Pu Yingwei, (b.1989, lives and works in Beijing, China) received his DNSEP (MFA with Félicitation du jury) from École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, and BFA from Sichuan Fine Art Institute. Pu Yingwei’s work has been defined as an exercise in conceptual art with a strong utopian zeal. He interprets the multiple narratives of media and identity that he practices in the public sphere as an all-round mobilization. Taking personal history as an absolute starting point and through various facets of work including exhibition, writing, design, lecturing, and teaching, he attempts to produce a kind of “meta-politics” that transcends grand topics such as race, nation, and ethics. Such politics is as complex and full of paradoxes as the reality we experience.

In his recent practice, Pu Yingwei temporarily abandoned propositions of the fluid identity that he initiated while studying in France and instead turned to the split of ideological camps and the return of imperialism as the context of his work. He has extensively studied and continued the visual heritage of Socialist Realist art and 20-century avant-gardism while drawing inspiration from the visual culture of revolutionary art and ideological propaganda, thus forming his unique vocabulary and historical perspective.

Recent solo exhibitions/projects include: “A Study in scarlet: The re-origin of revolutionary realism”, MAMOTH, London (2021); “Obscure Adventure – Speculative Pop & Pan-Chinesism”, SSSSTART, Shanghai (2021); “Pu Yingwei: China Capital”, MadeIn Gallery, Shanghai (2020); “Photoethic: CHINAFRICA”, Jimei x Arles International Photo Festival (2020); “Time, History, Why We Fight”, Hive Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2020); “Pu Yingwei 1989”, Organhaus, Chongqing (2019); “Double Empire”, Nouvel Institut Franco-Chinois, Lyon (2018); “If only it were true”, Galerie Sator, Paris (2018); “Pu Yingwei and Jim Thompson Architects”, J：GALLERY, Shanghai (2017); “Roman Nomade”, Hive Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2017).

Recent group exhibitions include: “Un Dialogue avec la Sensibilité Écriture, Désir, Amour”, Being Art Museum, Shanghai, China, 2022; “Pixel Row: Behavioral Metamorphosis”, West Bund Museum, Shanghai, China, 2022; “Futurism of the Past”, Beijing Contemporary Art Expo, Beijing, China (2021); “From Checkers to Complicated Systems”, Times Art Museum, Chengdu (2021); “When and Only When, the Strong Wind Roll up the Surge”, Aranya Art Center, Qinghuangdao, Hebei, China (2021); “The Circular Impact”, OCAT Shanghai, Shanghai (2021); 13th Shanghai Biennale: “Bodies of Water”, Power Station of Art, Shanghai (2021); “Fiction Art”, OCAT Shenzhen, Shenzhen (2018); “Reciprocal Enlightenment”, CAFA, Beijing (2017).