The City Light: A Cycle.International Public Visual Art Exhibition of Advanced Art Academies

Project Introduction

“The City Light: A Cycle. International Public Visual Art Exhibition of Advanced Art Academies” is a large-scale public visual art exhibition hosted by Art Committee, China Artists Associations, together with Central Academy of Fine Art, China Academy of Art, Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University, among others, and organized by Shanghai HongMiao Art Center.

Theme Interpretation

In response to the general concept of SUSAS 2017, “thisConnection: Sharing a future public space”, the curators choose “Cycle” as its theme. Besides enhancing contemporary urban public life, the theme highlights the core of Oriental wisdom: reciprocal, sustainable development of Human, Nature and Society. As the ongoing wave of global urban renewal emphasizes the culture of one’s “own”, a significant trend of future urban public spaces is to construct a connected, fused system of nature, technology and art. In embodying the eastern perspective of life and world that features co-existence and mutual prosperity of humans and their dwelling, the “Cycle” is predictably going to be an essential idea of cultural revitalization in this ancient nation. It betokens an Oriental poetic dwelling as the way that future urban public spaces should step on.
In the past three decades, starting from non-existence, Chinese contemporary art has evolved from copying Western counterparts to derivation, and finally to original creation. Generations of artists have struggled to break away with established paradigms, conceptual, nomenclatural or methodological. Their experiments target at formal, cultural, conceptual, methodological and even more aspects of arts, giving birth to a treasure of contemporary artworks reflecting the contemporary Chinese cultural spirit. To effectively demonstrate the latest fruit of such art innovations, the hosts have curated a most representative set of artists and their works, offering an all-covering dialogue between East and West. Topic: our era of “Pan-Painting”.
Thus, the exhibition presents a variety of categories, such as synthetic material painting, oil painting, Tempera, print, mural, among others; the entire spectrum of painting language from concrete, expressive to abstract; and all kinds explorations concerning the possibilities of medium in contemporary art. The exhibition has three parts. The first is synthetic material painting that represents the highest professional standards in China. The second puts on show a collection of contemporary visual artworks, covering oil painting, print and ink and wash. The last part is reserved to specific invited painters, mostly Shanghai school.

Events

Lectures: 28 Oct, 10 Nov, 20 Nov, 2017 The City Light: Art Enlightens Life Serial Lectures
Performance: 20 Oct, 2017 The City Light: Dance of Calligraphy