Born in 1958 in Suining village in southwestern China, Wang Jianwei studied at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (1985–87, now China Academy of Art), Hangzhou, China. Known for his investigations into the structures of time, Wang experiments with a range of mediums, including painting, sculpture, video, film, installation, and multimedia theater. Well-versed in philosophy, he draws from mathematics, data-collection methods, scientific experimentation, and neurology to illuminate a social and mental space he calls the “yellow signal,” an intermediary zone where possibilities for a time-lapsed reality can flourish. At age seventeen, Wang was forced to move to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76). From 1977 to 1983, while serving as a soldier, he took up oil painting as a pastime, adopting the dominant Socialist Realist style. One work, Dear Mother (1983), won a prestigious prize that took Wang to Beijing, where he became a teaching assistant for the influential artist, critic, and teacher Zheng Shengtian at the Zhejiang Academy, the center of Chinese experimental studio art. There, Wang was exposed to Conceptual practices and read books by such thinkers as Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, who profoundly influenced his work. In 1989, he moved again to teach at the Beijing Painting Academy. In 1997, Wang and Feng Mengbo became the first Chinese artists to participate in Documenta, Kassel, Germany, with Wang showing Production (1997) now in the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi collection. Since 2000, Wang has created elaborate theater productions and multimedia installations and developed a signature painting style whose scenes are based on stills taken from his quasi-documentary videos. “Time is the biggest challenge of my experiment,” Wang has remarked. Investigating how we think of and experience time, he defines his practice as a continuous “rehearsal,” an act suspended between past and future moments. By returning experiential agency to the viewer, Wang delivers a subtle rebuke to absolutist ideologies, including political ones. He incorporates iteration, metamorphosis, and process into the form, structure, and viewing experience of the works themselves. In the painting Time Temple (2014), Wang depicts multiple versions of the same scene, layering sequences like different poses of the same figure across the expanse of the canvas. In his related multipart installation, Time Temple (2014), the seven large wood forms each reveal a multitude of approaches, angles, and perspectives, resisting any single, comprehensive view. Carefully crafted through cutting, joining, and sculpting hundreds of layers of wood with the addition of metal, rubber, and paint, these forms explicitly expose the artist’s working method and process. Wang has had solo exhibitions at the Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai (2008); OCT Contemporary Art Terminal, Shenzhen, China (2008); 46 Fangjia Hutong Theater, Beijing (which traveled to the Kaserne Basel; Zürcher Theater Spektakel, Zurich; and La Bâtie—Festival de Genève, Geneva [all 2010]); Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2011), and Long March Space, Beijing (2013 and 2015). Wang has participated in the Gwangju Biennial, South Korea (1995); Shanghai Biennial (2000–01); São Paulo Biennial (2002); Venice Biennale (2003); Guanzhou Triennial (2005 and 2012); and Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates (2013). He was the inaugural selection of The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Chinese Art Initiative at the Guggenheim, and his solo exhibition, Wang Jianwei: Time Temple (2014), featured newly commissioned paintings, sculptures, film, and a performance, all of which entered the museum’s holdings as part of The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Collection. His work was also included in the major Guggenheim exhibition Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World (2017–18, which traveled to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao [2018] and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art [2018–19]). Wang lives and works in Beijing.