From August 11, 2024 to October 27, 2024, the He Art Museum (HEM) presents artist Pu Yingwei’s first solo exhibition “New Century Encyclopedia.” The exhibition features hundreds of the artist’s latest works, including paintings, sculptures and an animated short film created following his global travel.

The exhibition serves as an encyclopedia for understanding the artist’s creative thoughts. It can also be viewed as a manifestation of a young artist trying to reshape his identity in response to globalization and the complex issues of today’s ever-changing world.

Pu Yingwei has been concerned with post-colonial issues since his studies in France. Since then, he has been exploring possible ways of communication between different civilizations. His works convey a spirit of openness, inclusivity, and freedom, influenced by his extensive travels in recent years. In his artistic practice, Pu unveils a unique version of the cosmopolitan spirit as a Chinese artist, thereby forming a global narrative oriented toward himself.

From 2021 to 2023, departing from China, Pu traveled through London and Paris to Eastern Europe, Africa, and Central Asia. He visited dozens of Spomenik monuments from the former Yugoslavia which are now scattered across the Balkan Peninsula and have become unique aesthetic heritages in human history.

Revisiting of these monuments directly inspired the animated short film featured in the exhibition, in which the artist created an autobiographical character named PAPU to share his reflections on the world with a broader audience.

Pu then traveled to Kenya, where he visited local art institutions, artists, the Kibera and Mukuru slums, and Chinese construction teams stationed there. Upon returning to Paris, he launched the project “Red Rendez-vous Dialogue,” with interlocutors including art historian Philippe Dagen, sinologist Emmanuel Lincot, postcolonial theorist Seloua Luste Boulbina, and the founder of the Lyon Biennale Thierry Raspail.

Through these experiences across different regions, climates, and ideologies, Pu further expanded his “world experience” and developed the concept of “world art,” drawing inspiration from the shared human emotions that transcend different civilizations.

Building on the concept of “world art,” Pu is also inspired by the historical debates among Chinese artists of the last century, particularly in their reflections on the relationships between East and West, ancient and modern. In his new series of paintings Today’s Changing Seasons, he reinterprets the concept of the “Six Principles” from traditional Chinese painting, incorporating his life experience and global awareness. He aims to showcase the universality of knowledge and values by integrating different artistic styles, thereby blurring the boundaries of space and time.

The exhibition also showcases a large-scale sculpture titled World Library, composed of a thousand ceramic books. This work was inspired by the artist’s experience in Kiev at the end of his global travel. Moved by the fragility of life and culture in the face of conflict and war, he sought to preserve the intellectual heritage of humanity through this creation.

The exhibition “New Century Encyclopedia” is the artist’s personal archive offered to the future — a future of openness and inclusivity.