Chinese Contemporary Artists

Chen Weicai

Born in Fujian in 1986, Chen Weicai currently lives and works at the foot of Longquan Mountain in Chengdu. He is a freelance artist, independent curator, Vice President of the Sichuan Sculpture Society, and Founding Director of the Dalang Museum of Contemporary Art.
Chen Weicai’s artistic practice revolves around a profound questioning of the ontological state and the “eternity” of objects. Adhering to the philosophy that “all things are for my use, not my possession; I, too, am used by all things,” he steps out of the studio to treat urban-rural fringes, forests, rivers, and even ruins as fluid exhibition sites.
He extends sculpture through subversive “Institutional Critique.” In 2016, he transformed a condemned house in a Shenzhen urban village into the “Dalang Museum of Contemporary Art,” open 24/7. After the physical structure vanished with demolition in 2018, he relaunched the project in cyberspace in 2020, completing a transformation from physical embodiment to digital nomadism. This appropriation of institutions and space continues in his 2025 solo project in Duolecang, Qinghai: Left is the Yellow River (Me A Yo) | Right is the Cliff (Me O Yo). Here, amidst the vast wilderness, he once again borrows the museum system to explore the dialectical relationship between man and nature, the ephemeral and the eternal.
Refusing the constraints of a single medium, Chen’s work spans sculpture, painting, video, and installation. His practice embodies both a raw, grounded locality and an international perspective. He has been invited to present work at significant venues including the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art (Beijing), Parcours Saint-Germain (Paris), TransCultural Exchange (New York), and Kommunale Galerie Berlin. His works have been permanently collected by authoritative institutions such as the White Rabbit Gallery (Australia)—one of the world’s most significant collections of contemporary Chinese art—as well as the GeKA e.V. (German-Chinese Culture Exchange Foundation), the Shanghai Putuo District Government, and the Shenzhen Metro Public Art Project.