GUAN WEI TWINKLING GALAXIES
GUAN WEI
TWINKLING GALAXIES 2 May - 26 May 2013
MARTIN BROWNE CONTEMPORARY 15 HAMPDEN STREET PADDINGTON NSW 2021 TEL: 02 9331 7997 FAX: 02 9331 7050 info@martinbrownecontemporary.com www.martinbrownecontemporary.com GALLERY HOURS: TUESDAY - SUNDAY 10:30AM - 6PM
© Martin Browne Contemporary © All images copyright Guan Wei This catalogue is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. COMPILER: Hilary Perrett COLOUR SEPARATIONS: Spitting Image, Sydney PRINTING: Southern Colour, Sydney Cover Image: Twinkling Galaxies 11, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 162 cm (triptych)
LIST OF WORKS Twinkling Galaxies 1, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 50 cm Twinkling Galaxies 2, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 50 cm Twinkling Galaxies 3, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 50 cm Twinkling Galaxies 4, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 50 cm Twinkling Galaxies 5, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 106 cm Twinkling Galaxies 6, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 106 cm Twinkling Galaxies 7, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 106 cm Twinkling Galaxies 8, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 106 cm Twinkling Galaxies 9, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 162 cm Twinkling Galaxies 10, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 162 cm Twinkling Galaxies 11, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 162 cm Water World 1, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm Water World 2, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm Water World 3, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm Water World 4, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm Water World 5, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm Water World 6, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm Water World 7, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm Water World 8, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm
Water World 9, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm Water World 10, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm Water World 11, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm Isles 1, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm Isles 2, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm Isles 3, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm Isles 4, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm Isles 5, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm Isles 6, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm Isles 7, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm Isles 8, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm Isles 9, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm Isles 10, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm Isles 11, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm Ocean 1, 2013, bronze, 35 x 49 x 33 cm, Ed. 1/5 Ocean 2, 2013, bronze, 62 x 70 x 60 cm, Ed. 1/5 Ocean 3, 2013, bronze, 32 x 102 x 55 cm, Ed. 1/5 Ocean 4, 2013, bronze, 76 x 98 x 55 cm, Ed. 1/5 Ocean 5, 2013, bronze, 162 x 60 x 50 cm, Ed. 1/5
星光闪耀
这次展览我将展出近一年多年完成的三组绘画作品，分别是“星光闪耀”Twinkling Galaxies, “戏水” Water World，和 “小岛”Isles。这些作品都是去年在悉尼完成的。另一组雕塑作品“海洋”Ocean 是我 近期在北京完成的。 德勒兹（Gilles Deleuze）讲“感知的形成”（The being of the sensible），强调人的亲身经历和体验， 提倡在感知的基础上，将新的判断，新的逻辑架构于艺术和思想之间。我发现多年澳大利亚的工作与 生活，我内心里对澳大利亚“岛”的意念始终不忘。回北京工作这几年，这种意念不但没有消失，反而 更加的强烈。在岛上看出去四下全是水，往上看就是星空。岛、水、星空再次成为我这次展览作品中 的主题。由于两地的工作与生活，北京的生存状况与澳大利亚形成了巨大的反差与对比，所以对“岛” 的意念又有了新的认识和感知。在此基础上我试图在作品上创造出一种宁静，优雅又精致的韵味来。 同时把充斥在我们生活中大量肤浅的消费式的图像变得具有一定的心理深度。这已成为我近年来一直 努力探寻的一个目标。
关伟 2013年
TWINKLING GALAXIES This exhibition features three series of paintings completed over the past year or so in Sydney — Twinkling Galaxies, Water World, and Isles — as well as a series of sculptures, titled Ocean, completed recently in Beijing. Gilles Deleuze has spoken of “the being of the sensible,” putting an emphasis on the individual’s personal experience and immersive interaction. Perception thus serves as the underpinning of a new architecture of logic and judgment to be erected in the space between art and the intellectual. Years of living and working in Australia have left me with an indelible sense of the island. This sense has not grown weaker but rather has intensified since my return to Beijing. From an island, one scans the night horizon and sees only water; above, one gazes at nothing but stars. Islands, water, and stars again emerge as major themes in this exhibition, but are experienced via new senses and perceptions that are derived from the stark contrast of survival in Beijing and Australia. It is on that basis that I have sought to create within these works a calm quietude — an elegant and intricate aesthetic — while infusing a psychological depth to the shallow, consumerist images that are nearly ubiquitous in our lives today. The exploration and refinement of this aesthetic has been the goal of my efforts over the past several years. Guan Wei, March 2013
Twinkling Galaxies Humans have always beheld the cosmos with a mixture of fear, mystery, and awe; virtually every human culture has developed its own myths that reflect the powerful beauty of the stars. I seek in this series to take in the magnificence and mysticism of the cosmos once more, only from a modern rather than traditional perspective. The vision of man, beast, and the divine as they intersect, pursue, and play with one another in the comfortable stillness of night can to some observers strike a tense and disturbing chord. Hopefully these starry skies — beautiful, sacred, and fantastical — will be at once both startling and soothing to the soul.
