Exhibition of Chinese contemporary art „Who am I? 798 impressions“ will be opened at the KCCC Exhibition Hall (Didžioji Vandens str. 2, Klaipėda) on Friday, 19th of May 2017, at 5 PM.
Chinese contemporary art has become an important component of the world art market, representing the present China. Exhibition visitors are provided with an opportunity to see how, starting from the ninth decade of the 20th century, the opening of China to the world and social changes have gradually affected the evolution of contemporary art; how a long-time classical and modern culture of China stylistically overlapped in the works of artists, and how the tendencies of ethnic art and globalisation, nationality and internationality has been revealed.
The political, economic and cultural upheavals in China over the past century have truly been unprecedented: the death of an empire, the communist revolution led by Mao Zedong, the rise of the global China. “Socialist Realism” which sang a praise of this era has become a mainstream of artistic creation during the years 1949 ˗ 1976 when China attempted to construct a communist utopia. In the beginning of the 9th decade of the 20th century, China’s reform and opening policy accelerated the modernisation of Chinese society. Due to the world globalisation, Chinese contemporary art constantly shifted and grew alongside China’s society and cultural context. The artists began experimenting; incorporated new concepts, techniques and materials into artistic practice, pursued freedom of expression, and studied their inner experiences and their state of existence. Artists of the modern Chinese civilisation have rushed the stage of international art and today Chinese contemporary art has become a unique phenomenon in the context of the world contemporary art.
The exposition of the exhibition of Chinese contemporary art “Who am I? 798 Impressions” consists of works spanning a wide range of art forms ˗ such as oil painting, photography, sculpture and video ˗ of the artists who are already accredited in the world and the young ones who are on the way to conquer the market, representing three generations of Chinese artists. Of course, the exhibition of the artists of Chinese contemporary art in Lithuania does not reveal the absolute entirety of Chinese art phenomena, but it does represent an outstanding and important subset of its evolution. It is not a coincidence that in this exhibition the curator emphasises an example of Chinese creative industries ˗ the 798th art zone, a gallery town, which was transformed out of a military factory. The changes of this district may as well be compared with the structure of Chinese society and the history of independently developing cultural segments: contrasting, teeming with life and unpredictable.
Curator: Xin Dong Cheng
Exhibition organisers: Administrative Committee of Beijing 798 Art Zone and China Council for the Promotion of International Trade Beijing Sub-Council, organiser in Lithuania ˗ Klaipėda Cultural Communication Centre.
The exhibition will run until the 16th of July 2017.
