Chen Wei

Chen Wei is a Beijing-based artist whose practice centers on photography while extending into installation and object-making. Since emerging in the mid-2000s, Chen has been widely recognized as a leading voice among a generation of Chinese artists born in the 1980s. His meticulously staged images blend constructed reality and dreamlike atmosphere, often revealing psychological tensions embedded within everyday urban experience.

Working primarily within the controlled environment of his studio, Chen builds intricate diorama-like sets—ranging from nightclub interiors to architectural fragments and imagined cityscapes—which he then photographs with cinematic precision. His early works were shaped by a literary sensibility, drawing influence from figures such as Franz Kafka and Kōbō Abe, and often conveyed allegorical narratives of isolation, absurdity, and disconnection. Over time, his focus shifted toward youth culture, nightlife, and more recently, the material and emotional textures of contemporary urban China.

In parallel with his photographic practice, Chen has developed a distinct body of sculptural work utilizing LED signage. Ubiquitous yet overlooked in China’s urban environment, these glowing panels—typically used for scrolling advertisements or public announcements—are reconfigured by the artist into haunting, abstract sculptures. By inserting poetic fragments, cryptic slogans, or pulsating color rhythms, Chen transforms these readymade communication devices into meditations on presence and disappearance, signal and silence. His LED works not only reflect the information overload of a hyper-commercialized society, but also evoke the fragile aspirations flickering beneath its surface.

Chen’s work resonates with broader global concerns in contemporary art—such as the construction of image and memory, the psychological architecture of cities, and the politics of visibility—while offering a distinctly East Asian perspective shaped by rapid economic transition and shifting modes of collective life. Across photography and installation, his practice offers a sustained inquiry into how individuals navigate illusion, alienation, and desire within mediated urban realities.


Biography
Born 1980, Zhejiang, China
Based in Beijing

Selected Solo Exhibitions
2025 – The Invisible Road, Ota Fine Arts, Shanghai, China
2024 – Sweet Dreams, Fotografiska Shanghai, China
2022 – Jamais Vu, Ota Fine Arts, Singapore
2021 – Make Me Illusory, Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project, West Bund Museum, Shanghai, China
2018 – WHERE ARE YOU GOING TONIGHT, chi K11 art space, Guangdong, China
2017 – The Club, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, Australia
2015 – Night Paris, Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo, Japan
2015 – Chen Wei: In the Waves, Chi K11 Art Museum, Shanghai, China
2014 – Chen Wei: The Stars in the Night Sky are Innumerable, Australia China Art Foundation, Sydney, Australia
2011 – Vague Search, Yokohama Creativecity Center, Kanagawa, Japan

Selected Group Exhibitions
2025 – TOP 30th Anniversary TOP Collection: transphysical, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
2025 – M+ Sigg Collection: Inner Worlds, M+, Hong Kong
2024 – 目 Chine | A New Generation of Artists, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
2022 – ON | OFF 2021: Carousel of Progress, He Art Museum, Shanghai, China
2016 – Chinese Whispers: Recent Art from the Sigg & M+ Sigg Collections, Kunstmuseum Bern, Bern, Switzerland
2015 – China 8: Works in Progress – Photography in China 2015, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany

Selected Collections
M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan
K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, USA
Singapore Art Museum
Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Japan
White Rabbit Contemporary Chinese Art Collection, Australia
Centre Pompidou, France
UBS Art Collection, Switzerland