Yun-Fei Ji (; born 1963) is a Chinese-American painter who has been based largely in New York City since 1990.Yau, John
"Alone and Together on The Stage of The World,"
''The Brooklyn Rail'', June 2004. Retrieved May 19, 2023.Fateman, Johanna
"Yun-Fei Ji,"
''The New Yorker'', January 2023. Retrieved May 22, 2023. His art synthesizes old and new representational modes, subverting the classical idealism of centuries-old Chinese

scroll A scroll (from the Old French ''escroe'' or ''escroue''), also known as a roll, is a roll of papyrus, parchment, or paper containing writing. Structure A scroll is usually partitioned into pages, which are sometimes separate sheets of papyru ...

and

landscape painting Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction in painting of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, rivers, trees, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a cohe ...

traditions to tell contemporary stories of survival amid ecological and social disruption.Shen, Danni
"Yun-Fei Ji's Ghost Stories of the Living,"
''Hyperallergic'', June 29, 2016. Retrieved May 19, 2023.Wilson, Michael
"Yun-Fei Ji, Pratt Manhattan Gallery,"
''Artforum'', May 2003, p. 171. Retrieved May 22, 2023. He employs metaphor, symbolic allusion and devices such as

caricature A caricature is a rendered image showing the features of its subject in a simplified or exaggerated way through sketching, pencil strokes, or other artistic drawings (compare to: cartoon). Caricatures can be either insulting or complimentary, ...

and the

grotesque Since at least the 18th century (in French and German, as well as English), grotesque has come to be used as a general adjective for the strange, mysterious, magnificent, fantastic, hideous, ugly, incongruous, unpleasant, or disgusting, and thus ...

to create tumultuous,

Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of real ...

-esque worlds that writers suggest address two cultural revolutions: the first, communist one and its spiritual repercussions, and a broader capitalist one driven by industrialization and its effects, both in China and the US.Yau, John
"An Artist Conjures the Ghosts of Displacement,"
''Hyperallergic'', May 12, 2018. Retrieved May 19, 2023.La Rocco, Ben
"Yun-Fei Ji: mistaking each other for ghosts,"
''The Brooklyn Rail'', April 2, 2010. Retrieved May 19, 2023. ''ARTnews'' critic Lilly Wei wrote, "Ancestral ghosts and skeletons appear frequently in Ji’s iconography; his work is infused with the supernatural and the folkloric as well as the documentary as he records with fierce, focused intensity the displacement and forced relocation of people, the disappearance of villages, and the environmental upheavals of massive projects like the controversial

Three Gorges Dam The Three Gorges Dam (), officially known as Yangtze River Three Gorges Water Conservancy Project () is a hydroelectric gravity dam that spans the Yangtze River near Sandouping in Yiling District, Yichang, Hubei province, central China, downs ...

."Wei, Lilly. Wei, Lilly
"Ghostly Tales: Yun-Fei Ji at Wellin Museum, Clinton, NY,"
''ARTnews'', April 29, 2016. Retrieved May 19, 2023. Ji has exhibited at institutions including the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

(MoMA),Museum of Modern Art
Yun-Fei Ji
Artists. Retrieved May 22, 2023. S.M.A.K. (Ghent),S.M.A.K
"Hareng Saur: Ensor and Contemporary Art,"
Exhibitions. Retrieved May 22, 2023. the

Whitney Museum The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

,Whitney Museum of American Art
Yun-Fei Ji
Artists. Retrieved May 22, 2023.

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

Wilson, Michael
"Open House: Working in Brooklyn,"
''Artforum'', January 2004. Retrieved May 22, 2023. and

New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art is a museum at 235 Bowery, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-nam ...

,The New Museum
"New Additions to the Altoids Curiously Strong Collection,"
Exhibitions. Retrieved May 22, 2023. among others. He been awarded the American Academy in

Rome Prize The Rome Prize is awarded by the American Academy in Rome, in Rome, Italy. Approximately thirty scholars and artists are selected each year to receive a study fellowship at the academy. Recipients must be American citizens. Prizes have been aw ...

