Light of the Night, 2015 was created exclusively for the Whitechapel Gallery to accompany Liu Wei’s work included in the exhibition Adventures of the Black Square: Abstract Art and Society 1915–2015, on show 15 January - 6 April 2015.
Liu Wei was born in Beijing, China 1972. His work spans a range of media including photography, painting, sculpture, installation and use of the ready-made to create assemblages from everyday found objects such as books, ceramics, TV sets and other house-hold goods and paraphernalia, which Liu Wei transforms into sculptural objects and installations of eloquent complexity.
Architectural and urban themes recur in his work as he questions and explores the expanding urbanisation experienced by his generation whilst growing up in a progressively modernised China. Experience of the city is both celebrated and subtly questioned through use of vivid abstraction, employing vertical bands of colour that seemingly combine an expressionistic response to the urban landscape whilst also reflecting upon an underlying, tightly controlled socio-political order.
Liu Wei lives and works in Beijing and is represented by White Cube Gallery.
Liu Wei graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts, Hangzhou in 1996.
Selected solo exhibitions include: Love It, Bite It, BizArt, Shanghai (2006) and Beijing (2007); Trilogy, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai and Myriad Beings, Today Art Museum, Beijing (both 2011); Liu Wei, Long March Space, Beijing and Liu Wei: Foreign, Almine Rech Gallery, Paris (both 2012).
Group shows include: Beijing in London, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (1999); China Now, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2004): China Power Station: Part II, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo (2007); China Power Station: Part III, Mudam Luxembourg (2008); DREAMLANDS, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2010); Shanshui: Landscape in Chinese Contemporary Art, Lucerne Museum of Art, Switzerland (2011).
Liu Wei participated in the 51st Venice Biennale (2005), the 9th Lyon Biennial (2007), the 6th Busan Biennale (2008) and the 4th Guangzhou Triennial (2012).
