Ming’s Monumental Paintings Take Over Palazzo Strozzi – Monographic Exhibition ‘Yan Pei-Ming. Painting Histories’ Open Until September 3, 2023

City Events

Florence, 7th July 2023. Today, the greatest monographic exhibition ever devoted to Franco-Chinese artist Yan Pei-Ming in Italy, opens at Palazzo Strozzi. YAN PEI-MING, Painting Histories is part of the project Palazzo Strozzi Future Art, developed in coo-operation with the Foundation Hillary Merkus Recordati, and curated by Arturo Galansino.

This compelling and emotional exhibition will be open until 3rd September 2023 and will stage thirty monumental canvases exploring the imaginative and visionary world of this great contemporary artist. Born in Shanghai in 1960, he grew up at the time of the peak of the cult of Mao’s personality and the Cultural Revolution. In 1980, he moved to France, where he currently lives and works creating a special and unique dialogue between histories of the past and ‘fragments’ of autobiographic life.

Inside the rooms of Palazzo Strozzi, the monumental self-portraits and portraits of his mother and father, or of historic characters such as Mao and Adolf Hitler, combine with unique reinterpretations of iconic works of arts such as the Monna Lisa or the Portrait of Innocent X by Velasquez, up to dramatic events of Italian life, such as the body of Pier Paolo Pasolini lying on the shore at the water airport in Ostia in 1975, and the discovery of the body of Aldo Moro in Rome in 1978. The thick and vibrant brushstrokes privilege monochrome backgrounds in black, white, blue, and red, capturing the viewers and encouraging them to reflect upon human condition, between conventional shapes and currents facts, reality, and imagination.

“If you talk about feelings in contemporary painting, you can always arouse a bit of suspicion. Apparently, you should never express emotions, or open your heart, while I do exactly the opposite. Painting speaks to me, it speaks to viewers, and it talks about its time. I want to be an actor of my time”, the artist commented.

(Fiamma Domestici)