12th Shanghai Art Exhibition opens at China Art Museum
"Zhuang Sheng Dreams of Butterfly," digital installation, Ning Shujia, Xu Jiawei and Wang Zhi
"When old transforms to the new," Wu Zhen, traditional Chinese painting
Co-organized by the Shanghai Federation of Literary and Art Circles, the Shanghai Artists Association, and China Art, "The 12th Shanghai Fine Arts Exhibition" is showing at the China Art Museum through February 25.
The exhibition features 553 selected works, and is the largest in scale of all its previous editions.
Held every two years, the Shanghai Fine Arts Exhibition is the most influential and largest comprehensive art exhibition in the city.
This year's theme is centered on "The 75th anniversary of the founding of New China" and "The 75th anniversary of the liberation of Shanghai."
This year, the exhibition received 2,324 candidates and a total of 517 artworks were selected for the show.
The art forms vary from traditional ink-wash painting, through canvas, print, and water-color to sculpture, lacquer painting, animation, digital art, and mixed-materials.
Besides the 517 selected works, the exhibition also includes the works created by veteran artists and jury members.
"The participating works all reflect the construction of the city, the urban scene, and the life of the ordinary people. Most of the award-winning pieces are created by the young artists," said Zheng Xinyao, chairman of the Shanghai Artists' Association, "However, we also invited renowned artists such as Lin Ximing, Wang Guanqing and Wang Jieyin. It is interesting for the visitors to see the city stories visually recorded by artists of three different generations via different perspectives and art languages."
It is also the first time that 35 shortlisted works in the digital and experimental categories are shown at the exhibition.
For example, the experimental installation "Zhuang Sheng Dreams of Butterfly" uses digital technology to reshape the artistic expression of oriental philosophies. A combination of reality and illusion, the work tries to evoke the viewers to rethink about the traditional culture.
Date: Through February 25 (closed on Mondays), 10am-6pm
Venue: China Art Museum
Address: 205 Shangnan Rd
