and others, and returned artists from overseas, such as Wang Gongxin, Lin Tianmiao and Cai Qing, had their first chance to exhibit in a semi-public space. In 2000 during the Second Shanghai Biennial, Feng Boyi co-organized the controversial show ‘Fuck Off’, which was ordered to close the day after its opening because of the presence of the photographic works of real baby corpses by Zhu Yu, Sun Yuan and Peng Yu. Feng was also one of the organizers of the Guangzhou Triennial (2002) in Guangzhou.

Feng has published widely on contemporary Chinese art. He tends to showcase what he believes to be natural and truthful in the artist’s presentation of issues related to existence, cultural power, fashion, postmodernism within the context of contemporary Chinese culture.

See also: 798

Further reading

(1998). Traces of Existence (exhibition catalogue). Beijing: n.p.

QIAN ZHIJIAN