Wu Weishan

Wu Weishan ( Chinese  吳 為 山 , Pinyin Wú Wèishān ; * 1962 in Dongtai , Jiangsu , People's Republic of China ) is a Chinese sculptor .

life and work

The Karl Marx statue in Trier (2018)

Wu is a member of the Chinese Communist Party and a member of the Political Consultative Conference of the Chinese People . He is the director of the China Art Museum , presides over the Urban Sculpture Association, is the vice-president of the China Artists Association, and heads the sculpture department of the China Art Academy. The University of Cambridge awarded him an honorary doctorate .

Among the artists of the People's Republic of China, he is assigned to the "young generation" whose creative period began after the end of the so-called Cultural Revolution . He is registered with the government as an art expert and is one of the artists who are preferred by the state when it comes to politically important statues.

His works include depictions of Mao Zedong from 2013, Deng Xiaoping from 2014, a double statue of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels entitled The Great Friendship between Marx and Engels in front of the Central Compilation and Translation Office in Beijing (2015) and one 36 meter high statue of the philosopher Confucius . In 2018 his Karl Marx statue was unveiled in Trier as a gift from the People's Republic of China. Wu described their style as based on the "Western realism " that prevailed in Marx's time, in combination with "Chinese Impressionism ". Elsewhere he wrote: "The statue is modeled in the modern Chinese freehand expressionist Xieyi style , which not only accurately and subtly reproduces the figure of Karl Marx, but rather strives to depict his spiritual world!"

Wu created more than 500 sculptures of historical and cultural people in the course of his career . His sculptural work and oil paintings have been shown in museums in Asia, North America and Europe since 1998. They are represented in collections of public and private museums, outside of China, for example in the USA, Great Britain and the Netherlands. The Nanjing Museum shows his portraits of people from cultural history in a room specially set up for this purpose, while a sculpture park is dedicated to his work in South Korea . According to the Beijing Rundschau , Wu always emphasizes "Chinese spirit, Chinese taste and the style of modernity " in his work .

Fonts

• The Poetry of Sculpture . World Scientific Publishing, New Jersey et al. a. 2008, ISBN 978-981-279-007-1 (p. 346 f., Curriculum vitae).

literature

• Yu Zhang (Ed.): The World of Sculptures by Wu Weishan. Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2018, ISBN 978-3-7757-4449-2 (foreword: Yáng Zhènníng , texts: Wu Weishan, images: Archive Wu Weishan, afterword: Yu Zhang).

Web links

Commons : Wu Weishan  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

1. ^ Jutta Straubinger: The Spirit of Sculptures: Sculptor of Karl Marx Sculpture visits the Campus for Design. Trier University of Applied Sciences, accessed on June 3, 2018 . 
2. ↑ The great friendship between Mark and Engels. In: The World of Sculptures by Wu Weishan. P. 60.
3. ↑ Finn Mayer-Kuckuk: The dogmatic use value of the statue. fr.de, May 4, 2018; accessed on May 28, 2018.
4. ^ Sculptor Wu Weishan reports on the creation of the Marx statue. Trier University of Applied Sciences, accessed on June 2, 2018 . 
5. ↑ Wu Weishan: A statue of Karl Marx in his hometown . In: Yu Zhang (ed.): The world of sculptures by Wu Weishan. Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2018, pp. 54–58, here p. 58.
6. ↑ Wu Wei-shan. Fitzwilliam Museum , accessed May 28, 2018 . 
7. ↑ Zeng Wenhui: Wu Weishan: new criteria for promoting young artists and a more comprehensive concept of culture. In: Beijing Rundschau . Chinese Foreign Language Office (Ed.), April 13, 2012, accessed May 30, 2018 . 

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Chinese. Wu is the family name here, Weishan is the first name.