Peng Feng

In the early 2000s, the Peking University professor Peng Feng began to transform his accomplished academic career by entering into what is, by Western standards, an exceptionally intense engagement with contemporary art. Today, having curated over 200 exhibitions-now at a rate of about 30 shows a year-Peng Feng is one of the most prolific and influential curators in China. This ascent was marked by the invitation to curate the Chinese pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011) and the first International Sculpture Biennial in Datong, China (2011)

With a background in traditional Chinese aesthetics, Peng Feng is more sensitive than most curators to the ways in which contemporary Chinese artists redeploy traditional techniques and motifs in dialogue with Western artistic currents. In his shows and in his writings, he exploits a vocabulary adapted from Western philosophical sources, notably the writings of Immanuel Kant and Arthur Danto, in order to advocate for practices like installation art and performance art that are thus far not as widely accepted in China as in other parts of the world. Peng Feng conceives of curatorial work as a way to bring greater visibility to emerging artists, particularly women and others who have difficulty finding support in a complex system of patronage.

This June, he opened “Painful: Volunteers and The Aided,” an exhibition at the Times Art Museum, Beijing (June 14-June 20), sponsored by the Red Cross, which documented the challenges faced by those suffering from leukemia in rural China. Likewise, he organized “The Outdated and the Undated of Traditionalism,” a group exhibition of 21 professors from the Central Academy of Fine Arts held at the Bridge Art Space (June 22-June 28) in Beijing’s famous art’s center, 798. This show attempted a rapprochement between the district’s youthful audiences and the more tradition-minded CAFA professors.

Peng Feng spoke via e-mail with A.i.A. about his development as a curator, the different sets of expectations facing Chinese curators, and the structure of the Chinese art world.