Wu Guanzhong: Learning from the Master

Designed as an exhibition catalogue for Wu Guanzhong: Learning from the Master by the National Gallery of Singapore, this publication chronicles Wu Guanzhong’s role as an art educator in the post-cultural revolution era—an invigorating period in Chinese art history. This lesser-known, but influential dimension of Wu’s artistic career contributed to the emergence of the ’85 New Wave Chinese avant-garde movement. The reader is invited to join the master and his students on their study trips around China as they explore new physical and artistic territories. His teachings are illuminated in the catalogue through drawings, manuscripts, notebook spreads, photographs, and oral records.

Referencing the typology of a sketchbook as a surface for learning, refining, and documentation, the catalogue is intimate in scale and handy to carry around, finished with an exposed thread-sewn spine. To give an impression of loose materials spontaneously thrown into a sketchbook, the layout features images and artworks clustered near the spine. This lends a sense of rawness and learning-in-progress throughout the book, with bold section dividers serving as visual signposts of Wu Guanzhong’s pedagogical legacy.