“500 TRAZOS: UN RETRATO ABSTRACTO DEL PERÚ”
Gran Hall del primer piso, Museo de Arte de Lima, MALI
2025.7.9-8.20
wu jian'an
The artistic logic and visual creativity of Wu Jian'an are rooted in his use of scenes that seem distant from contemporary life to express eternal threads that run through the history of human civilization. He awakens the hidden and subtle yet grand and majestic subconscious that lies within every human heart, inspiring the viewer to reflect on human nature and the times in which we live.
In 2017, Wu Jian’an represented China in the 57th Venice Biennale. In recent years, Wu’s art works have attended Border crossing: Possibilities and Interactions (Yuz Museum Shanghai, Shanghai, China, 2023), Lines of Thought: Gestural Abstraction in the BAMPFA Collection (Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, USA, 2022), SUPER FUSION: 2021 Chengdu Biennale (Tianfu Art Park, Chengdu, China, 2021), Glasstress: Window to the Future (The State Hermitage Museum, Russia, 2021), KAIWU: Art et design en Chine (Musée de l’Hospice Comtesse, France, 2021), The Endless Life—the Narrative of the Yellow River (The Museum of Contemporary Art Yinchuan, Ningxia, China, 2020), Art and Archaeology (Naples National Archaeological Museum, Italy, 2019), The 7 th Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial (Echigo-Tsumari, Japan, 2018), Serpenti Form (Mori Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, 2019; Art Science Museum, Singapore; Chengdu Museum, Chengdu, China; 2017-2019), etc. He had held several solo exhibitions in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Xi’an, Singapore, Basel, Kalamazoo, Chicago and New York City.
His work has been collected by important institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art (USA), the Museum of Fine Art, Boston (USA), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (USA), the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archiver (USA), the Oscar Niemeyer Museum (Brazil), the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University (USA), the White Rabbit Gallery (Australia), the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum (Japan), the Guangdong Museum of Art, the CAFA Art Museum (China), the Beijing Minsheng Art Museum (China), the Start Museum (China), etc. His work is also in the collection of the Modern Media Group, the HSBC Jade center, the Chen Yidan Foundation, Hermès, DIOR and BVLGARI.
Museo de Arte de Lima, MALI
The Museo de Arte de Lima (MALI), situated in Peru's capital, stands as one of the nation's largest and most influential non-profit art institutions. Housing a collection exceeding 12,000 works, MALI maintains Peru's sole comprehensive art historical survey, spanning the entirety of the country's artistic heritage.
Highlights from this extensive collection are presented across approximately 4,500 m² of exhibition space, chronicling several centuries of cultural evolution through pre-Columbian, Colonial, Republican, and contemporary art periods.
Complementing its collecting and exhibition mission with dedicated local cultural heritage preservation, the museum's library and archives represent one of Peru's foremost centers for art historical documentation. In recent years, MALI has consistently advanced the practice and research of local and relevant contemporary art through high-caliber international exhibitions, publications, and public programs. This sustained effort has established the institution as an indispensable cultural nexus within both the South American and international contemporary art landscapes.
