Chinese Art from the 1970s to Now "makes you believe in the human spirit" at the Whitworth

This article originally appeared on Culture24.

Exhibition Review: The M+ Sigg Collection: Chinese Art from the 1970s to Now, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester

China’s cultural landscape has undergone a dramatic change since the 1970s and yet our Western view of contemporary Chinese art rarely extends beyond ornate ink paintings and calligraphy.

The Whitworth is challenging that myopia with an exhibition charting China’s dynamic art scene across the last forty years.

Unsurprisingly, an installation by superstar dissident Ai Weiwei takes pride of place, but it is the first two paintings in the exhibition that are in many ways the most poignant.

One is of a view out from an apartment window, the other, a little park landscape. To Western eyes, both could be the innocuous work of a Sunday painter; except for the fact they were painted in grave secrecy amid Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution of 1966 to 1976.

They are small out of necessity; outdoor sketching was a risky business under communist rule, so young artists had to invent ways to elude official inspections. They used tiny paint boxes, the same size as Mao’s Little Red Book, which could be slipped discreetly into the pockets of the military clothing (typically worn by civilians to show their revolutionary allegiance).

The exhibition starts its journey there and ends with reflections on the place China is today; a booming powerhouse undergoing its second industrial revolution, where the disparity between cityscapes and rural hinterlands is among the largest on the planet.

This is the UK’s only sneak-peak at a much larger collection of art to be housed at the new M+ museum for visual culture in Hong Kong, due to open to the public in 2019.

Swiss collector Uli Sigg has donated a treasure trove of what is considered the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of contemporary Chinese art.

“It is the collection the National Museum of China should have put together,” says Lars Nittve, who is heading up the new M+ museum and was the founding director of the Tate Modern.

“Uli has spent more than two decades building the collection – like a one-man equivalent of Tate Britain, with its catalogue of British art.”

Works like these would be the sole preserve of commercial galleries in China and a lot of what is on show in Manchester would still be outright banned from public view (there are powerful pieces about the Tiananmen Square massacre, including documentary stills, for example).

But the takeaway from the exhibition is not a sad one. These artists have guts and grit – their art is buoyed by dark humour, poise and disarming beauty.

“All of the artists on display show that people will go to great lengths to express the things they find important,” says Nittve.

“It makes you believe in the human spirit and that is something worth celebrating.”   

• Runs until September 20 2015. Admission free.

What do you think? Leave a comment below.

Three places to see art from China in:

Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, Manchester
Investigating the most exciting contemporary work coming out of China and East Asia today, the centre works with a wide array of partners to "embrace a global century where Chinese art is moving firmly centre-stage".

Barlow Collection of Chinese Art, University of Sussex
Alan Barlow, who served as the Private Secretary to the Prime Minister during the 1930s, wanted this collection to be used for disseminating knowledge, offering visitors the opportunity of new relationships with traditional Chinese culture and allowing them to develop an appreciation of the various aesthetic and tactile qualities of ceramics, jades and bronzes.

Museum of East Asian Art, Bath
This unique museum houses a fine collection of ceramics, jades, bronzes and much more from China, Japan, Korea and south-east Asia.


Follow Kirstie Brewer on Twitter @kirstiejbrewer.

Source: http://www.culture24.org.uk/art/art532693-chinese-art-from-the-1970s-to-now-makes-you-believe-in-the-human-spirit-at-the-whitworth