星光闪耀 人们一直对宇宙星空有着一种恐惧，崇敬和神秘的感觉，各个民族都有许多关于星空美丽动人 的神话和传说。这里我想用今天人的视角再现出宇宙星空的壮丽与神奇。人、神、动物相互交 错，追逐，游戏，在安静，舒缓的气氛中又有一种紧张与不安。希望这美丽的、神圣的、奇幻 的迷一样的星空，能让我们的心灵得到震慑和慰藉。
Twinkling Galaxies 2, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 50 cm
Twinkling Galaxies 1, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 50 cm
Twinkling Galaxies 4, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 50 cm
Twinkling Galaxies 3, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 50 cm
Twinkling Galaxies 5, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 106 cm (diptych)
Twinkling Galaxies 6, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 106 cm (diptych)
Twinkling Galaxies 7, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 106 cm (diptych)
Twinkling Galaxies 8, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 106 cm (diptych)
Twinkling Galaxies 9, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 162 cm (triptych)
Twinkling Galaxies 10, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 162 cm (triptych)
Twinkling Galaxies 11, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 162 cm (triptych)
Water World We are tethered to the soil by the gravity of our earth. Yet in the weightless buoyancy of water, we find a medium with which to achieve physical balance, the freedom to stretch, to extend, and the playful release of physiological and psychological pressure. Ripple by ripple, wave by wave, we are at peace. This relaxation draws away and dissipates the burden that life and society place on the individual heart and mind. 戏水 在地球引力和重力的作用下，人在水中借助水的浮力，在失重的状态下，使身体保持平衡，自由的 舒展，嬉戏释放出生理和心理上的压力。随波逐流，自由自在。这种自在同时也疏离和消解了来自 生活和社会对人身心的重压。
Opposite: Water World 9, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm
Water World 2, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm Water World 1, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm
Water World 4, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm Water World 3, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm
Water World 5, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm Water World 8, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm
Water World 7, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm Water World 6, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm
Water World 11, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm Water World 10, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm
Isles What would it be like to live on a small, isolated island, surrounded by nothing but water? Cut off from the chaos and struggle of the world at large, your very own patch of unspoiled earth — would it grant you tranquility and release? Or alienation, helplessness, and anxiety? I wanted to work here in the space between imagination and reality to the greatest degree possible; to explore the conflict between one’s inner-self and one’s surrounding environment; to tease meaning out of the most ordinary conceptions of space and time.
小岛 人生活在一个封闭的小岛上，四面环水，会是一种什么样的状态？远离尘世的繁乱，独享自己的一 块净土？自在，无为？还是孤独自闭，无助和焦虑？这里我想最大限度地展现想象与现实之间，内 心与环境之间的冲突，把平凡的时间与空间变得有一点意思。
Opposite: Isles 9, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm
Isles 2, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm
Isles 1, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm
Isles 4, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm
Isles 8, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm
Isles 5, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm
Isles 6, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm
Isles 3, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm
Isles 11, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm
Isles 7, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm
Isles 10, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 87 x 46 cm
Ocean These sculptures draw on an element of ancient Chinese Buddhist statues. The stylisation of water, in particular, is inspired by the lotus-seat of the Tathagata Buddha. The sensation of three dimensional weight vanishes as the statue is buoyed by the lightness of the water and enters a world that is floating and untethered. The body stretches freely and joyously in the water, expressing a rejection of the political, social, and commercial constraints with which all systems seek to bind the liberty and individuality of man.