,American Academy in Rome
All Fellows
Retrieved May 22, 2023. and his work belongs to the art collections of MoMA, the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

,Metropolitan Museum of Art
''The Progress of Village Wen'', Yun-Fei Ji
Art Collection. Retrieved May 22, 2023.

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

,The British Museu
Yun-Fei Ji
Collection. Retrieved May 22, 2023. Whitney Museum and

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is an List of art museums#North America, art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at ...

.Philadelphia Museum of Art
''On the High Branches'', Yun-Fei Ji
Collection. Retrieved May 22, 2023.

Early life and career

Ji was born in 1963 in

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

, China, the son of an army doctor.University of Arkansas
"Fulbright College to Honor Distinguished Alumni,"
News. April 12, 2006. Retrieved May 19, 2023.Art 21
Yun-Fei Ji
Artists. Retrieved May 19, 2023. He grew up amid the decade-long

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...

(1966–1976), during which his mother was sent to a labor camp for re-education. For those two years he was cared for by his grandparents, who introduced him to calligraphy and ghost stories, both of which have figured in his art; at age ten, he began studies with a military officer who created illustrations for the

People's Liberation Army The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the military of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People's Republic of China (PRC). It consists of four Military branch, services—People's Liberation Army Ground Force, Ground Force, People's ...

.Spears, Dorothy
"Part Traditionalist, Part Naturalist, Part Dissident,"
''The New York Times'', February 20, 2010. Retrieved May 19, 2023. Ji attended the

Central Academy of Fine Arts The Central Academy of Fine Arts or CAFA is an art academy under the direct charge of the Ministry of Education of China. The Manila Bulletin calls the school "China’s most prestigious and renowned art academy." It is considered one of the most ...

(CAFA) in Beijing (BFA, 1982), learning oil painting in the still state-sanctioned style of Socialist realism; he was among the first generation to study there after its post-Cultural Revolution reopening.Heinrich, Will
"Yun-Fei Ji,"
''The New York Times'', May 16, 2018. Retrieved May 19, 2023. After graduating, Ji taught for two years at the School of Arts and Crafts in Beijing and secretly studied calligraphy and classical painting in the imperial

Song dynasty The Song dynasty ( ) was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Fiv ...

tradition—both of which were considered bourgeois, obsolete and forbidden.Morgan, Robert C
"Ghosts and Ghouls on Grand Street: Yun-Fei Ji at James Cohan,"
''Artcritical'', May 17, 2018. Retrieved May 19, 2023. In 1986 he emigrated after winning a

Fulbright scholarship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people ...

to study at the

University of Arkansas The University of Arkansas (U of A, UArk, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Fayetteville, Arkansas, United States. It is the Flagship campus, flagship campus of the University of Arkan ...

, where he earned an MFA in 1989. In the US, he discovered the German Expressionists and

Philip Guston Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980) was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. "Guston worked in a number of artistic modes, from Renaissance-inspired figuration to formally accomplis ...

, and integrated elements of their humor and stylized figures into his scroll-style watercolor and ink works.Sheets, Hilarie M
"Underrated/Overrated,"
''ARTnews'', January, 2005, p. 106–07. Retrieved May 19, 2023. Ji moved to New York in 1990. Between 1997 and 2004, his work began receiving wider attention through group exhibitions at the Bronx MuseumCotter, Holland
"A Flock of Fledglings, Testing Their Wings,"
''The New York Times'', August 1, 1997. Retrieved May 19, 2023. and

Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is located in Ridgefield, Connecticut. The Aldrich has no permanent collection and is the only museum in Connecticut that is dedicated solely to the exhibition of contemporary art. The museum presents the first ...

,Zimmer, William
"Surveying New York's Art World,"
''The New York Times'', December 2, 2001. p. CN14. Retrieved May 22, 2023. the

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1932; the first biennial was held in 1973. It is considered ...

