Kunming welcomes back French artist

"It did make an impact on Yunnan and maybe on some Chinese artists. It was rare to hold such kind of contemporary shows of influential artists from overseas in China," says Cheng.

When Li Mengmeng visited 88-year-old Viallat in Nimes, a city in southern France, earlier this year, showing the artist the poster with a dragon drawn by him in 1999, Viallat was surprised and immediately remembered his trip to Kunming.

Viallat shared his interesting experience of eating fried insects and watching bullfights in Kunming with Li, who worked for HdM gallery that helped bring the artist's works to Kunming this year.

Viallat was pleased that, after 25 years, his show would return to Kunming on a larger scale. He planned to visit the city in person for the opening ceremony. However, due to health reasons, he was unable to do so.

The exhibition at the Contemporary Gallery Kunming gives a comprehensive presentation of the artist's life and oeuvre, and explores the threads of his practice to introduce Viallat's art, and his contributions to art history, to a wider audience. It comprises five sections, including The Work Made Visible, Persistence, The Texture of Reality, and Opening the Gaze.

One of the core tenets of Viallat's works is to make the labor behind the artworks visible. He says it's important that a visitor should be able to realize the hard work from the presentation of the piece. In each of his art piece, viewers can easily understand how the work was made; how the fabrics were stitched together or split open, and how they were painted, printed, or dyed.