Wang Luyan has been a key figure in the development of contemporary Chinese art since the late 1970s, when the movement began. He exhibited with the Stars group in Beijing in 1979 and participated in the historic China / Avant-garde exhibition at the National Art Museum of China in 1989. With Chen Shaoping and Gu Dexin, Wang also co-founded the New Measurement Group, an experimental collective active from 1988 to 1995.