Chen Wenbo
Chen’s characters, young ladies in pink colours with blue eyes and soft skin, depicted on a black-tiled bathroom backdrop, look like robots or celluloid dolls, between fiction and the reality of a cyberworld. Allegories of the senses, they evoke sight, touch, and the pleasure of the bath. Clones of ideal beauty and ideal youth, the whole world would try to resemble them.
Works
Lucky
LUCKY
Biography
Chen Wenbo was born in 1969. He used to live and work in Chongqing and since 1999, he has been living in Beijing.
He graduated from the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts and promptly became one of the preeminent figurative oil artists in contemporary Chinese art. Chen’s characters, young ladies in pink colours with blue eyes and soft skin, depicted on a black-tiled bathroom backdrop, look like robots or celluloid dolls, between fiction and the reality of a cyberworld. Allegories of the senses, they evoke sight, touch, and the pleasure of the bath. Clones of ideal beauty and ideal youth, the whole world would try to resemble them.
Chen Wenbo was born in 1969. He used to live and work in Chongqing and since 1999, he has been living in Beijing.
He graduated from the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts and promptly became one of the preeminent figurative oil artists in contemporary Chinese art. Chen’s characters, young ladies in pink colours with blue eyes and soft skin, depicted on a black-tiled bathroom backdrop, look like robots or celluloid dolls, between fiction and the reality of a cyberworld. Allegories of the senses, they evoke sight, touch, and the pleasure of the bath. Clones of ideal beauty and ideal youth, the whole world would try to resemble them.
The artist seems to enjoy depicting this atmosphere of youth fairytale, but his paintings question the desire of mankind to control it by artificial means, through colorful cosmetics and drugs. Displayed through many exhibitions, Chen’s work was shown notably at Beijing’s Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, as well as in a traveling show that was exhibited at the Berkeley Art Museum, the Kunstmuseum Bern, and the Peabody Essex Museum, among others. His work regularly appears in museums and galleries exhibitions across China, North America, and Europe.
Exhibitions
Career
Solo exhibitions
2023
Chen Wenbo, Chinese Contemporary Art Museum, Chongqing, China
2018
Report, Galaxy Museum of Contemporary Art (GCA), Chongqing, China
2017
Carnival, SKP Beijing, Beijing, China
2016
Day and Night, Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing, China
2015
The Fat Years, Klein Sun Gallery, New York, NY
2009
ABIO-VIEW, Shanghai Gallery of Art, Shanghai, China
Chen Wenbo: Broken Series, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China
Solo exhibitions
2023
Chen Wenbo, Chinese Contemporary Art Museum, Chongqing, China
2018
Report, Galaxy Museum of Contemporary Art (GCA), Chongqing, China
2017
Carnival, SKP Beijing, Beijing, China
2016
Day and Night, Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing, China
2015
The Fat Years, Klein Sun Gallery, New York, NY
2009
ABIO-VIEW, Shanghai Gallery of Art, Shanghai, China
Chen Wenbo: Broken Series, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China
2008
Chen Wenbo: Asian Rays, PKM Gallery, Beijing, China
Chen Wenbo: Epidemiology, Michael Schultz Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2003
Back door, Chen Wenbo 2003, He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen, China
2000
Chen Wenbo Solo Exhibition, Galerie Loft, Paris, France
Group exhibitions
2024
Golden, Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing, China
2021
Chinese Contemporary Art, Galerie Loft, Paris, France
2016
Doctrine of New Capital: Huang Yu Collection Exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chengdu, China
No Candy to Make Trouble, Yang Art Museum, Beijing, China
2015
Flower and Style – Exchange Exhibition between Taiwan and China, Ant Nest Art Gallery, Chengdu, China
China 8: Chinese Contemporary Art From China at Rhine & Ruhr, itinerary exhibition, Germany
The Cabinet of Wonders, Heiqiao Art District, Beijing, China
Illuminated, Gland Space, Beijing, China
The Civil Power, Beijing Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing, China
2014
Re-View, Long Museum, Shanghai, China
Civilization, OCAT Xi’an, Xi’an, China
Harmonious Society: Asian Triennial Manchester 2014, Centre for Chinese
Contemporary Art, Manchester, UK
Blue Roof Art Festival, Chengdu, China
Broached Retreat, UCCA, Beijing, China
Life Path, Wang Xingwei Studio, Beijing, China
Shanghai Deal, Radical Space, Shanghai, China
M Home: Living in Space, UCCA, Beijing, China
Aftermath: Post-Sensibility, Fifteen Years On, Duddell’s, Hong Kong
2013
Auction Biennale, World Expo Museum, Shanghai, China
Square Cube, ArtDepot, Beijing, China
Timeline – An exhibition of Contemporary Art (Session I), Youmingtang Art Center, Nanning, China
Nightwalk at Heiqiao, Heiqiao Art District, Beijing, China
Village Poem, Gland Space, Beijing, China
2012
LATITUDE/ATTITUDE : 20th Anniversary Exhibition, Schoeni Art Gallery, Hong Kong
Face, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, China
2010
Thirty Years of Chinese Contemporary Art, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, China
Erotic, Hadrien de Montferrand Gallery, Beijing, China
2009
16 Years of Running a Gallery, Walsh Gallery, Chicago, USA
Inaugural exhibition, Hadrien De Montferrand Gallery, Bejing, China
All the Great Modern Things – Chinese Pop, Kunsthalle Dominikanerkirche, Osnabruck, Germany
