ABOUT

Independent artist lives and works between Beijing and Paris. 2017 – 2018 Guest Professor at the FRESNOY Studio National des Arts Contemporains in France. He graduated from the High School Affiliated with Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in 1983 and from the Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University in 1987. In 1990, he lived in France and worked with Agence VU and Galerie VU. In 2002 to 2009, he established architecture studio BoARCHI and engaged in architectural designing.

In 1986, he won first Prize (Hasselblad camera) in a national photography competition in China, the Gold Prize at the 1989 VISA International Photography Festival of Perpignan in France, the “Most Beautiful Book in the World” the German UNESCO-Kommission Prize in 1998. His works have been shown in exhibitions in China, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, the US, Brazil, England, Japan and South Korea and have been collected by the museums, art institutions and private collectors around the world.

He initiated “Laostism”, a concept of a philosophical and aesthetic concept, which permeates his total artworks (Laostism and Laostist are derived from Lost, Loser and Lao tse. Lao tse in spoken Chinese is ‘me’. ‘Lost’ in Chinese phonetic translation is ‘luosi’, meaning ‘naked thinking’). His work involves a comprehensive practice between photography, photography installations, mixed media, and performance in the past 30 years.

In 2017, his personal exhibition “Gao Bo | Les Offrandes” was held at Maison Européenne de la Photographie de la Ville de Paris. At the same time, eight catalogues of his work were printed by six publishers around the world. Two films focusing on Gao Bo’s life and art were also screened at the museum: Gao Bo: Between Beijing and Paris, directed by Wu Wenguang, who has directed “Bumming in Beijing” and “Gao Bo: Dans le noir de l’Histoire”, directed by noted French director, author, and photographer Alain Fleischer.