My Generation: Young Chinese Artists

Traveling Exhibition thru Tampa Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Orange County Museum of Art.

2014- 2015

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Stepping off the plane at Beijing’s new Norman Foster–designed All have studied at major art schools, both in China and abroad. All are Terminal 3 for the first time can be a shock. Beneath a roof designed to mimic a dragon’s tail, your first encounter is with a bank of luxury boutiques—Chanel, Ferragamo, and Lacoste—surprisingly commercial venues in a Communist country. There are no red flags, and the only scrap left of the Cultural Revolution is the Shanghai Tang outlet hawking silk versions of Mao jackets. The taxi line awaits you, obviously free of rickshaws, and a brand-new VW sedan speeds you to the city on an eight-lane superhighway. It is all unabashedly modern, even futuristic, especially when compared with the decades-old infrastructure of most American cities.

It is imperative that you readjust your impressions of China to this contemporary landscape, a place that has substituted pagodas, temples, and statues of either Buddha or Mao with skyscrapers, shopping malls, and cell phone towers, in order to appreciate the artists in the exhibition My Generation: Young Chinese Artists. For it is this generation, born after 1976, the year Mao died, that best represents 21st-century China. Without reorientation, their artworks may confuse American viewers, who have come to expect Chinese references in their Chinese contemporary art, either appropriations of Cultural Revolutionary iconography or installations referencing Qing dynasty designs. Instead, what you will find are creations that are confidently “Made in China,” without having to reassert an identity of Chinese-ness to find a place in the international art world.

It is only appropriate that, at this moment in history and art history, such a reorientation should take place. By now, with the rise of international biennials and art fairs, and an abundance of websites spreading information on international art developments, it is high time for art audiences to be aware of the latest advances taking place in China, one of the most powerful and charismatic art centers in the world today. With the advent of globalization in the art world, many have moved beyond New York and London to look to the East for new talents, trends, and styles. Some have even predicted that China—with its economic prowess and abundance of talented artists—will be the site of the first great art movement of the 21st century. Others still question whether creativity can blossom in a country with strict government censorship, but few can doubt the rise of China’s contemporary artists who have made their mark on museum exhibitions as well as set auction records.

My Generation: Young Chinese Artists features 27 artists ranging in age from 27 to 36, all of whom I have interviewed over the past three years of extensive travel in China. They come from every region in China, from out west in Xianjiang province to Liaoning province near the North Korean border, though none of the works can be categorized as regional.

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Participating Artists

Birdhead
Chen Wei
Chi Peng
Cui Jie
douBle Fly art Center
Fang lu
guo hong
Wei hu
Xiangqian
hu Xiaoyuan
huang ran
irrelevant Commission
Jin shan
liang yuan
Wei liu
Chuang liu di
lu yang
ma qiusha
qiu Xiao
Feishi
Zhiying
song Kun
sun Xun
Wang yuyang
Xu Zhen/made in yan
Xing
Zhang ding
Zhao Zhao
Zhou yilun

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All have studied at major art schools, both in China and abroad. All Terminal 3 for the first time can be a shock. Beneath a roof designed to mimic a dragon’s tail, your first encounter is with a bank of luxury boutiques—Chanel, Ferragamo, and Lacoste—surprisingly commercial venues in a Communist country. There are no red flags, and the only scrap left of the Cultural Revolution is the Shanghai Tang outlet hawking silk versions of Mao jackets. The taxi line awaits you, obviously free of rickshaws, and a brand-new VW sedan speeds you to the city on an eight-lane superhighway. It is all unabashedly modern, even futuristic, especially when compared with the decades-old infrastructure of most American cities.

It is imperative that you readjust your impressions of China to this contemporary landscape, a place that has substituted pagodas, temples, and statues of either Buddha or Mao with skyscrapers, shopping malls, and cell phone towers, in order to appreciate the artists in the exhibition My Generation: Young Chinese Artists. For it is this generation, born after 1976, the year Mao died, that best represents 21st-century China. Without reorientation, their artworks may confuse American viewers, who have come to expect Chinese references in their Chinese contemporary art, either appropriations of Cultural Revolutionary iconography or installations referencing Qing dynasty designs. Instead, what you will find are creations that are confidently “Made in China,” without having to reassert an identity of Chinese-ness to find a place in the international art world.

It is only appropriate that, at this moment in history and art history, such a reorientation should take place. By now, with the rise of international biennials and art fairs, and an abundance of websites spreading information on international art developments, it is high time for art audiences to be aware of the latest advances taking place in China, one of the most powerful and charismatic art centers in the world today. With the advent of globalization in the art world, many have moved beyond New York and London to look to the East for new talents, trends, and styles. Some have even predicted that China—with its economic prowess and abundance of talented artists—will be the site of the first great art movement of the 21st century. Others still question whether creativity can blossom in a country with strict government censorship, but few can doubt the rise of China’s contemporary artists who have made their mark on museum exhibitions as well as set auction records.

My Generation: Young Chinese Artists features 27 artists ranging in age from 27 to 36, all of whom I have interviewed over the past three years of extensive travel in China. They come from every region in China, from out west in Xianjiang province to Liaoning province near the North Korean border, though none of the works can be categorized as regional.