Avant-garde photography showing at Centre Pompidou × West Bund Museum
Barbara Kruger, Untitled, (Savoir c'est pouvoir, Knowledge is Power), 1989, colour silkscreen print on paper, purchase, 1989, Collection Centre national des arts plastiques
Jef Wall, "Picture for Women," 1979, cibachrome, purchase, 1987, Centre
Pompidou, Paris, Musée national d'art moderne - Centre de création industrielle © Jef Wall
The exhibition "Another Avant-garde. Photography 1970-2000" is showing at the Centre Pompidou × West Bund Museum. It features the highlights of the photography collection of the Centre Pompidou.
For the first time in decades, key works from the period between 1970 and 2000 are presented together to revisit the established story of photography's success in the art world. Precisely by juxtaposing different works, from small conceptual pieces to large tableaux, from single photographs to experimental video works, the exhibition proposes to look at the wide spectrum of artistic possibilities of the camera.
The exhibition puts special emphasis on works from China, supported by a number of loans that establish a dialogue between different histories of the avant-garde.
Hong Hao, "Mr. Hong Usually Waits Under The Arch for The Sunshine," 1998, inkjet print, courtesy of the artist
The exhibition begins with a view back on the first avant-garde of the1920s, whose originality, playfulness, and self-reflexivity are echoed in what is presented as another avant-garde in the following galleries.
It continues with documents of performance art and conceptual art and acknowledges the importance of other artistic practices to popularization of photography in the 1970s.
With the grand tableaux of the 1980s and 1990s, the journey arrives at a decisive development of art history: the return to figuration. After decades of the primacy of abstraction, photography offered artists the means to turn again to the physical world. However, rather than relying on a straightforward documentary style, artists explored the intricacies of the complex creation and reception of images and their importance in society. The exhibition concludes with an outlook on contemporary photography and digital media in a continued interrogation of the status of the photographic image.
If you go:
Date: Through February 25, 2025 (closed on Mondays), 10am-5pm
Venue: West Bund Museum
Admission: 120 yuan
Address: 2600 Longteng Ave
龙腾大道2600号
