Chen Wei

Description

A book devoted to the Chinese artist famous for his photography work. Chen's multimedia works toe the line between experimental illusion and the quotidian realities of contemporary society, focusing on the almost imperceptible dream sequences that exist in even the most mundane of moments. His staged photographs, at once idealistic and ominous, negotiate the symbolist tropes put forward by the medium of photography. Chen Wei has been engaged in sound art and performance, and then turned to video and installation. He has exhibited extensively and internationally at numerous prestigious institutions and biennales. These include "Noon Club", curated by Francesco Bonami, JNBY Foundation, Hangzhou (2016); "The Work in Progress, Photography from China in 2015, Museum Folkwang, Essen (2015); "Chen Wei: In the Waves", Chi K11 Art Museum, Shanghai (2015), "Chen Wei: The Stars in the Night Sky are Innumerable", Australia China Art Foundation, Sydney (2014); "Performance and Imagination: Chinese Photography 1911-2014", Stavanger Art Museum, Stavanger (2014); "My Generation: Young Chinese Artists", Orange County Museum of Art, CA (2015); "ON | OFF: China's Young Artists in Concept and Practice", Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2012). Born in 1980, Zhejiang Province (China), Chen Wei currently lives and works in Beijing, China.

Francesco Bonami is a renowned Italian art curator and writer who directed the Venice Biennale in 2003 and curated the Whitney Biennial in 2010. He is currently the Artistic Director of Fondazione Sandretto ReRebaudengo in Turin. David Campany is a writer, curator of exhibitions and an artist. He has published several books on photography, cinema and art, and over a hundred essays. Venus Lau is a curator and writer based in Shanghai and Shenzhen, where she is artistic director of OCT Contemporary Art Terminal. She won the Chinese Contemporary Art Award jury's prize with her proposal to rethink strategies of institutional critique within a Chinese context while exploring the links between ontology and objecthood in art.