(2002),Cotter, Holland
"Spiritual America, From Ecstatic To Transcendent,"
''The New York Times'', March 8, 2002. Retrieved May 19, 2023. and solo shows at Pierogi,Smith, Roberta

''The New York Times'', June 29, 2001. p. E35. Retrieved May 19, 2023. Pratt Manhattan GalleryJohnson, Ken

''The New York Times'', April 4, 2003. Retrieved May 19, 2023. and

Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis is an art museum for contemporary art, located in St. Louis, Missouri. Known informally as the CAM St. Louis, the museum is located at 3750 Washington Boulevard in the Grand Center Arts District. The build ...

. In his later career, Ji has had solo exhibitions at

UCCA Center for Contemporary Art UCCA Center for Contemporary Art or UCCA () is a leading Chinese independent institution of contemporary art. Founded in 2007 and located at the heart of the 798 Art District in Beijing, China, it welcomes more than one million visitors a year. ...

(Beijing, 2012),UCCA Center for Contemporary Art
"Yun-Fei Ji: Water Work,"
Exhibitions. Retrieved May 22, 2023. the Wellin Museum of Art (2016),

Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Located in the Wade Park District of University Circle, the museum is internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian art, Asian and Art of anc ...

(2016)Cleveland Museum of Art
"Ji Yun-Fei: Last Days of Village Wen,"
Exhibitions. Retrieved May 22, 2023. and

Kalamazoo Institute of Arts The Kalamazoo Institute of Arts (KIA) is a non-profit art museum and school in downtown Kalamazoo, Michigan, Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States. History In 1924, members of the Kalamazoo Chapter of the American Federation of Arts established an ...

(2021),Kalamazoo Institute of Arts
"Yun-Fei Ji: Tall Tales of a Scavenger,"
Exhibitions. Retrieved May 22, 2023. as well as the James Cohan Gallery (New York, 2006–present)Frankel, David
"Yun-Fei Ji at James Cohan Gallery,"
''Artforum'', March 2007. p. 315–16. Retrieved May 22, 2023. and Zeno X Gallery (Antwerp, 2003–present).Pirotte, Phillipe, ed. and Sarah Schmerler
''Yun-Fei Ji: The Old One Hundred Names''
Antwerp, Belgium: Zeno X Gallery, 2003. Retrieved May 22, 2023. He also exhibited in the Lyon Biennale (2011),Noorthoorn, Victoria et al
''11th Lyon Biennale: A Terrible Beauty Is Born''
Dijon: Les Presses du Reél, 2011. Retrieved May 22, 2023.

Biennale of Sydney The Biennale of Sydney is an international festival of contemporary art, held every two years in Sydney, Australia. It is a large and well-attended contemporary visual arts event in the country. Alongside the Venice and São Paulo biennales and ...

(2012),Miller, Alan
"Altogether Now: The 18th Biennale of Sydney,"
''New York Arts'', July 8, 2012. Retrieved May 22, 2023.

Prospect New Orleans Prospect New Orleans is a multi-venue contemporary art event in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. Prospect.1 "Prospect.1 New Orleans" ran from November 2008 to January 2009. Conceived in the tradition of the international biennials, such as the Ven ...

(2014),MacCash, Doug
"Prospect.3 artist Yun-Fei Ji's 60-foot scroll painting is an ecological cautionary tale,"
''Times-Picayune/NOLA.com'', December 2, 2014. Retrieved May 19, 2023.

Shanghai Biennale The Shanghai Biennale is one of the highest-profile contemporary art events in Shanghai and the most established art biennale in China. It was initially held in the Shanghai Art Museum. From 2012 on, it has been hosted in Power Station of Art, th ...

(2014),Williams, Maxwell
"Shanghai Biennale Reveals China at a Crossroads,"
''Art in America'', December 10, 2014. Retrieved May 19, 2023. and the surveys "Displacement: The Three Gorges Dam and Contemporary Chinese Art," (Smart Museum of Art, 2008),

Wu Hung Wu Hung ( zh, t=, s=巫鸿, p=Wū Hóng) is an art historian and Harrie A. Vanderstappen Distinguished Service Professor of Art History and the College at the University of Chicago. He has also taught at Harvard University and worked as an adjunct ...

with Jason McGrath and Stephanie Smith
''Displacement: The Three Gorges Dam and Contemporary Chinese Art''
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Retrieved May 22, 2023. "Medals of Dishonour" (British Museum, 2009), and "Show and Tell: Stories in Chinese Paintings" (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018).Metropolitan Museum of Art
"Show and Tell: Stories in Chinese Painting,"
Exhibitions. Retrieved May 22, 2023.

