Guan wei date of birth
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Guan Wei
By Michael Young
| October 14, 2019
Chinese-Australian artist Guan Wei stood deferentially in front of his self-portrait ‘Plastic Surgery’ (2015) at the launch of the 2017 Archibald Prize at Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales. Descended from the Manchu nobility whose great-great-aunt gave birth to the Qing Dynasty’s last emperor, the artist cut an elegant and imposing figure. In Artist Profile Issue 37, Michael Young wrote about Guan Wei's life and work.
At just over four metres wide Plastic Surgery is a large, politically charged self-portrait where four disembodied heads of the artist chart a metaphorical transformation from an early portrait as a black-haired Chinese man, an image that would have been on the cover of his Chinese government personnel file – ‘The government keeps a file on everyone’ he says – to one showing his face which has morphed into a blue-eyed, fair-skinned, blonde, fully assimilated Caucasian surrounded by the trophies of his new migrant life: Medicare card, ABN, bank account and passport numbers, plus t
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Biography:
Guan Wei (b. 1957, Beijing) is an artist who currently lives and works in Australia and Beijing.
Following his graduation from the Department of Fine Arts at the Capital Normal University (Beijing, 1986), Guan worked as a painter and high school art teacher. In 1988, he was invited to organize an exhibition at the apartment of Nicholas Jose, the Cultural Counselor of the Australian Embassy in China at that time. In 1989, he was invited to partake in an artist residency program at the Tasmanian School of Art in Hobart, Australia. Guan subsequently became an Australian resident in 1993.
Guan has exhibited widely. Some early international exhibitions include ‘Silent Energy: New Art from China’ (Modern Art Oxford, 1993) and ‘Mao Goes Pop: China Post-1989’ (Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art, 1993). More recent exhibitions include ‘The Rose Crossing: Contemporary Art in Australia’ (Sherman Galleries, Sydney, 1999), the second and third Asia-Pacific Triennials (Queensland Art Gallery, Australia, 1996 and 1999) and the Gwangju Bien
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GUAN WEI has a significant international reputation as a contemporary artist whose work crosses cultural and political borders, specifically between Australia and Asia. A Chinese national who migrated to Australia in 1989, his practice which spans more than 30 years draws on his personal experience of both Chinese and Australian culture, as well as an informed socio-political awareness and knowledge of art history. With a consummate ability to create work at once light in tone and profound in message, his prolific creative output has consistently examined complex social issues underpinned by humility and a deep respect for humanity. Across painting, sculpture and installation, his work conveys profound stories of loss, migration, identity, and notions of boundaries and place, interweaving an understanding of tradition and the past in the face of overwhelming global change today.
Guan WeiI was born 1957, Beijing, China. In 1989, three years after graduating from the Department of Fine Arts at Beijing Capital Un
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