Exhibition honors artist's illustrious career
Oil painter, filmmaker, director, designer, record-breaker, and more — Chen Yifei receives a well-deserved retrospective 20 years after his premature passing, Zhang Kun reports.
During the latter part of his career, Chen proposed Greater Art — the idea that art and beauty are vital to modern living. His younger brother Chen Yiming recalled Chen Yifei's excitement for The Bauhaus, a design school in Germany that existed from 1919 to 1933, after returning home from a tour in Europe.
"My brother strongly believed designs could make life better and had great faith in the power of beauty," Chen Yiming says. "He advocated for building more beautiful houses and wearing more beautiful clothes that would make Chinese society better. He was an advocate for beauty and considered it his social responsibility."
Chen Yifei founded the clothing brand Layefe in 1997 and quickly opened more than 100 shops in high-end malls across the country.
In 2001, the lifestyle and home decor shop Layefe Home opened in Shanghai. The same year, he launched Vision magazine.
The artist also played an important role in developing Shanghai's Pudong New Area as a special consultant on urban planning and design.
The MAP exhibition also showcases a replica of Light of the East — Sundial, a public sculpture codesigned by Chen and French architect Jean-Marie Charpentier in 2000. The steel structure still stands as an iconic symbol of Shanghai's urban landscape at the intersection of Century Avenue and Yanggao Road.