Work and reception

Ji draws upon personal, historical, cultural and political sources for inspiration: his memories of

Maoist Maoism, officially Mao Zedong Thought, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed while trying to realize a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic o ...

rule, classical and folk art, literature and deep research into instances of human displacement and environmental destruction in the name of modernization. For most of his career, he has worked in the scroll-painting traditions of the Tang, Song and Yuan dynasties, using ink, mineral pigments and brushes on

rice Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...

and mulberry paper.La Rocco, Ben
"Yun-Fei Ji: mistaking each other for ghosts,"
''The Brooklyn Rail'', April 2, 2010. Retrieved May 19, 2023. His paintings often have the weathered, crinkled and creased look of premature age, making a sense of the passage of time physically tangible. He characteristically paints with a wide range of marks derived from observations of nature: supple brushstrokes and line, mottled areas, abstract drips and precise evocations of rock, water, flora and fauna.Ji, Yun-Fei
"Artist Yun-Fei Ji on how he paints,"
''The Guardian'', September 20, 2009. Retrieved May 22, 2023. Compositionally, he employs dissonant perspectives and shifts in scale that undercut the consistency of landscapes, narrative flow, or simple interpretations. Into these classical approaches Ji has introduced expressionistic figurative modes that have been likened to artists such as

George Grosz George Grosz (; ; born Georg Ehrenfried Groß; July 26, 1893 – July 6, 1959) was a German artist known especially for his caricatural drawings and paintings of Berlin life in the 1920s. He was a prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Obj ...

and

James Ensor James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor (13 April 1860 – 19 November 1949) was a Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for most of his life. He was associated with the artistic ...

.Yau, John
"Yun-Fei Ji’s Great Leap Forward,"
''Hyperallergic'', January 4, 2023. Retrieved May 19, 2023. His work often derives impact from deliberate juxtapositions of anachronistic techniques and symbols—flattened and stacked perspective, idyllic settings, ghost-like characters inspired by folktales—with contemporary elements such as abstraction and modern events, buildings and technologies. Critics have described the resulting sociopolitical critiques as multilayered, disturbing and fantastical, compassionate, satirical and blackly humorous.

John Yau John Yau (born June 5, 1950) is an American poet and critic who lives in New York City. He received his B.A. from Bard College in 1972 and his M.F.A. from Brooklyn College in 1978. He has published over 50 books of poetry, artists' books, ficti ...

characterized Yi as "a chronicler with a novelist's eye for rich, reverberating detail," whose work evokes the contradictions, ruptures and elisions of both "rapid, irrevocable change and tradition's glacial pace … with immense tenderness and inconsolable mourning."

Works and exhibitions, 2001–10

Ji's painting in early solo exhibitions at Pierogi (2001) and Pratt Manhattan (2003) resembled friezelike, all-over fields whose ruptured decorative backdrops and landscapes revealed calamitous scenes of disaster and decay, populated by Goyaesque figures in grotesque masks and costumes.Knafo, Robert. "Yun-Fei Ji: Moral Vistas," ''Art in America'', June 2003. ''Artforums Michael Wilson wrote that this work (e.g., ''Wedding Ballad'', 2002) "conjured a world in turmoil that oscillates between the safety of centuries-old tradition and resent-daymortal terror." Throughout the 2000s, Ji rooted surreal allegories of modernization in field research he conducted on communities affected by man-made and natural disasters.Genocchio, Benjamin
"Through Ink and Brush, A Melding of Traditions,"
''The New York Times'', May 4, 2003. Retrieved May 19, 2023. These included entire Chinese villages involuntarily dislodged by colossal hydroelectric projects and

Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a powerful, devastating and historic tropical cyclone that caused 1,392 fatalities and damages estimated at $125 billion in late August 2005, particularly in the city of New Orleans and its surrounding area. ...

