Smart Museum to present groundbreaking exhibition of contemporary Chinese art

The unique exhibit of contemporary Chinese art at the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago is titled “Transience: Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the Twentieth Century,” and it will include the work of 21 artists from the People’s Republic of China.

The exhibition will open with a public reception from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 18 and will include a performance by Beijing-based artist Yin Xiuzhen and a talk by exhibition curator Wu Hung.

“Transience,” which will include paintings, photographs, videos, sculptures and installations, is distinguished from other recent survey exhibitions of contemporary Chinese art by its unique thematic approach.

Organized by the Smart Museum and curated by Wu Hung, the Harrie A. Vanderstappen S.V.D. Distinguished Service Professor in Chinese Art History at the University of Chicago, the exhibition will focus on three conceptually linked themes--Demystification, Ruins and Transience.

These themes reflect a range of artistic responses to China’s historical past and the rapidly changing socioeconomic environment of the present. “It is through this focused approach, we believe that Western audiences can better develop a contextualized understanding of contemporary Chinese art and can connect that understanding to an international discourse about the nature of contemporary art in this postmodern age,” said Kimerly Rorschach, the Dana Feitler Director of the Smart Museum.

Wu Hung selected the works in the exhibit, which will focus on artists currently working in the People’s Republic of China, through an extensive process of studio visits and interviews with artists, as well as a call for proposals responding to the exhibition’s main themes. Advertised in contemporary art periodicals throughout the People’s Republic, the call for proposals yielded a rich context of current artistic practice throughout the country. Further context for the exhibition will be provided by the inclusion of works by a few artists who have immigrated to the West, including Xu Bing and Wenda Gu, both of whom now live in New York.

Shifting political and economic realities have had great impact on recent artistic practice in China, particularly during the 1990s. As economic reforms continue to internationalize the Chinese art world, many Chinese artists have become critical of the growing commercialization of Chinese contemporary art. Instead of catering to foreign consumers’ tastes or adapting to certain international styles, the works included in this exhibition reflect a strong urge to reclaim the traditional role of the avant-garde artist as a cultural critic concerned with social reality. New art forms and media, such as installation, performance and video, enable these artists to comment on social issues in a forceful and personal manner unprecedented in Chinese history.

The conceptual framework for this exhibition grew out of several years of research in which artists, critics and leading intellectuals in China were consulted and interviewed. An insistent focus of many of these artists is social space, which is being dismantled and reconstructed in China at a rapid rate. “Many experimental artists have freed themselves from the past, and thier works increasingly respond to a rapidly changing society. This recent development, which is still in full force in China, is the main topic of this exhibition,” writes Wu Hung in the exhibition catalog.

The exhibition’s first section, Demystification, will present work that reinterprets the past in order to present a complex relationship between the individual and the collective social order. Works in the second section, Ruins, will document the fascination of some contemporary Chinese artists with various kinds of deconstruction through an interplay of demolished residential buildings, dilapidated public spaces and “ruined” human beings, themselves the victims of the economic boom and resultant creation of new social spaces. The third section, Transience, will demonstrate the direct response by artists to the new social spaces now emerging in China’s urban centers--spaces of commodity, privacy and interiority. Taken together, these three sections comprise a critical view of social change in present-day China, a society increasingly driven by market forces, sliding into an ideological vacuum, experiencing the influence of more western-styled aesthetic standards and yet also characterized by the emergence of new humanistic values.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalog that will serve as both a record of the show and an important contribution to the literature on contemporary Chinese art. Written by Wu Hung, the 200-page catalog is fully illustrated in color and includes an introduction defining Chinese experimental art, essays on each thematic section and entries on the individual works. Appendices contain artist biographies, results of a survey of contemporary practice in China conducted by Wu Hung and a bibliography.

For the first time in the Smart’s 25-year history, the entire main exhibition space will be utilized for the presentation of a temporary exhibition. In addition to its three main sections, the exhibition will be augmented by a gallery documenting the work of additional Chinese artists who submitted proposals for the exhibition and a virtual tour on the Museum’s Web site.

Related events:
Except as noted, all events are free and open to the public.

