Juxtapoz Journal – Li Wang @ Micki Meng, San Francisco


Li Wang is a Beijing-born, New York-based artist whose works seize queer—primarily Chinese language homosexual—our bodies located within the U.S. His topics, usually together with himself, navigate a fancy duality: immigrants from Asia whose our bodies are steadily alienated or othered, and stereotyped inside dominant Western queer tradition. But, it’s this very alien-ness—overseas in each nationality and identification—that grants Wang the liberty to discover himself extra totally, documenting this ongoing journey with each vulnerability and energy. Wang opens a solo present at Micki Meng within the Bayview in San Francisco from November 15, 2024–December 27, 2024.

On the core of Wang’s apply is a mild defiance—a reclamation of presence. Lengthy tethered to his reference to Beijing, it’s in America, notably New York Metropolis, the place Wang has begun to open himself to new understandings of selfhood. Portray, a medium he embraced extra totally after relocating to New York, has turn into his instrument for navigating the complexities of belonging—rooted in his origins but liberated to reinvent himself in an unfamiliar land.

In his ongoing collection, Wang presents Asian queer our bodies inhabiting the intimate areas of his New York house —the lounge, the bed room, the lavatory. For Wang, this house is an in-between house: disconnected from his hometown but sheltered from the stereotypical portrayals of Chinese language homosexual our bodies in America. His figures transfer with quiet grace, occupying areas which can be each acquainted and unusual. Whether or not alone in contemplation or entwined with others, his topics are all the time vibrant, bathed within the glow of inside reflection and the bigger, usually unseen forces of society. Wang’s work discover not solely the physicality of those our bodies but additionally the burden of the histories they carry, pushing again in opposition to the boundaries imposed by each his house nation and the areas which have lengthy marginalized his group.

In his more moderen works, Wang’s figures step exterior the home sphere, revealing themselves in environments past the protection of house. These locations are cafes or eating places in his neighborhood, however additionally they replicate the assorted areas Wang has visited on his travels past New York. His journey to the Bahamas together with his now ex-partner, and the journey to Las Vegas following their breakup, grew to become main inspirations for these new work. They bear the emotional traces of that point: a bus trip via a nationwide park, a resort room drenched in fading afternoon mild. The sorrow and sense of disconnection from the breakup permeate the work, with shadows of disappointment stretching throughout every scene. But, amid this melancholy, one other type of love emerges—the love and care from his pals—and a seek for one thing deeper: a grappling with identification, belonging, and the fluid, ever-shifting landscapes of affection.

Wang’s travels weave collectively home interiors and expansive outside scenes, reworking them into extra than simply relocations. They turn into metaphors for the fixed seek for connection, for belonging. Even in moments of solitude, there’s motion towards new locations, towards a deeper understanding of self, intertwined with the empathy and solidarity he finds amongst his group.

Wang’s work are much less about grand revolutionary gestures and extra in regards to the quiet, vital act of merely current on this planet, as one is. There is no such thing as a closing vacation spot in Wang’s journey to seek out himself. Shifting between the general public and the non-public, the seen and the invisible, his work as a substitute ask us to linger, to remain awhile, to witness the ability of illustration as a method of being, of connection, of affection.



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