Exhibition overview

Exhibition overview

This exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of photography and video from China since the mid 1990s and the first major showing of contemporary Chinese art at a UK venue. Showcasing works by 39 artists - many of whom have not exhibited in the UK before - it will introduce the activities of experimental Chinese artists and through them provide intriguing insights into life in today's China.

For the past two decades, China has undergone remarkable economic, social and cultural transformations. These changes have shaped the development of experimental art. Using media ranging from painting and sculpture to video and photography, China's experimental artists have explored the dynamics of emerging modernity in a country where the forces of tradition still retain enormous power. Photography and video have become increasingly important means of individual expression and are now central to contemporary Chinese art. In many ways, the versatility and instantaneous nature of these media have become synonymous with the rapidity of change in China.

Photography was largely reduced to a propaganda tool during the first thirty years of the People's Republic, but from the 1980s artists began explore the medium's expressive potential. In the mid-1990s, Chinese photography and video entered a new phase of non-stop invention, abundant production, multifaceted experimentation and cross-fertilization with other art forms. The exhibition centres on this most recent and exciting phase of photo- and video-based art in China and is structured around four thematic sections:

• History and Memory
• Performing the Self
• Re-Imagining the Body
• People and Place

Credit

Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China was organised by the International Center of Photography, New York, and the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, in collaboration with the Asia Society, New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. The exhibition received major funding from The Smart Family Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, as well as generous support from other donors.

History and Memory

The opening section, explores the contemporary legacy of China's past, featuring works which update themes from traditional Chinese art, reinterpret famous historical sites and evoke the lives of ordinary people through personal photographs and memorabilia.

Choose a photographer: GAO Brothers HAI Bo HONG Lei LIU Zheng MA Liuming SHENG Qi SONG Dong WANG Gongxin WANG Qingsong XING Danwen MIAO Xiaochun

Performing the Self

Contains photographs and videos that reflect the urgent quest for new forms of individual identity in a rapidly changing society. Many Chinese experimental artists have used their own images as a subject of their art, conveyed through self-portraits and self-transformations into fictional characters or symbolic images.

Choose a photographer: AN Hong CAO Fei HONG Lei SONG Dong SUN Yuan WANG Jin WANG Qingsong YIN Xiuzhen ZHANG Huan ZHU Ming

Re-imagining the Body

Looks at ways in which Chinese artists have used the body as a vehicle for self-expression and social critique. Works in this section employ the human body as image-bearing material, or use the body to explore new ways to communicate with the world.

Choose a photographer: CANG Xin HUANG Yan QIU Zhijie QIU Zhijie RONG Rong RONG Rong RONG Rong RONG Rong WANG Wei XU Zhen

People and Place

The final section in the exhibition, explores ways in which experimental artists in China have responded to the dramatic changes taking place in the environment, and in particular the rapid transformation of the urban fabric. Works record and comment on the impact of rapid urbanisation on the physical environment and human relations.

Choose a photographer: BAI Yiluo CHEN Lingyang HONG Hao LIU Zheng LUO Yongjin XIONG Wenyun YANG Yong ZHANG Dali