Chen Changwei

© Photo credit：Tony Metaxas

© Photo credit：Tony Metaxas

The Pillar of The Twelve Symbolic Animals is a new development of the works the artist has been creating since 2002. In accordance with the exhibition concept, which suggests that urban development should be in harmony with nature, Chen Changwei intention is to produce a highly symbolic totem. The use of twelve symbolic animals is a concept derived from the philosophy and mythology of traditional Chinese agrarian society and its ancient chronological calendar. These symbols undoubtedly form an integral part of traditional Chinese culture but in the context of this artistic event it is an interesting way to update them into a modern and totally contemporary approach more oriented towards the future as a new weather vane.

Chen Changwei

Born in 1973 in Luoping, Yunnan Province, China.
Lives and works in Beijing and Kunming.

Lecturer at the Sculpture Department of the Yunnan Arts Institute, Chen Changwei taps into Chinese traditions to reinvent the signs of the Chinese horoscope. His style is daring and original with surrealist animal heads forming huge symbolic totems full of humor. Besides his participation in many important exhibitions held in museums in China and abroad, in 2005 he organized the First International Sculpture Festival in Kunming.

Recent selected shows:
2009: First Chongqing Biennial for the Young Artists, Chongqing, China. 2008: Future Sky – Chinese Contemporary
Young Artists Nominated Exhibition, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China; Shanghai MoCA Envisage II - Butterfly
Dream, MoCA, Shanghai, China; Loft, Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition, 2008 Beijing 798 Art festival, Beijing; The
Origin: The First Moon River Sculpture Festival, Moon River Museum of Contemporary Art, Beijing; Sculpture Nature.
East West, International Sculpture Exhibition, Agliè, Italy.