Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art, China
Anselm Franke, curator
Symptom, 2007
33’00”
Video
One of his latest video works, it could be seen as a monumental Tableau Vivant presenting what could be China itself, as a haunted space, where a series of asynchroneous spaces coexist (and collide) on one stage.
In his work, one may find metaphors, spaces, narratives, histories, in which the object itself constantly disappears. This disappearance is not an aesthetic effect of his work as such, rather, it is the precondition of something else to emerge.
Born in 1958 in the Sichuan Province in China, Wang Jianwei is one of China's best-known conceptual artists. After developing a career in oil painting for many years, he shifted his practice to performance works, video installations, playwriting, and documentary filmmaking. Jianwei applies an anthropological method to his work through which he builds a visual inventory of Chinese urban society and its evolution. His video works include both documentary-style productions to more theatrical efforts, often exploring the relationships of power within China's changing social and economic landscape. He was the first Chinese artist to participate in Documenta in Kassel, Germany (1997).