Song Ling

Song Ling was born in 1961 in Hangzhou, China, into an artistic family. One gallery biography states that he began his art education in high school and trained at Shanghai Art College, previously known as the Shanghai "5.7" Art School, though this detail is not confirmed by other sources. He studied in the Department of Chinese Painting at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts, now the China Academy of Art, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1984, and in 1985 he entered the Zhejiang Art Academy as a professional painter.

In 1986 he co-founded the Pond Society, or Chi She, with Zhang Peili, Geng Jianyi, and Wang Qiang, a group whose experimental exhibitions and manifestos made it central to the '85 New Wave, the movement that reshaped Chinese contemporary art in the mid-1980s. In 1988 he left his position at the academy and moved to Australia, living and working in Melbourne for close to three decades. Sources describe him returning to a more active presence in mainland China around 2017, and as of the most recent public statements he divides his time between Melbourne and mainland China, with galleries variously describing his second base as Beijing or Hangzhou.

Song Ling continues to exhibit actively. In 2023 the HOW Art Museum in Shanghai presented the retrospective "I'm Also Started to Have Desires," and in 2026 HdM Gallery in Beijing presented a new solo exhibition, "Negative." Public statements from his representing galleries in 2026, including a public birthday greeting, confirm that he remains alive and professionally active as of this writing.

Song Ling is consistently described by museums and galleries as a key figure of the '85 New Wave and one of the founders of the Pond Society, a distinction that has anchored two museum-scale retrospectives: "Ghosts in the Mirror: Song Ling 1985 to 2013," shown at the Today Art Museum in Beijing in 2014 and the Zhejiang Art Museum in 2015, and "I'm Also Started to Have Desires" at the HOW Art Museum in Shanghai in 2023. His inclusion in the 2017 Venice Biennale group presentation "Memory and Contemporary" extended that recognition internationally. No verbatim, attributed critic quotes from major outlets could be confirmed in the sources reviewed, so none are reproduced here; the recurring critical framing, drawn from gallery and museum texts, treats his ink and wash technique and Pop and Surrealist imagery as a bridge between traditional Chinese painting and the conceptual concerns of 1980s Chinese avant-garde practice.

Song Ling's market is defined more by institutional recognition than by auction volume. He has been a finalist in Australia's Archibald Prize, Wynne Prize, and Blake Prize for Religious Art, though the exact years of those nominations are not documented in the sources reviewed. He is currently represented by HdM Gallery in Beijing, which includes him in its art fair program, and by MadeIn Gallery in Shanghai. His work is held in the collections of Artbank, the ANZ Bank Collection, the White Rabbit Collection, the Deakin University Art Collection, the Pacific Asia Museum, the Long Museum, the Star Art Museum, and the Yuz Foundation.

No verified all-time auction record for Song Ling could be confirmed in the major auction databases and press reviewed as of 2026-07-11. Some auction and dealer listings render his name in inverted order, as "Ling Song," which appears to be the same artist rather than a separate individual, based on matching biographical details, but this should be confirmed case by case when reviewing any specific lot.

Song Ling's reputation rests on documented art history rather than a deep auction record: his role in founding the Pond Society and his participation in the '85 New Wave are well corroborated across museum and gallery sources, and his work is held by multiple public collections in Australia, China, Indonesia, and the United States. There is no catalogue raisonne, so provenance should be verified through his representing galleries, HdM Gallery and MadeIn Gallery. Because public auction data for this artist is sparse and his name sometimes appears in inverted order in dealer databases, collectors should treat any single auction result with caution and confirm attribution carefully before relying on it.