Jennifer Wen Ma’s new book Jennifer Wen Ma documents her installation, videos, public projects and collaborative works. On January 5^th, “A Bit Uglier thus Beautiful, and A Bit Older thus New Again” Book Release will invite Jennifer Wen Ma, and UCCA director Philip Tinari, to discuss Jennifer’s art practice, large-scale public projects and interactive crowd sourcing approach to her work.

Thomas Krens introduced her new publication as “Jennifer Wen Ma has emerged as one of the most innovative artists of her generation. She maintains an eclectic art practice, working in media as varied as installation, video, drawing, fashion design, performance, and public art. Within these frameworks, Ma continues to defy traditional classifications by combining unexpected elements, resulting in a prolific cross-disciplinary approach that is sensitive, poetic, and poignant. This publication is the first major monograph on the Chinese-American artist. It explores her visual vocabularies, conceptual themes, and various approaches to art making, revealing the intricacies of the artist’s methodology.”

Jennifer Wen Ma was born in 1973 in Beijing, moved to the United States in 1986, and received her Master of Fine Art degree in 1999 from Pratt Institute, New York. She works and lives in New York and Beijing.

Her work has been shown at Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; Eslite Gallery, Taipei; The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC; Beennale of Sydney; Echigo-Tsumari Triennial, Niigata; Guggenheim Bilbao; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the National Art Museum of China, among others.

In 2008, Ma was one of the seven members on the core creative team for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics, and the chief designer for visual and special effects. Additionally, as the main liaison between the international broadcast teams, she won at an Emmy for the US broadcast of the ceremony.

Philip Tinari (UCCA Director)