海洋 本雕塑借鉴了中国古代佛像雕塑的一种方式。特别是水的造型，来自于如来佛座下的莲花 托。三维重量感的雕塑借着这个“水托”重量感顿时消失，同时进入了一种轻柔、漂浮的水 世界之中了。身体在水中快乐地自由伸展。本雕塑还传达出一种反对一切来自政治，社 会，商业等各种体制对人的自由和个性的限制与束缚。
Opposite: Ocean 1, 2013, bronze, 35 x 49 x 33 cm, Ed. 1/5
Ocean 2, 2013, bronze, 62 x 70 x 60 cm, Ed. 1/5
Ocean 3, 2013, bronze, 32 x 102 x 55 cm, Ed. 1/5
Ocean 4, 2013, bronze, 76 x 98 x 55 cm, Ed. 1/5
Ocean 5, 2013, bronze, 162 x 60 x 50 cm, Ed. 1/5
GUAN WEI SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2012 2011 2011 2011 2011 2010 2010 2009 2009 2008 2007 2007 2006 2006 2006
The Enchantment, Arc One Gallery, Melbourne Spellbound, He Xiang Ning Art Museum, OCT Contemporary Art Terminal Shenzhen, China Bird Island, Chan Hampe Galleries, Singapore Play on the Beach, Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney The New Classic of the Mountains and Seas, Red Gate Gallery Beijing, China Cloud in the sky, Water in the bottle, Shumu Art Space, Beijing Cloud, ARC One Gallery Melbourne, Australia Fragments of history, Kaliman Gallery, Sydney, Australia Longevity for Beginners, 10 Chancery lanes Gallery, Hong Kong Zodiac, Turner Galleries Perth, Australia. Day After Tomorrow, Red Gate Gallery, 798 Village Beijing A Mysterious Land, ARC One Gallery, Melbourne, Australia Other Histories: Guan Wei’s Fable for a Contemporary World, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney A Distant Land, Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia, Adelaide Jiang Hu, Liverpool Regional Museum, Sydney.
2006
Echo, Sherman Galleries, Sydney
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2013 2012 2012 2012 2012 2012 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008
Seeing Red, Meijing Art Center, TianJin, China Converging Worlds, Drill Hall ANU Gallery ACT, Australia Negotiating This World Contemporary Australian Art, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Contemporary Australian Drawing 2: Drawing as Notation, text and discovery, Wimbledon Gallery, University of the Arts, London Volume One MCA Collection, MCA Sydney Silence Power - Chinese Contemporary Art Exhibition, Dialogue Space Gallery, Beijing, China Cooperation Non Cooperation Er He Double Joint Art Exhibition, Lotus Art Museum, Beijing, China Found/Lost, Osage Gallery, Beijing. China Shanghai Biennial, Shanghai Museum, China 10th Havana Biennial, Cuba Handle with Care, Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia
GUAN WEI BIOGRAPHY
Born 1957, Beijing, China. In 1989, three years after graduating from the Department of Fine Arts at Beijing Capital University, Guan Wei came to Australia to take up an artist-in-residence position at the Tasmanian School of Art. He was invited to undertake two further residencies: one at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney (1992), the other at the Canberra School of Art, Australian National University (1993). Since then he has been awarded many grants and residencies, including the Australia Council’s Greene St studio in New York (2003), the Cite International des Art Paris studio in 2007 and Fellowship in 2008-2009. In 2010 he completed an artist-in-residence at The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, USA. In 2011 he undertook an artist-in-residence at He Xiang Ning Art Museum, OCT Contemporary Art Terminal, Shenzhen, China while in 2012 he was invited to be artist-in-residence at the Ah Ming studio in the Jing De Zhen Ceramic city in China. Guan Wei lives and works in both Beijing and Sydney.
Guan Wei’s work has a profoundly felt, if implicitly ironic, moral dimension. In their complex symbolic forms, his subjects potently embody current social and environmental dilemmas. They are equally the product of his rich cultural repertory of symbols and his informed socio-political awareness and art-historical knowledge.
Guan Wei has held more than 50 solo exhibitions world-wide. He has also been included in numerous important international contemporary exhibitions, including the Shanghai Biennial, 2010; 10th Havana Biennial, Cuba, 2009; Handle with Care, 2008 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia; Face Up: Contemporary Art from Australia, Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, Berlin, 2003; Osaka Triennial Contemporary Art, Osaka, 2001; Man and Space, Kwangju Biennale, 2000 and the 3rd Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1999.
In 2006 Craftsman House published a monograph on Guan Wei. He has won several awards, including the 2002 Sir John Sulman Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales. He has also completed several commissions in Australia including a mural for the foyer of the Folkestone Leighton Joint Venture at 700 Collins Street Melbourne in 2004 and a mural featured in the foyer of the Museum of Contemporary Art’s new building in Sydney, 2013. His works are held in major public collections and
MARTIN BROWNE CONTEMPORARY 15 HAMPDEN STREET PADDINGTON NSW 2021 TEL: 02 9331 7997 FAX: 02 9331 7050 info@martinbrownecontemporary.com www.martinbrownecontemporary.com GALLERY HOURS: TUESDAY - SUNDAY 10:30AM - 6PM