2018.6.9-2018.8.12

N3 Contemporary Art, Beijing

Curator: Dai Zhuoqun

Artists

Yu Youhan, Ding Yi, Zhang Enli, Chen Yujun, Shi Zhiying, Li Qing

In June 2018, curator Dai Zhuoqun presented two exhibitions at The Barn Contemporary Art Space in Shenzhen and at N3 Contemporary Art in Beijing, which are, “Willow Swallow” and “Shanghai Painters” respectively. Both exhibitions focus on regional surveys of artistic practices among those who live and work in Hangzhou and Shanghai.

In recent years, Shanghai and Hangzhou – located along the central axis to cities along the Yangtze River – have revealed the most vibrant signs in artistic practices. In terms of the groups of artists to the renewal of artistic concepts, both cities have presented unique transformations. Historically, since the Southern Song Dynasty had established its capital in Lin’an (present day Hangzhou) until the end of the Qing Dynasty and beginning of the Republican era, the center and the place of origin for artistic creativity in China has always been circulation among Hangzhou, Suzhou, Jinling, Yangzhou, Shanghai and other Jiangnan cities over more than eight Centuries.

It is not difficult to conceive with our careful analysis that the shifting centers throughout the history of art was primarily determined by the central factors on the level of development in urban culture and commercial economy, other than the impact of dynastic evolution and political impact. From Lin’an, the commercial center in the Southern Song, to Suzhou and Hangzhou in the Ming Dynasty, to Nanjing and the establishment of Shanghai in the Qing Dynasty, the shifting artistic center paralleled economic shifts. In other words, the focus shifted from the academic painters such as Liu Songnian, Li Tang, Ma Yuan, Xia Gui from the Song Dynasty, to the eight late Song Dynasty painters to the four masters of the Yuan Dynasty, to the Zhejiang School, the Wu School artists, and the former Shanghai regions, as well as in Huizhou, Yangzhou among others, until the late Qing Dynasty to the Republican Era, when Shanghai school of painters and the import of Western modernism blossomed, all took place on the rich land of the Jiangnan region.

Coming back to the present, over the four decades since the advent of contemporary Chinese art, Beijing has always been the indisputable center and site of origin. Certainly, this condition benefits from the new administration of centralized power system. Beijing as the absolute center under a system dictated by politics, rose above all other regional cities. At the same time, it subverted the economic and cultural structure that has been established over the last few centuries. Thereon, Shanghai, Hangzhou and other cities in the Jiangnan region have lost their central positions since the dynastic periods.

Yet, as China has gradually integrated into the current of globalization, former political and economic frameworks are dismantled, while the planned economy of socialism under the Mao era has drastically shifted to emphasize on economic prosperity. It is indisputable that compare to the relatively backward and stagnant conditions in Northern China, the economic and commercial cultures in the Jiangnan region along the axis of Shanghai and Hangzhou are thriving and booming, which are resetting their course in history. Therefore, at the heart of it, Shanghai and Hangzhou will certainly regain their positions as the center of artistic creativity in this new cycle.

Read more about the exhibition | Review of the exhibition opening

Shanghai Painters

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