Spiriti Vitali

Exhibition introduction

Press release · Academy of Fine Arts of Venice · 19 June 2025

The Academy of Fine Arts of Venice presents Spiriti Vitali, an exhibition by Chinese artist Zhenwei Zeng, curated by Professor Paolo Fraternali of asia.program ABAV in collaboration with Fondazione Forte Marghera and LINLI Art Space. The exhibition opens to the public in Pavilion 36 at Forte Marghera from 5 July to 5 August 2025.

Through this exhibition, the Academy’s international cooperation programme, asia.program ABAV, continues to promote international contemporary artistic research, bringing cultures, artistic approaches and sensibilities into dialogue.

At Forte Marghera, Zhenwei Zeng offers a profound reflection on human spiritual energies through his iconic Tubemen: timeless totems radiating vibrations and symbols of bliss.

“Zeng’s Tubemen,” explains curator Paolo Fraternali, lecturer in Fine Art Printmaking at the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice, “are vital spirits reaching towards bliss, their astral bodies filled with divinity, attaining balance and equanimity with the self.”

Zeng’s works evoke an ascetic connection with Chinese spiritual and artistic traditions, reinterpreted through a contemporary perspective rich in poetic formal solutions and an innovative gravitational force.

“Zeng Zhenwei’s work explores a different sensibility, expressed by one of the most significant artists of a great country, who revisits the tensions of our time through his works,” comments Riccardo Caldura, Director of the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice. “Ultimately, art makes visible what words alone cannot convey: anxieties and conflicts, but also possibilities for harmony.”

In dialogue with Zeng’s works, the adjoining space at Pavilion 36 will also host the group exhibition Spiriti Vitali inFormazione. Curated by Cinzia Tusini, a former student now undertaking doctoral research at the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice, in collaboration with lecturers Paolo Fraternali, Stefano Mancini and Diana Ferrara, it features prints and installations employing diverse artistic languages by fifteen Academy students: Giulio Capannini, Sonia Cumerlato, Martina Enrico, Simone Fochesato, Yilin Gu, Valerio Kientz, Arianna Lazzari, Simona Lazzaroni, Marion Oskeritzian, Irene Paccagnella, Barbara Rosita Raimondo, Serena Silverio, Cinzia Tusini, Sara Usai and Veronica Vanzo.

Zhenwei Zeng

Zhenwei Zeng was born in Guangdong, China, in 1960. He began studying in Japan in 1986 and completed a doctorate in Artistic Engineering at Kyushu University. In 1995 he founded the On Design Co research institute in Tokyo. In 2003 he returned to China through the “Hundred Talents” programme, becoming the first Director of the Design Department at the School of Communication and Design of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou.

In 2007 he joined the faculty of the School of Fine Arts at Jinan University in Guangzhou. In 2012 he became the regional president for China of the Association of Asian Contemporary Sculptors. He has been a member of the Fondation Taylor in Paris since 2017, and in 2020 the Guangzhou municipal government awarded him the title of “Master of Culture”.

In 2023 he participated in Venice’s Arte Laguna Prize with the monumental sculpture Embrace the World, now located in Guangzhou, China.

A versatile artist, he has created numerous monumental public installations in Guangzhou’s central business district, combining contemporary visual language with traditional symbolism.

Source: Press Office — CASADOROFUNGHER Comunicazione.