Guan Wei: Journey to the West

Guan Wei was born in Beijing in 1957 and graduated from the Department of Fine Arts at Beijing Capital University in 1986. He first came to Australia in 1989, and from 1989 to 1992 he completed art residencies at the University of Tasmania and the Australian National University. During this period, he was also the first artist-in-residence from China at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney (MCA). In 1993 Guan Wei immigrated to Australia and in 2008 he set up a studio in Beijing. Prior to the pandemic he lived and worked in both Beijing and Sydney and over the years has made significant contributions to the art exchanges between Australia and China.

Guan Wei has held over 81 solo exhibitions in Australia and internationally, including Nesting, or Art of Idleness at MCA in 1999; Other Histories: Guan Wei’s Fable for a Contemporary World at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney in 2006; Spellbound – Guan Wei 2011 Solo Exhibition at OCAT Shenzhen China and Guan Wei: MCA Collection in 2019 which included his major works the Two-finger Exercises series from 1989 and the mural Feng Shui commissioned for the Bureau of Meteorology in Melbourne 2004. Guan Wei has been included in many important international contemporary exhibitions, such as the Shanghai Biennial, China; the 10th Havana Biennial, Cuba; the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Australia; the 3rd Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Australia; the Osaka Triennial, Japan; and the Gwangju Biennial, South Korea. His major awards include the 2002 Sulman Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW and the 2015 Arthur Guy Memorial Prize. In recognition of his tremendous contribution to Australian and Chinese contemporary art, Guan Wei was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Creative Art from Western Sydney University in 2021.

Guan Wei is an iconic figure in the Australian contemporary art scene and critically acclaimed internationally. His art is highly praised not only for its intellectual depth, artistic originality, humanity, and integration of past, present, East and West, but also for its sharp sense of humour and, above all, its unique Guan Wei style. Through his art, he reflects upon the human condition as we engage with critical contemporary issues, such as climate change, questions of identity, migration and exile. His works are equally the product of his rich cultural repertory of symbols as they are of his informed socio-political awareness and knowledge of art history.