Bingyi 冰逸

Born in Beijing and educated in the United States, Bingyi received her Ph.D. in art history from Yale University in 2005 where she specialized in the literature and culture of the Han Dynasty. There, she developed her ability to compose texts in various classic formats whether in ancient shijing-style poetry, rhapsodic fu-style verse or ancient guwen-style prose. 

Bingyi’s journey from scholar to artist began in 2008 when she met the international contemporary art curator Enwezor Okwui who subsequently curated Bingyi’s ink-inspired monumental pencil drawings into the 7th Gwangju Biennale. That same year, Xu Bing curated Bingyi’s oil paintings as part of her New York debut at Max Protetch Gallery. Curator Gao Minglu subsequently selected Bingyi’s ink-inspired oil painting for inclusion in his seminal Yipai exhibition at the Today Art Museum in 2009. Wu Hung, through Okwui’s introduction, then commissioned Bingyi’s first monumental, land-and-weather ink painting for installation at the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago in 2010. Since then, Bingyi has gone on to work closely with American curators Britta Erickson, Susan Benningson, Hiromi Kinoshita, Leeza Ahmady, Jan Stuart and, most recently, with Susanna Ferrell and Stephen Little at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Bingyi has exhibited internationally at the Morgan Library (2025), China Institute (2025), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2021, 2024), Philadelphia Museum of Art (2022-2023), Art Basel Hong Kong Encounters (2022, 2017), the Brooklyn Museum (2019) the National Art Museum of China (2017), Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art (2016); Istanbul Modern (2016); Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Alicante, Alicante, Spain (2014), St. Johannes-Evangelist-Kirche, Berlin, Germany (2012), Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, Chicago, USA (2010), Galerie Erna Hecey, Brussels, Belgium (2009), Contrasts Gallery, Shanghai, China (2009), and Max Protetch Gallery, New York, USA (2008). Her works have also been included in Surveyors, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, USA (2011), and Yipai, the Opening of the New Wing, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China (2009), and featured in The 7th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea (2008). 

Bingyi’s works can be found in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, USA; White Rabbit Contemporary Chinese Art Collection, Sydney, Australia; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA; the Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, Chicago, USA; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, USA; Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA; Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, MA, USA; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, USA; National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, D.C., USA; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Alicante, Alicante, Spain; and Museum of Chinese Women and Children, Beijing, China. 

Bingyi has been the subject of four documentaries: Meet the Artists: Bingyi produced by Coline Milliard for Art Basel, The Enduring Passion for Ink: Bingyi’s Madness, on Bingyi’s process as an ink painter, filmed by Richard Widmer and directed by Britta Erickson; Shape of the Wind, on Bingyi’s land and weather art, and Epoché, on Bingyi’s Shenzhen airport performance/event, both filmed and edited by Richard Widmer. 

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