All the Great Modern Things – China Total, Kunsthalle Rostock, Germany
Anmnesis and Extrapolation, PKM Gallery, Beijing, China
2008
Mediation Biennale 08, Poznan, Poland
86 Steps to Nine Layers Heaven, Beyond Art Space, Beijing, Chine.
Portraying Food (and the absence of it), Walsh Gallery, Chicago, USA
Empty, Milan, Italy
2007
Neo Painting from China, Galerie Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan
RE-collection – A Retrospective Look at 15 years of Art and Vision, Schoeni Art Gallery, Hong Kong
Ddmwarehouse 2000-2007, DDM Warehouse, Shanghai, China
Floating – New generation of Art in China, National Museum of Modern and
Contemporary Art, Gwacheon, South Korea
Modern Chinese Art, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Gwacheon, South Korea
Barcelona – Paris – Pekin, Espace Cultural Ample, Barcelona, Spain
Neue Asiatische Kunst, Thermocline of Art – ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany
We are your Future, Ethan Cohen Fine Arts, New York, USA
Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia
Vanguardias Chinas, Dolores de Sierra Gallery, Madrid, Spain
2006
6th Shanghai Biennale – Hyper Design, Shanghai, China
Contemporary China, PKM Gallery, Seoul, South Korea
Beyond the Canvas, Schoeni Art Gallery, Hong Kong
2005
Biennale of Contemporary Chinese Art, Montpellier, France
Dr. Uli Sigg Collections Exhibition, Switzerland
Second Triennial of Chinese Art, Nanjing Museum, Nanjing, China
Chinese Contemporary Art, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
2004
All Under Heaven – China now !, Centre Régional d’Art Contemporain, Sète, France
MuHKA Museum voor Hedendaagse Kunst, Antwerp, Belgium
East of the South in the West/West of the South in the East, Villa Arson, Nice, France
Temporality, LA Gallery, Beijing, China
Object System: Doing Nothing, ARCO 2004, Madrid, Spain
2003
Out of Focus, 25,000 Cultural Transmission Center, Beijing, China
Chinart, Museo del Arte Contemporanea di Roma, Roma, ltaly
Chinart, Ludwig Museum, Budapest, Hungary
2002
Too Much Flavor, 3H Art Center, Shanghai, China
Chinese Modernity, Armando Alvares Penteado Foundation, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Paris-Pékin, Espace Pierre Cardin, Paris, France
Chinart, Museum Kuppersmuhle Sammlung Grothe, Duisburg, Germany
Guangzhou Triennial, Guangdong Art Museum, Guangzhou, China
Miragel, Suzhou Art Museum, Suzhou, China
2001
ROUGES (Red), Galerie Loft, Paris, France
2000
Chinese portraits, François Mitterand Cultural Center, Périgueux, France
Personality and Sociability in Arts, Guangdong Art Museum, China
1999
Representing the People, Tyneand Weir Museum Newcastle, UK
Starting a new channel in 1999, Dongyu Art Museum Shen Yang, China
0.99- Avant-Garde in Chinese, Galerie Loft, Paris, France
1998
Confused, Contemporary Art Fair Amsterdam, Netherlands
1997
Chinese Video Art 1997, CIFA Gallery Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China
1996
South Western Conceptual Art Show, University of Chengdu, China
1994
Fragmentation, Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts Chongqing, China
1993
China Oil Painting Biennal, China Art Gallery, Beijing, China
1992
The First Guangzhou Oil Painting Biennal, Guangzhou Exhibition Centre, China
Publications
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