Introduction

Ding Yi (b. 1962) was born and currently resides in Shanghai. He graduated from Shanghai Arts & Crafts Institute in 1983 and graduated from Shanghai University with B.F.A. in 1990. The practice of Ding Yi encompasses painting, sculpture, spatial installation and architecture. He works primarily with “+” and its variant “x” as formal visual signals, above and against the political and social allegories typical of painting in China. He chose this sign in the second half of the 80s as a synonym of structure, rationality and of a pictorial expressiveness that reflects the essence of things.

The simplicity of compositional structure contrasts with the use of a wide variety of materials and of colors that range from almost monochrome tones to the very bright and fluorescent. For the artist these are a record on canvas of the excesses, noise, chaos and confusion but also the stimuli and styles of the city of Shanghai, with which his work is inextricably bound up.

Ding Yi has exhibited extensively at various institutions and galleries, among many others, M+ Museum (Hong Kong,2021)；Power Station of Art (Shanghai, 2019); San Francisco MoMA (2018-2019); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York/Bilbao, 2017-2018); Daimler Contemporary (Berlin, 2017); Centre Pompidou (Paris, 2015); Lehmbruck Museum (Duisburg, 2015); Museo Nazionale Delle Arti Del XXI Secolo MAXXI (Rome, 2011); Asian Art Museum (San Francisco, 2010); Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (Beijing, 2007); Mahjong, touring in museums in Bern, Hamburg, Barcelona, etc. (2005-2009); Hamburger Bahnhof Museum für Gegenwart (Berlin, 2001).

Ding Yi's works has also been included in 45th Venice Biennale (1993), The First Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (1993), 11th Biennale of Sydney (1998), Yokohama 2001 International Triennale of Contemporary Art (2001), 6th Shanghai Biennale (2006), 7th Shenzhen Sculpture Biennale (2012), 6th Busan Biennale (2016).

He held recent solo exhibitions at Long Museum (Chongqing, 2020/ West Bund, Shanghai, 2015), Guangdong Museum of Art (Guangzhou, 2018), ShanghART Gallery (Shanghai, 2018/ Singapore 2015), Xi’an Art Museum (Xi’an, 2017), Hubei Museum of Art (Wuhan, 2016), Minsheng Art Museum (Shanghai, 2011), Museo d’Arte Modena di Bologna (Bologna, 2008), Ikon Gallery (Birmingham, 2005).