Huang Rui is one of China’s most highly regarded artists and one of the pivotal protagonists of the first non-conformist art groups to emerge from China in 1979. The Stars Group (Xing Xing星星), established in the late 70s following the end of the Cultural Revolution, used art to promote social ideologies and initiate some of the first free art expressions in the Post-Mao era.
Huang Rui was born in Beijing, China in 1952. As a leader of The Stars Group and The Stars Exhibition, Huang Rui was fundamental in the art movement that brought together like-minded artists such as, Wang Keping, Ma Desheng and Ai Wei Wei. Huang Rui’s important Space Structure painting series produced in Beijing (1979-1984) took a radical artistic position of abstract form derived from Chinese ideas.
This groundbreaking group of amateur artists was the first publicly active art collective to protest government censorship after the Cultural Revolution. Before his involvement in this group, Huang was one of the founders of the underground literature and poetry magazine, Today 今天, with Bei Dao and Mang Ke.
Poetry was a way to express themselves when expression in the form of painting was unavailable. Huang Rui is an artist that has at once the ability to combine extreme intellect with a highly sensitive and personal approach. His works are finely crafted and meticulously finished. Within a minimalist exterior there hides mountains of meanings and connotations stemming from ancient Chinese philosophy, modern-day political hypocrisy or current society’s middling obsessions.