FENG Li 'White Not' Manifesto

FENG Li 'White Not' Manifesto

C U RAT E D BY DAN SAB LON 1 6 JAN UARY — 2 9 F E B R UARY 2020

ART I ST : F E NG L I

Born in 1971 in Chengdu, Sichuan Province of China, FENG LI is a self-taught artist. With a past as a civil servant, he practices photography today with an innate perspec- tive on the tension and contrast between official propaganda and personal imagery. China today is a vast surrealist site where a hypertrophied version of modernity is played every day in cities and the countryside. That spectacle is an inexhaustible source of inspiration to a ranger-minded person like Feng Li. While attending the assembly of a lighting festival in a deserted suburb of Chengdu, he was entranced by the surreal atmosphere of these giant structures set in the mist and decided to name all of his work since White Night . It is this body of work has inspired the title of our exhibition White Not . In China, the nights are not really black. Skyscraper lights, LED twinkles and car blinks fill the streets until dawn, creating a permanent twilight throughout the night. The unusual characters come alive in this in-between dimension, and Feng Li captures these moments with the whiteness of his camera flash. Feng Li’s photos are all fortuitous encounters with the unlikely cast of reality that’s taken center stage in his native city of Chengdu. He has an eye beyond the norm and a version that detects the very spectacle of the mundane everyday. To Feng Li, girls in mini skirts, old ladies in fake fur, misbehaving kids, wandering homeless and all these characters on the street are in their own way playing different roles in this great fiction of ordinary life. Since 2005, may he be photographing a sedative congress or moving freely through the weekend crowd, Feng Li constantly nourishes his single, unique and plethoric series White Night . Feng Li has been recognized in China for several years, including receiving the Jimei x Arles Discovery Award at “Jimei x Arles International Photo Festival” in 2017, Best Pho- tographer Prize at Jinan International Photo Biennale in 2012 and Grand Jury Prize at the 8th Lianzhou Lianzhou Photo Festival in 2012. He’s also participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions since 2007 including most recently Festival Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles (2018), Jimei x Arles International Photo Festival in Xiamen, China (2017), China Anren Biennale in Chengdu, China (2017), 40 Years of Chinese Contemporary Photography at Three Shadows, Beijing, China (2017). White Not is Feng Li’s first solo exhibition in 2020, staged by Galerie f16 Paris and curated by Dan Sablon.

C U RATO R : DAN SAB LON

DAN SABLON, the curator for Feng Li’s White Not exhibition, is a well-known fashion icon. He has worked as an Artistic Director in fashion for many years. He is currently the editor-in-chief of “LUI” magazine and the creative director of Merci (first life style concept store of its kind) in Paris. He has collaborated with Rihanna on styling and design, and was the assistant of the famous fashion designer Marc Jacobs for ten years.

F E AT U R E D WO R KS

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MAIDEN 2018 Pigment inkjet on Hahnemühle premium 120 x 80 cm

YANGTZE RIVER 2019 Pigment inkjet on Hahnemühle premium 120 x 80 cm

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GA L E R I E F 1 6 5 rue d’Aboukir 75002 Paris

D I R E CTO R Jean-Mathieu Martini [email protected]

SA L E S Yiou Li [email protected]

G E N E RA L I NQU I RY [email protected]

GA L E R I E F 1 6

GA L E R I E _ F 1 6