-ravaged New Orleans, which he connected through the theme of government failure.Lau, Venus
"The Tenth Shanghai Biennale,"
''Artforum'', February 2015. Retrieved May 19, 2023.Garcia, Carnelia. "Interview: Yun-Fei Ji," ''Modern Painters'', April 2010. The "Empty City" paintings (Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, 2004) centered on the Chinese Three Gorges Dam project, specifically, its displacement of an estimated 1,500,000 people (largely minorities) and submergence of thousands of villages and significant archaeological sites, forever altering both landscape and culture.Richard, Frances
"Yun-Fei Ji,"
''Artforum'', January 2004, p. 64. Retrieved May 22, 2023. His fractured, panoramic scrolls (e.g., ''Empty City—calling the dead'', 2003) presented multiple perspectives and self-contained vignettes that moved between past, present and future, refusing any easy message. In exhibitions at James Cohan Gallery ("Water That Floats the Boat Can Also Sink It," 2007; "Mistaking Each Other for Ghosts," 2010), Ji's epic, cautionary scrolls delved further into the project, portraying migration in physical and psychic terms that emphasized loss and a literal haunting of those supplanted by melancholic wraiths and scraggly scavengers (e.g., ''Last Days Before the Flood'', 2006). In the latter show, Ji was inspired by the ghost stories of the 18th-century Chinese writer

Pu Songling Pu Songling ( zh, t= , 5 June 1640 – 25 February 1715) was a Chinese writer during the Qing dynasty, best known as the author of '' Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio'' (''Liaozhai zhiyi''). Biography Pu was born into a poor merchant famil ...

and the French writer,

Marquis de Sade Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade ( ; ; 2 June 1740 – 2 December 1814) was a French writer, libertine, political activist and nobleman best known for his libertine novels and imprisonment for sex crimes, blasphemy and pornography ...

, in several works linking Sade's decadent noblemen to contemporary Chinese political leaders. The show included the ten-foot-wide horizontal scroll, ''Migrants of the Three Gorges Dam'' (2009), which was hand-printed from 500 carved woodblocks. It portrayed dispossessed farmers and flooded landscapes alongside calligraphic reports and descriptions of the flooding of the

Yangtze River The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...

based on Ji's own research, interviews and observations.

Later exhibitions

Ji's survey "The Intimate Universe" (Wellin Museum, 2016) and exhibition "Rumors, Ridicules, and Retributions" (James Cohan, 2018) presented more than a decade's work, ranging from sketch studies to his first sculptures (skeletal figures made from paper pulp) to finished paintings and monumental scrolls. The scrolls included the cinematic, nearly 60-foot-long ''The Village and its Ghosts'' (2014) and the ironically titled ''Village Wen’s Progress'' (2017).Weinberg, Bill. "Of dams, displacement and the ripple effects," ''The Villager'', May 31, 2018. Both offered a sense of perpetual transition and history repeating itself through an amalgam of settings and signifiers: the devastation of New Orleans, migrants piled with their meager, worldly goods, details of the Nan Shui Bei Diao megaproject, and scenes of Columbus Park in Manhattan.Yau, John
"An Artist Conjures the Ghosts of Displacement,"
''Hyperallergic'', May 12, 2018. Retrieved May 19, 2023. The imagery of ''Village Wen’s Progress'' functioned both literally and symbolically, with collapsing scaffolding, ominous ever-present ghosts and thematic movement from mundane drudgery to hallucinatory chaos that related physical dislocation to mental disintegration. ''The New York Times'' called these works subversive in their contradictions, while ''Artcriticals Robert C. Morgan wrote "Ji draws intentionally and purposefully on the past as a means to exorcise the hidden realities of the present … the brush becomes an indirect signifier of revolt." Critics noted a significant turn in Ji's exhibition, "The Sunflower Turned Its Back" (James Cohan Gallery, 2022), toward new imagery (flowers, a portrait) and a new medium (acrylic on canvas) that further conveyed the global, universal nature of his subject matter. Stylistically less caricatured or expressionist, these works were painted in thickly applied, dry, chalky colors that exploited the saturation and opacity of acrylic and created interplay between abstraction and representation, flat pattern and volumetric form. In paintings such as ''Bunk Bed'' or ''Satellite Dish on a Bed'' (both 2023), ''New Yorker'' critic

