Preface I

- - for "Virtual Focus: Zhu Wei 1987-2017" at the National Museum of Indonesia

Drs. Siswanto, M.A

For the past 30 years, Zhu Wei has successfully created many series of excellent contemporary art works that deal with issues within the field of humanity. For the highlight of this exhibition, we present to you Zhu Wei, one of the few Chinese artists who has brought forth classical Chinese painting techniques into the contemporary art world, achieving success in the midst of a global fascination with Chinese contemporary art.

In the book Contemporary Chinese Ink 1979 – 1999, published by the China Social Science Press, and in History of Contemporary Chinese Art 1978 – 2008, published by Hebei Fine Arts Publishing House, renowned Chinese art historian and critic Lu Hong pointed out that, "The wisdom of Zhu Wei's works lies in showing us that when one is pursuing a contemporary expression, the most important thing is to retain the means of a traditional rendition, to produce innovative results. It is especially crucial to retain a point of uniqueness in one's artistic output in this time, when the development of contemporary art is under the threat of homogenization. Over the course of art history, even the most creative artist has had to peruse artistic tradition as inspiration for their work at some phrase of their career. Using methods to distance or through means of restructuring, the artist arrives at a new expression. Other than that, there is no other way for artistic breakthroughs."

Zhu Wei was born in 1966, in the western suburbs of Beijing's steel plant dormitory area, where he spent a quiet and peaceful childhood. In 1982, he was transcribed into the army, where he began his artistic career. Between the late nineties and in the first years of the new century, Zhu Wei started to gain a name for himself. More than 40 international museums have collected over 70 art works by the artist, who is deemed as the representative figure of contemporary ink art. Not only is he the first artist to bring the Gong-bi technique into the contemporary art world, he is also one of the earliest artist to reflect China's social history in his work. From 2003, he abruptly restricted the number of art works he produced. For a few years, including the year 2015, he only produced a single art work each year. In these 10 years, Zhu Wei produced many essays and treatises on art, in turn analysing the problems he faced as an artist, and the current state of China's contemporary art scene, which are compiled into a publication. The book he authored in 2014 occupied the top spot in popular art websites for 4 years.

At this point, Zhu Wei has begun a new phase of artistic pursuits, which he terms as 'experimentation', where he seeks for a new expression.

This touring exhibition has been exhibited at Museum of Contemporary Art Singapore (MOCA@Loewen), Beijing Today Art Museum as well as Nanjing Art Academy Museum. The curator of the exhibition in Beijing today Art museum and Nanjing Art Academy museum was Mr Zhu Zhu and Mr Li Xiao Shan respectively. Mr Lu Hong is the curator specially appointed for the shows in the Museum of Contemporary Art Singapore and National Museum of Indonesia, Jakarta. We would like to express our most sincere gratitude to them.

Lastly, we want to thank Ms Linda Ma for seeking and compiling the works for this exhibition, as well as the teams in Jakarta, Singapore and Beijing.

We wish the exhibition great success.

August, 2017

序一

——印尼国家博物馆展览“虚拟的焦点-朱伟1987-2017”

Drs. Siswanto, M.A

30年来朱伟成功创作了出色的跨越人文学科的当代艺术作品。这个展览的亮点是，在上个世纪中后期出现的引起世界注意的中国当代艺术热潮中，朱伟是极少数的几位以本土绘画进入当代领域的艺术家，并且同时获得了成功。

中国著名艺术史学家，批评家鲁虹在由社会科学出版社出版的《中国当代水墨 1979-1999》和河北美术出版社出版的《中国当代艺术史1978-2008》中指出："朱伟给我们的启示是，在寻求对于当代生活的表达时，重要的是要努力沿续传统的表达方式，并有所创造、有所丰富。而在当代艺术有着全球同质化发展的情况下，这种保持异质化表达显得特别重要。在艺术史上，即使最有创意的艺术家，也不得不从传统中选择若干样式与惯例作为自己在某个阶段的出发点。然后再按照需要予以偏离、重构。除此之外，别无它法。"

朱伟1966年出生于北京西郊的钢铁厂宿舍区，在那里度过了平静的童年。1982年他从军并在军队中开始了他的绘画生涯。上世纪90年代后期和新世纪的头几年，朱伟的名声越来越大，世界各地已经有40多家美术馆、博物馆收藏了其超过70件作品，他被誉为中国当代水墨的先行者和代表人物，第一位将工笔画手法引进中国当代艺术领域的艺术家，也是最早反思国家社会主义历史的艺术家之一。2003年他突然放慢了创作，有几年包括最近的2015年，一年当中只创作一幅作品。在这十年当中，朱伟写作了大量的艺术随笔，回顾和分析了自己创作中所遇到的问题和对中国当代艺术现状的思考，并出版一本文集。他写于2014年的最后一篇专栏连续四年在热门艺术网站年度点击率第一。

现在朱伟重新开始绘画创作，他总是做试验，寻找一种新的表达。

此次展览先后会在新加坡当代美术馆、北京今日美术馆、南京艺术学院美术馆巡回展出。今日美术馆、南艺美术馆分别由朱朱先生和李小山先生策划展览，新加坡当代美术馆和印度尼西亚国家博物馆由鲁虹先生策展，再次向他们表示真诚的谢意！

最后，更要感谢为此次展览作品的搜集整理协调作了大量工作的马美玲小姐及其领导的雅加达、新加坡、北京画廊团队。

祝福展览盛大成功。

2017年8月