On Han Jinpeng’s gold-framed video screens, Western art’s best-known paintings collide with nature’s most intractable features: rain and wind. Costumed as the Mona Lisa and Vermeer’s Milkmaid, the artist—with the aid of a friend off-camera—subjects himself to a steadily intensifying series of climatic assaults. A few drops of rain become a deluge; a light breeze blows into a hurricane. Finally, wigless, skirtless, blinking and gasping, Han Jinpeng is forced to abandon his act and revert to his everyday, if visibly uncomfortable, self. None of the filmed weather is real: it was created with lamps and a dimmer switch, tap water and a large electric fan. Yet it does reveal true nature—that of the protagonist: “As the fake Mona Lisa is washed away,” Han Jinpeng says, “you can see the real person.” His take on the intersections between nature and human creations may make viewers laugh, but it is “a serious social issue”, he says. “Civilisation is artificial. We should never assume that we can push nature around.”
Exhibitions
2010
Art taipei 2010 , Taipei Grain Rain, Aura Gallery, Beijing Year After Year, Aura Gallery, Beijing
The First 798 Multimedia Art Festival, 798 Creative Square Museum of Art, Beijing
Young Art Taipei 2010, Aura Gallery, Sunworld Dynasty Hotel
Asia Top Gallery Hotel Art Fair, Aura Gallery, Grand Hyatt Hong Kong
So Many Years Group Exhibition, Aura Gallery, Hong Kong
2009
The First Beijing International Contemporary Art Hotel Fair, Aura Gallery, Beijing
2009
Academy of Fine Arts Graduation Exhibition, First runner up, Beijing ,China Central Academy, Beijing
2008
Weather, Café Museum, Beijing
2006
First Experimental art exhibition , Central Academy of Fine Arts main hall, Beijing Time, Café Museum, Beijing
