A major loan exhibition of contemporary Chinese art currently on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art will be closing soon! Consisting of 70 works created by 35 artists born in China, Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China demonstrates how China's ancient pattern of seeking cultural renewal through the reinterpretation of past models remains a viable creative path. Highlights include Xu Bing's dramatic Book from the Sky (ca. 1988), an installation filling an entire gallery; Family Tree (2000), a set of vivid photographs by Zhang Huan in which his facial features-and his identity-are obscured gradually by physiognomic texts that are inscribed directly onto his face; and Map of China (2006) by Ai Weiwei, which is constructed entirely of wood salvaged from demolished Qing dynasty temples.
Maxwell K. Hearn, Douglas Dillon Chairman of the Metropolitan Museum's Department of Asian Art, stated: "A unique feature of this landmark exhibition is the way in which it positions contemporary art from a non-Western culture within an encyclopedic art museum. Instead of being presented by the Metropolitan's Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, Ink Art is curated by members of the Department of Asian Art and displayed in the Museum's permanent galleries for Chinese painting and calligraphy, featuring artworks that may best be understood as part of the continuum of China's traditional culture. While these works may also be appreciated from the perspective of global art, the curatorial argument is that, by examining them through the lens of Chinese historical artistic paradigms, layers of meaning and cultural significance that might otherwise go unnoticed are revealed. Ultimately, both points of view contribute to a more enriched understanding of these creations."Videos