Celebrated for theatrically staged photographs that often involve hundreds of models on elaborate sets, Wang Qingsong was born in 1966 in Daqing, Heilongjiang Province, at the start of the Cultural Revolution. He studied oil painting at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, graduating in 1993, and for a time worked in the Pop-inspired ‘Gaudy Art’ style. Later he decided that photography was a more effective medium for his developing interests. His earliest photocollages were deliberately kitsch pastiches of Chinese tradition, folk art and the newly emerging consumer culture. By 2000, however, he was creating ambitious large-scale staged photographs, allegories of the ills of contemporary society. His work has been widely shown internationally, including in the China Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2013. Other significant recent exhibitions include Wang Qingsong/Detroit/Beijing, Irving Stenn Gallery, UMMA, USA; Wang Qingsong: The Glorious Life, Museum of Photography Seoul, Korea; Alternative Reality, United Art Museum, Wuhan, China (all 2019); The Great Wall?, Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig, Germany (2017); One World, One Dream: Works of Wang Qingsong, Dirimart Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey (2016); Wang Qingsong – Everything is Possible, Gallery Of Photography, Dublin, Ireland (2015); Asian Contemporary Photography, Wang Qingsong and Jung Yeondoo, Daegu Art Museum, Korea (2014) and Wang Qingsong: When Worlds Collide, at the International Center for Photography, New York (2011). Wang Qingsong lives and works between Beijing and New York.

The White Rabbit Collection is one of the world’s most extensive and significant collections of contemporary art from China. With a focus on works created since the year 2000, the Collection contains almost 3,000 works by over 750 artists and continues to expand. Note that when you click on the link below you will be forwarded to the White Rabbit Collection website.

Explore the work of Wang Qingsong in the collection database