Opening reception
Featuring an artist performance by Yin Xiuzhen and a talk by exhibit curator Wu Hung, the Harrie A. Vanderstappen S.V.D. Distinguished Service Professor in Chinese Art History at the University of Chicago. Beijing-based artist Yin Xiuzhen will perform her work Suitcase, which will be installed as part of the exhibition. In this meditative performance, Yin folds, packs and seals under concrete clothes she wore during earlier periods of her life.
Thursday, February 18
5:30-7:30 p.m., performance and talk at 5:30 p.m.
Smart Museum of Art, 5550 S. Greenwood Ave.


Seminar: Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the Twentieth Century
Featuring artists Cai Jin, Xu Bing, Yin Xiuzhen, Yu Fan, Zhan Wang, Zhang Hongtu and Zhang Huan. This event is sponsored by the Adelyn Bogert Fund of the Franke Institute for the Humanities at the University of Chicago.
Friday, February 19
1:30 5:00 p.m.
Cochrane Woods Art Center, Room 153, 5540 S. Greenwood Ave.


Film Screening: Good Morning, Beijing (1990, directed by Zhang Nuanxin)
With an introduction by Tang Xiaobing, Associate Professor in East Asian Languages & Civilizations at the University of Chicago
Saturday, February 27
2:30 p.m.
DOC Films, Max Palevsky Cinema, Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 E. 59th St.


Concert: Min Xiao-Fen
An internationally renowned master of the pipa, Min Xiao-Fen was a soloist with the Nanjing National Music Orchestra. She has collaborated with musicians and composers such as Chen Yi, Zhou Long, Qu Xiao-song, Bun-Ching Lam, Tan Dun, John Zorn and Derek Bailey. Min will perform traditional and contemporary solo works on the pipa, a traditional Chinese lute. This event is co-sponsored by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs as part of the New Millenium /New Music Series at the Chicago Cultural Center.
Sunday, March 28
3:00 p.m.
Chicago Cultural Center, Preston Bradley Hall, 78 E. Washington Ave.

Smart Museum Collectors Series
Exhibition curator Wu Hung and graduate research assistant Kris Ercums will discuss the exhibition’s curatorial process and will lead a tour.
Saturday, April 3
10:00 a.m.-noon
Open only to Friends of the Smart Museum. Free for Fellows-level members and above; $25 for regular members. Please call 773-702-3673 for reservations and information about becoming a member.


Public Exhibition Tours
Led by University of Chicago student docents

In English:
Sundays: Feb. 28, March 14, March 28, April 11
1:30 p.m.

In Mandarin:
Sundays: Feb. 28 and April 11
2:30 p.m.

Meet in the museum lobby for all tours.
Smart Museum of Art, 5550 S. Greenwood Ave.


Symposium: Global Perspectives on Contemporary Chinese Art
Featuring an international group of scholars, curators and critics, including exhibition curator Wu Hung; Johnson Chang of the Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong; Gao Minglu, curator of the exhibition “Inside Out: New Chinese Art”; Hou Hanru, Paris-based critic and curator; and Andrew Solomon of the New York Times .
Saturday, April 17
9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
Donnelley Biological Sciences Learning Center, 924 E. 57th St.
This symposium is part of a larger conference on visual culture, regional identities and transnational modernities in East Asia sponsored by the Regional Worlds Program, Globalization Project, Center for International Studies and Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Chicago. Please call 773-834-2759 for more information on the Regional Worlds conference.


Call 773-702-0176 or 773-702-3673 for program information.
This exhibition is made possible by grants from the Smart Family Foundation, Inc.; the Lannan Foundation; the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; the Nathan Cummings Foundation, with the support and encouragement of Mrs. Beatrice Cummings Mayer, Hannover, N.H.; and Mary and Roy Cullen. Funding for programming is also provided by the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the John Nuveen Company. After its presentation at the Smart, the exhibition will travel to the University of Oregon Museum of Art in Eugene, Ore., and the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College. The Smart Museum is located on the Hyde Park campus of the University of Chicago, 5550 S. Greenwood Ave. Free parking is available in the University lot on the corner of 55th Street and Greenwood Avenue after 4 p.m. on weekdays and all day on weekends. Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday; 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday; noon to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Museum shop and café are open daily.

Admission to all events and programs, except for the Collectors Series, is free and open to the public.