Akademik

b. 1969, Xiamen, Fujian

Art critic, curator

Graduating from the Department of Oil Painting at the China National Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou in 1994, Wu Meichun found her mission as a curator with an interest in new media in 1996. That year she organized at the gallery of her alma mater the first major Chinese video art exhibition, ‘Image and Phenomena’, which helped to create a heightened attention for video works in China. Most of the fifteen artists participating in the show were novices in this medium but have since become well-known videomakers. In the same period she co-wrote a thoughtful essay with artist Qiu Zhijie, providing the theoretical terrain and a broad international context for this emerging art form.

Curating and writing have since been her major activities, resulting in the organization of as many as four exhibitions a year, including ‘Demonstration of Chinese Video Art 97’ at the Gallery of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing; the Chinese participation at the Eleventh Video Festival ‘Transmediale 98’ in Berlin; and ‘Beijing in London’ at the ICA London in 1999. Wu also masterminded a number of events in alternative spaces, including the one-day controversial exhibition ‘Post-Sense Sensibility: Alien Bodies and Delusion’ in a Beijing basement in 1999 that displayed dead animals and human corpses as art objects.

In autumn 2001, just after being appointed Curator and Professor of Art Theory at the new-born New Media Art Research Centre at the China National Academy of Fine Arts, she organized a new media festival entitled ‘Non-Linear Narrative’ at the Academy’s gallery.

Wu, Meichun (1999). ‘Yixing yü wangxiang’ [Alien Bodies and Delusion]. In Post-Sense Sensibility. Alien Bodies and Delusion (exhibition catalogue). Beijing, 1–4.

——(2001). ‘Electronic Conscience—Cultural Awareness in Chinese Video Art’. In Johnson Chang Tsong-zung (ed.) (1999), Fast Forward New Chinese Video Art. Hong Kong: Hanart T Z Gallery.

Wu, Meichun and Qiu, Zhijie (1996). ‘Luxiang Shixue: Wenhua, Xinli, Jishu, Zhuangzhi’ [The Poetics of Video Art: Its Cultural, Psychological, Technical Context and Installation Context] Art Gallery Magazine 58/59:27–31.