Johanna Fateman Johanna Rachel Fateman (born May 16, 1974) is an American writer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. She is a member of the electropunk band Le Tigre and founded the band MEN (band), MEN with Le Tigre bandmate JD Samson. Early life an ...

noted juxtapositions of "dappled light and dynamic clutter ecallingearly

Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual arts, visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, ...

" with the disarray of jumbled belongings on streets and hasty departures, which created tonal shifts between gaiety and gravitas.

Collections and awards

Ji's work belongs to the public art collections of the Asia Society Museum,

Baltimore Museum of Art The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of modern art, ...

,Baltimore Museum of Art
Yun-Fei Ji
Collection. Retrieved May 22, 2023. The British Museum, Brooklyn Museum,Brooklyn Museu
Yun-Fei Ji
Collection. Retrieved May 22, 2023. Cleveland Museum of Art,

Grand Rapids Art Museum The Grand Rapids Art Museum (GRAM) is an art museum located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States, with collections ranging from Renaissance to Modern Art and special collections on 19th and 20th-century European and American art. Its holdin ...

,Grand Rapids Art Museum
Yun-Fei Ji, ''Three Gorges Dam Migration''
Collection. Retrieved May 22, 2023. Hammer Museum,Hammer Museum
"Hammer Contemporary Collection: Part II,"
Exhibitions. Retrieved May 22, 2023. Metropolitan Museum of Art,

Milwaukee Art Museum The Milwaukee Art Museum (also referred to as MAM) is an art museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its collection of over 34,000 works of art and gallery spaces totaling 150,000 sq. ft. (13,900 m²) make it the largest art museum in the state of Wis ...

, Museum of Modern Art,

Norton Museum of Art The Norton Museum of Art is an art museum in West Palm Beach, Florida. The museum has a collection that includes over 8,200 works, with a concentration in Western art history, European, Visual arts of the United States, American, and Chinese art ...

, Philadelphia Museum of Art,

Rose Art Museum The Rose Art Museum, founded in 1961, is a part of Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, US. Named after benefactors Edward and Bertha Rose, it offers temporary exhibitions, and it displays and houses works of art from its permanent co ...

,Rose Art Museum
''Public Grain'', Yun-Fei Ji
Objects. Retrieved May 22, 2023. Smart Museum of Art,Smart Museum of Art
Yun-Fei Ji
Collection. Retrieved May 22, 2023.

Toledo Museum of Art The Toledo Museum of Art is an internationally known art museum located in the Old West End neighborhood of Toledo, Ohio. It houses a collection of more than 30,000 objects. With 45 galleries, it covers 280,000 square feet and is currently in th ...

,Toledo Museum of Art
''High Noon'', Yun-Fei Ji
Objects. Retrieved May 22, 2023. US Department of State,Art in Embassies, US Department of State
Yun-Fei Ji
Artists. Retrieved May 22, 2023.

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) is an art museum in Richmond, Virginia, United States, which opened in 1936. The museum is owned and operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Private donations, endowments, and funds are used for the supp ...

,Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
''Migrants of the Three Gorges Dam'', Yun-Fei Ji
Collection. Retrieved May 22, 2023. Whitney Museum, and

Worcester Art Museum The Worcester Art Museum houses over 38,000 works of art dating from antiquity to the present day and representing cultures from all over the world. The museum opened in 1898 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Its holdings include Roman mosaics, Europe ...

,Worcester Art Museum
Yun-Fei Ji, ''Below the 143MeterWatermark''
Retrieved May 22, 2023. among others. He has received fellowships from the

American Academy in Rome The American Academy in Rome is a research and arts institution located on the Gianicolo in Rome, Italy. The academy is a member of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers. History 19th century In 1893, a group of American architect ...

