On May 18 the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art will present "Wang Xingwei," the first mid career survey of the leading Chinese painter. Running through August 18, 2013, the exhibition will feature a grouping of paintings which highlight Wang's career from 1993 to the present, illustrating both the depth of his painterly talent and the breadth of his explorations over the past two decades. The exhibition is organized by UCCA director Philip Tinari in close collaboration with the artist, and will span the entirety of the UCCA's iconic Great Hall, the first time this space has ever been given over to a solo retrospective devoted strictly to painting. This is Wang Xingwei's first major institutional exhibition, and the accompanying catalogue is his most comprehensive monograph to date.

Comprising 69 works, the exhibition features a maze-like, non-chronological layout in which the space is subdivided into three major sections based on the relationship of the painter or viewer to the figure depicted: rear views, profiles, and frontal views. This logic paradoxically also serves to group the works thematically and serially. Most of the works on view have been borrowed back from private collections in Europe and throughout China, and have never before been seen together.

"Wang Xingwei" represents the culmination of a long collaboration between UCCA and the artist. One of the original artists to enter the collection of the Fondation Guy & Myriam Ullens, Wang worked last year on the final episode in UCCA's "Curated By..." series, producing an exhibition of seven young painters whose work explored similar themes to his own. Wang also has a painting on view in the concurrent exhibition "DUCHAMP and/or/in CHINA," which positions one of Wang's artistic heroes in relation to the Chinese scene.

In bringing together Wang's key achievements of the first two decades of his career, this exhibition will contribute significantly to the reassessment and elevation of a key figure in contemporary Chinese art, who through the complexity of his vision proves the depth and richness of the tradition to which he belongs.

Courtesy of Ullens Center for Contemporary Art