The Progress of Village Wen
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.The scroll depicts the forced migration of villagers from their rural homes to the city due to a governmental land policy in contemporary China. At once literal and symbolic, the composition evolves from mundane drudgery to hallucinatory chaos, suggesting that mental disintegration follows the physical dislocation. The title of the painting has an air of irony.
As the people leave their ancestral land, village ghosts move alongside the living. The ominous supernatural imagery foreshadows what awaits the villagers in the city. In adapting to urban life, many of them lose their sense of identity and purpose, which was rooted in an agrarian community. The collapsing scaffolding at the end reflects both an inner and an outer reality.
As the people leave their ancestral land, village ghosts move alongside the living. The ominous supernatural imagery foreshadows what awaits the villagers in the city. In adapting to urban life, many of them lose their sense of identity and purpose, which was rooted in an agrarian community. The collapsing scaffolding at the end reflects both an inner and an outer reality.
Artwork Details
- 當代 季雲飛 文村的進步 卷
- Title: The Progress of Village Wen
- Artist: Yun-Fei Ji (Chinese, born 1963)
- Date: 2016
- Culture: China
- Medium: Handscroll; ink and color on paper
- Dimensions: Image: 19 in. × 11 ft. 2 in. (48.3 × 340.4 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Lent by the artist, courtesy of James Cohan Gallery and Zeno X Gallery
- Curatorial Department: Asian Art