Huang Yong Ping's artistic creations deeply reflect his critical thinking on social issues, particularly in the contexts of culture, power, and economy. Through the presentation of various animal imagery, he explores these themes. This paper aims to analyze the different forms of expression in Huang Yong Ping's animal-themed works, focusing on their social implications, cultural significance, and artistic style. The research employs a content analysis method, utilizing both document and artwork analysis as key instruments. Feldman’s art criticism model is used in the analysis to interpret the social and symbolic meanings embedded in the artworks. The study reveals that Huang Yong Ping uses animal imagery to address social themes, particularly migration, which ties into issues of racism, exploitation, and discrimination. The animals chosen are deeply connected to Chinese cultural beliefs, as well as the characteristic aspects and natural nature of the animals. Additionally, Huang expands the scope of artistic expression through complex mixed-media installations, offering audiences a profound multi-dimensional social and cultural reflections. This new perspective broadens the framework for visualization, emphasizing the potential of animal imagery to develop a cross-species metaphorical language that critiques social power structures, cultural conflicts, and economic tensions. It deepens the understanding of human societal issues while encouraging reflection on the underlying mechanisms of these social systems. The significance of this research lies in its ability to transcend traditional artistic language, evolving into a complex environmental experience that offers a refreshed view of cultural values and social power dynamics. These findings provide valuable insights into artistic practice and open new pathways for interpreting social phenomena and fostering cultural transformation.
Aloi, G. (2012). Deconstructing the Animal in Search of the Real. Anthrozoös, 25(Suppl.1), 73-90.
Bulmer, M., & Solomos, J. (2018). Migration and race in Europe. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 41(5), 779–784.
Burchmore, A. (2022). The aesthetics of export in Chinese art outside China. Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, 9(1–2), 19–43.
Cheng, M. (2007). Animal works in China. The Drama Review, 51(1), 63–91.
Cacchione, O. (2014). To enter art history-reading and writing art history in China during the reform era. Journal of Art Historiography, (10), 1.
Gelfand, L. D. (2023). Human-animal interactions in Western art. In A. H. F. et al. (Eds.), The Routledge international handbook of human-animal interactions and anthrozoology (pp. 658–676).
Dervin, F., & Machart, R. (2017). Intercultural Communication with China Beyond (Reverse): Essentialism and Culturalism?: Introduction. In Intercultural Communication with China: Beyond (Reverse) Essentialism and Culturalism?, 1–8. Springer.
DeMello, M. (2021). Animals and society: An introduction to human-animal studies. Columbia University Press.
Gabrielson, T. (2019). The visual politics of environmental justice. Environmental Humanities, 11(1), 27–51.
Gan, C. (2020). Discourse on Europe’s migrant crisis in Chinese social media: recontextualising nationalism and defending perceived homogeneity. China Report, 56(1), 19–38.
Gladston, P. (2013). 'Avant-garde'Art Groups in China, 1979–1989. Intellect.
Heinich, N. (2014). The art of inflicting suffering: Animals and spectators in the crucible of contemporary art. In Suffering, Art, and Aesthetics (pp. 207–223). New York: Palgrave Macmillan US.
Kerr, L. C. (2006). Landscapes of imagination: A critical analysis of art textbooks (Doctoral dissertation), Georgia Southern University Digital Commons.
Kim, H. H. S. (2024). Globalization, contextual threat perception, and nativist backlash: A cross-national examination of ethnic nationalism and anti-immigrant prejudice. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 65(2), 176–204.
Liu, X., & Wang, Y. (2022). Labor exportation, transnational production politics, and the formation of exploitation relationships—a case study of Chinese migrant workers in Japan. Chinese journal of sociology, 8(2), 210–242.
Liu, M. (2017). Experiments in the Anthropocene: Toward a Transformative Eco-Aesthetic in the Work of Four Contemporary Chinese Visual Artists: Toward a Transformative Eco-Aesthetic in the Work of Four Contemporary Chinese Visual Artists. Localities, 7, 75–114.
Pan, G. (2020). Periphery and Otherness: Animals in Contemporary Chinese Art. (Doctoral dissertation). The Chinese University of Hong Kong Repository.
Peng, L. (2022). The political economy of the anti-Chinese movement in California in the nineteenth century. Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy, 5(1), 13–24.
Phillips, V., & Zheng, D. (Eds.). (2008). The House of Oracles: A retrospective of Huang Yong Ping (Mao, W. E., Trans.). Shanghai People’s Publishing House.
Qi, X. (2022). Reconstructing self-identity: Huang Yong Ping's animal art works. Journal of the China Academy of Art, 6, 223.
Mariana Shimpi, P., & Zirkel, S. (2012). One hundred and fifty years of “the Chinese question”: An intergroup relations perspective on immigration and globalization. Journal of Social Issues, 68(3), 534–558.
Silvester, R. (2024). The end of the world: Huang Yong Ping’s intermedial art installations. Modern & Contemporary France, 32(3), 339–359.
Sun, J. (2020). The dialectic between critical aesthetics and traditional aesthetics in avant-garde art: A case study of works by Gu Wenda, Huang Yong Ping, and Xu Bing. Journal of China Art Garden (Art Theory), (2), 14–17.
Sun, L. (2023). The Symbol of" Snake" in Chinese Culture and Its Significance of Ecosemiotics. 9(2), 209–213
Tavin, K., Kallio-Tavin, M., & Ryynänen, M. (Eds.). (2019). Art, Excess, and Education: Historical and discursive contexts. Springer.
Valjakka, M. (2015). Negotiating spatial politics: Site-responsive urban art images in mainland China. China information, 29(2), 253–281.
Barker, V. (2012). Global mobility and penal order: Criminalizing migration, a view from Europe. Sociology Compass, 6(2), 113–121.
Veraart, O. (2013). Man of nature and me: Research on the boundary between anthropology and art (Master's thesis, UiT Norges arktiske universitet).
Wang, H. (2021). Duchamp’s influences on Chinese modern artists: The example of Huang Yong Ping. In Proceedings of the 2021 3rd International Conference on Literature, Art and Human Development (ICLAHD 2021) (pp. 80–83). Atlantis Press.
Zhang, W. (2019). Standing Up Against Racial Discrimination. Phylon (1960-), 56(1), 8–32.
Ling, S., & Sedon, M. F. (2025). Visual Representation of Social Issue-Themed Animal Imagery by Huang Yong Ping. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 15(3), 175–194.
Copyright: © 2025 The Author(s)
Published by HRMARS (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
