Wang Keping Carves Freedom Into Wood

At Galerie Nathalie Obadia, the Chinese, Wang Keping, artist transforms trees into intimate sculptures where nature, bodies, and memory collide

At Galerie Nathalie Obadia in Paris, Wang Keping presents Érotique, a solo exhibition bringing together around forty sculptures made between 1988 and 2026. Running from September 5 to October 31, 2026, at 91 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, the exhibition follows the Chinese artist’s long exploration of the human figure through wood, bronze, and Corten steel. After major presentations at the Musée Guimet, the Musée Rodin, the Domaine national de Chambord, and the Château de Fontainebleau, Wang Keping returns to Paris with a selection of works that reveal how a simple piece of wood can become a place for desire, humor, and personal freedom.

Who Is Wang Keping?

Born near Beijing in 1949, Wang Keping grew up in a China where artistic expression was heavily controlled. During the Cultural Revolution, from 1966 to 1976, images of the naked body were forbidden and private life was closely watched. For a young artist, this environment created a powerful contrast between restriction and imagination.

A few years later, Wang Keping became one of the voices challenging these limits. In 1979, he helped create the Stars group, China’s first avant-garde art movement. Alongside artists such as Ai Weiwei and Huang Rui, he rejected the artistic rules imposed by official institutions. Their first exhibitions in Beijing were not only artistic events. They also represented a demand for individual expression.

However, Wang Keping did not choose painting or photography to express this search for freedom. He turned toward sculpture and found his language in wood. Since his first wooden works created in China in the late 1970s, the material has remained at the center of his practice. After settling in France in 1984, he began collecting branches and tree trunks from local forests, allowing each piece to guide the final sculpture.

Over the decades, Wang Keping has built an international career. His works have been shown at institutions including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, and M+ in Hong Kong. Yet, despite this recognition, his approach remains deeply connected to the physical act of shaping a material with his own hands.

Inside Érotique

Entering Érotique, visitors encounter sculptures that seem to move between abstraction and the human body. Wang Keping does not recreate anatomy in a realistic way. Instead, he transforms simple curves and natural imperfections into silhouettes that suggest embraces, faces, or intimate gestures.

The exhibition brings together works made from several materials, but wood remains the strongest presence. Wang Keping works with different species, including walnut, cedar, cherry, and oak. Each tree carries its own history. The artist keeps its marks, following the direction of the grain rather than hiding it.

Through cutting, burning, and polishing, Wang Keping changes the surface of the wood. Dark and smooth textures appear, almost resembling skin. Light moves across the sculptures and reveals their shapes slowly. As a result, the viewer does not only look at the works. The sculptures create the feeling of something almost touchable.

Throughout Érotique, the body appears in many different forms. Some sculptures show couples locked in an embrace, while others suggest a single figure through a simple curve. Works such as Réunion, Couple, Fesses, and Cupidon openly refer to intimacy. Meanwhile, pieces like Ailes or Maybe Bird remain more mysterious, allowing the viewer’s imagination to complete the image.

Yet Wang Keping’s sculptures are never only about attraction. Behind these sensual forms lies a deeper story about control and liberation. The artist grew up in a society that tried to regulate both artistic creation and personal desire. Therefore, the body became a powerful symbol of independence.

The Body as a Living Material

For Wang Keping, wood is never an empty surface waiting to be shaped. It is a material that already contains movement, time, and transformation. A tree grows, changes with seasons, and keeps the traces of its environment. In many ways, the artist sees a connection between wood and the human body.

This idea defines the atmosphere of Érotique. The sculptures appear fragile and powerful at the same time. Their forms suggest movement, while their surfaces preserve the memory of the material’s previous life.

However, Wang Keping does not try to freeze the body into one fixed image. His sculptures leave space for ambiguity. A curve can become a shoulder, a back, or something entirely different depending on where the viewer stands. Each perspective creates a new interpretation.

With Érotique, Wang Keping brings together nearly forty years of research into form, nature, and freedom. His sculptures remind us that desire is not only a personal feeling. It is also a way of understanding the body, the world, and our ability to imagine beyond restrictions.

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