Huang Yongping (1954 – 2019) was born in Xiamen, China. He graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (now China Academy of Art) in 1982, and lived and worked in Paris, France from 1989 to 2019.

Huang was one of the indispensable figures in China’s avant-garde art movement in the early 1980s. In 1986, he founded the Xiamen Dada group. After participating in the Magiciens de la Terre at Pompidou Center in France in 1989, he lived and worked in France. Due to the collision of multiple identities and cultural differences, he “hit the East with the West and the West with the East” in his creations. His diverse practices traverse cultural differences, identity, immigration, colonialism, history, and institutional criticism. Huang Yong Ping is one of the most important contemporary artists in China.

Over the past 20 years, his works have been exhibited in major international exhibitions and museums. He represented France at the 48th Venice Biennale in 1999. The retrospective exhibition House of Oracles toured at Walker Art Center (2005), Minneapolis (2005), Mass MoCA (2006), and Vancouver Art Gallery (2007) to critical acclaim. Other significant exhibitions include Bâton serpent (MAXXI, Rome, 2014); Bâton serpent III: Spur Track to the Left (Power Station of Art, Shanghai, 2016); Empires (Monumenta, Grand Palais, Paris, 2016); and the retrospective exhibition Theater of the World (The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2017) and highlight his significant contributions to art around the globe.

In 2001, Huang Yong Ping returned to his alma mater, China Academy of Art, to give the workshop “Why Don’t We Rebuild the Leifeng Pagoda.” In 2011, ICAST hosted a discussion between Huang Yong Ping and SIMA faculty and students.