Wu Wei 伍伟

Artist Biography：

Wu Wei (b. 1981, Zhengzhou, Henan, China).Wu Wei is a contemporary Chinese artist. He received his Bachelor’s degree from the Department of Fine Arts at Henan University in 2004, and his Master’s degree from the Experimental Art Department at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2012. Wu Wei’s practice centres on material innovation, with a particular focus on paper and fabric. His work consistently orbits the primal impulse of “tactility”—from his early “Super Cloth Thumb” series to various paper-based fur works, he conveys a warmth imbued with a sense of the uncanny to the viewer.As Wu Wei has grown increasingly conscious of the tension between the primitive and the civilised, he has taken as his central motif the question of “how a primal, bestial force can be accommodated within civilisation.” Drawing on ancient and folk mythology as a source of visual text, he does not, however, embark on a nostalgic quest for totems. Instead, through an everyday perspective and the embodied responses of a disciplined body, he gives form to imagined visages of colossal beasts. He currently lives and works in Beijing.

Exhibition Record

Solo Exhibitions

2026 “Body to Be Reshaped”, Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing

2025 “Leviathan”, Visionnaire Art Gallery, Hong Kong

2024 “The Index of the Wild Man”, Pingshan Art Museum, Shenzhen

2023 “Fur & Primordial Gold”, Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing

2021 “Book of Beasts”, SP Gallery, Seoul

2021 “Illustration of the Great Universe”, The Cloister Apartments, Shanghai

2020 “Unblocked”, Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing

2020 “Heterogeneity” (Two-Person Exhibition with Li Erpeng), Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing

2019 “Long Bo”, XC.HuA Gallery, Berlin

2017 “Reaction”, XC.HuA Gallery, Beijing

2016 “The Classic of White Marsh”, White Box Art Center, Beijing

2014 Wu Wei Solo Exhibition, NUOART Gallery, Beijing

2004 Wu Wei Solo Exhibition, Henan University, Kaifeng

Selected Group Exhibitions

2025 “Stalking Theater”, ISM Art Space, Shenzhen

2022 The 1st Beijing Art Biennale, Beijing

2022 “Fragments and Dust”, Tang Contemporary Art, Seoul

2022 “Primitive Fairy Tales”, Leo Gallery, Shanghai

2022 “A Grand Memory”, Jiushi Art Museum, Shanghai

2022 “Past Futurism”, Beijing Dangdai Art Fair · Art Narratives, Beijing

2021 “Twenty Years”, KWM Art Center, Beijing

2021 “Infinite Public”, Gallery Weekend Beijing 2021 – Public Unit, Beijing

2020 “Sea of Time”, Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture, Shenzhen

2019 “The Logic of Painting”, Shijiazhuang Art Museum, Shijiazhuang

2019 “Clouds Unfolding – Modern Chinese Art Exhibition · Paper”, Ichihara Lakeside Museum, Japan

2019 “Open Islands”, Tang Contemporary Art, Bangkok

2019 “Unbounded: The 3rd Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art”, Zhejiang Art Museum, Hangzhou

2019 “Observations on Contemporary Chinese Works on Paper”, Ipswich Art Gallery, UK

2018 “The Poverty Theater – Reconstruction Against the Age of Consumption”, Baitasi Hutong Art Museum, Beijing

2018 “Xiamen Meat Company”, Power Station of Art, Shanghai

2017 “Outstanding – Traversing the Age of Anxiety”, White Box Art Center, Beijing

2017 “Forms of Separation”, XC.HuA Gallery, Berlin

2016 “Polyphony Ⅱ – Survey of Chinese Art Ecology · Beijing”, Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Arts, Nanjing

2015 “The Power of the Folk”, Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing

2015 “Break｜Crack – Drawing and Handcraft”, PIFO Gallery, Beijing

2014 “Rules of Happiness – Weimar Art Festival”, Weimar, Germany

2013 “Objects and Minds” Group Exhibition, Zai San Gallery, Beijing

2013 “A Thousand Miles”, Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, Philadelphia

2012 “The Ark” Annual Nomination Exhibition, Today Art Museum, Beijing

2012 “Wind from the Central Plains”, Henan Art Museum, Zhengzhou

2012 The 1st Italy-China Contemporary Art Biennale, Monza, Italy

2011 “Harmony but Difference – The 2nd Academic Experimental Art Documenta”, CAFA Art Museum, Beijing

Art Fairs

2021 Art Beijing Contemporary Art Fair (presented by Tang Contemporary Art), Beijing
2020 Art Shenzhen (presented by Tang Contemporary Art), Shenzhen
2020 The Armory Show (presented by Tang Contemporary Art), New York