(Rome Prize, 2005), Sharp Foundation (2004),

MoMA PS1 MoMA PS1 is a contemporary art institution at 2201 Jackson Avenue in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens in New York City, United States. In addition to its exhibitions, the institution organizes the Sunday Sessions performance series, th ...

(2003) and Bronx Museum (1996),Bronx Museum
AIM Fellowship, Past Fellows
Artists. Retrieved May 22, 2023. and grants from the

New York Foundation for the Arts The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) is an independent 501(c)(3) charity, funded through government, foundation, corporate, and individual support, established in 1971. It is part of a network of national not-for-profit arts organizations ...

(1999),

Joan Mitchell Foundation Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) was an American artist who worked primarily in painting and printmaking, and also used pastel and made other works on paper. She was an active participant in the New York School of artis ...

(1998) and

Pollock-Krasner Foundation The Pollock-Krasner Foundation was established in 1985 for the purpose of providing funding to visual artists internationally to further their artistic practices. It was established at the bequest of Lee Krasner, who was an American abstract expr ...

(1997).New York Foundation for the Arts. ''Directory of Artists’ Fellows & Finalists'', New York: New York Foundation for the Arts, 2021, p. 39.Joan Mitchell Foundation
Yun-Fei Ji
Supported Artists. Retrieved May 19, 2023. Ji has been awarded artist residencies by Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art,

Headlands Center for the Arts Headlands Center for the Arts hosts an internationally recognized artist-in-residence program, and interdisciplinary public programs. It is situated in a campus of artist-renovated military buildings in the Marin Headlands, in Marin County, Cali ...

Art Omi Art Omi, formerly Omi International Arts Center, is a non-profit international arts organization located in Columbia County in Ghent, New York. The organization provides residencies for writers, artists, architects, musicians, dancers and chore ...

Millay Colony for the Arts Millay Arts, formerly the Millay Colony for the Arts, is an arts community offering residency-retreats and workshops in Austerlitz, New York, and free arts programs in local public schools. Housed on the former property of feminist/activist poet ...

Ucross Foundation The Ucross Foundation, located in Ucross, Wyoming, is a nonprofit organization that operates a retreat for visual artists, writers, composers, and choreographers working in all creative disciplines. History Founded in 1981 by Raymond Plank, U ...

Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (formerly Banff Centre) is an arts and culture educational institution in Banff, Alberta. It offers arts programs in the performing and fine arts, as well as leadership training. It was established in 1933 ...

and MacDowell, among others.Wei, Lilly
"Yun-Fei Ji: The Sunflower Turned Its Back,"
''The Brooklyn Rail'', December 13, 2022. Retrieved May 22, 2023.Art Omi
Yun-Fei Ji
Residents. Retrieved May 22, 2023.Ucross Foundation

Retrieved May 22, 2023.MacDowell
Yun-Fei Ji
Artists. Retrieved May 22, 2023.

Publications

* Adler, Tracy L., Robert C. Morgan & Stephen J. Goldberg, ''Yun-Fei Ji: The Intimate Universe'', Prestel Publishing, New York, 2016, * Cox, Jessica Lin, Christopher Rawson, & Leo Xu, ''Yun-Fei Ji: Mistaking Each Other for Ghosts'', James Cohan Gallery, 2010 * Chiu, Melissa, Tan Lin, Gregory Volk, Paul Ha & Yun-Fei Ji, ''Yun-Fei Ji: The Empty City'', Shannon Fitzgerald Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, 2005 * Tsai, Paula, ''Yun-Fei Ji: Water Work'', Ucca Books, Beijing, 2013

References

External links

Yun-Fei Ji
Art 21
Yun-Fei Ji: Village Wen, Fragrant Brook, and Other Vanishing Townships
''BOMB'' Magazine, 2018
Yun-Fei Ji
James Cohan Gallery
Yun-Fei Ji
Zeno X Gallery {{DEFAULTSORT:Ji, Yun-Fei Living people Contemporary painters 1963 births Chinese expatriates in the United States Chinese contemporary artists