Always, Owned by What We Own

Celebrated Chinese artist Wang Jianwei takes the reader on a philosophical journey through his creative practice.

Featuring over 30 color photographs of his work and studio, celebrated Chinese artist Wang Jianwei takes us on a journey that goes behind the scenes of our materialistic world bound by rigid, socially acceptable ’norms’, and introduces us to the beauty and usefulness of the seemingly banal.

As the reader accompanies Wang through his contemplation of speculative realism and object-oriented ontology, we learn how he integrates his thinking into his creative practice. His philosophical musings turn our worldview of human-object and object-object relations on their head, as he positions humans and objects on an equal footing. By revealing the intrinsic value of an object and refusing to define it by a single meaning, Wang fills the materials and objects that surround him with infinite potential.

A fascinating and thought-provoking book that opens up the realms of the ordinary.

Wang Jianwei, born in 1958 in Sichuan, southwestern China, is a pioneer in contemporary Chinese art. Since the 1990s, he has been exploring the impact of interdisciplinary and comprehensive knowledge on contemporary art. Wang attempts to create new artistic languages using methods from various disciplines. He is particularly well known for drawing from his studies of philosophy, sociology, cultural studies, anthropology and science to highlight his interest in the contact between art and social reality.