“One and All: New Artistic Styles of Contemporary Painting” which debuts at the National Art Museum of China, features 35 major works by 35 Chinese artists specialised in painting, each conveying the vitality and movement of the medium through their sincere efforts.

The 35 artists from those born in the 60s and 70s to the 90s who are invited to this exhibition include Cai Zebin, Chen Fei, Chen Zuo, Chen Ke, Cui Jie, Duan Jianyu, Han Bing, Hao Liang, Huang Yuxing, Jia Aili, Liang Yuanwei, Liu Cong, Liu Xiaohui, Lu Chao, Ouyang Chun, Pu Yingwei, Qiu Ruixiang, Qiu Xiaofei, Song Kun, Su Yu-Xin, Sun Yitian, Tang Yongxiang, Wang Guangle, Wang Mai, Wang Xingwei, Evelyn Taocheng Wang, Wei Jia, Xia Yu, Xie Nanxing, Xu Hualing, Chris Huen Sin Kan, Xue Ruozhe, Yan Bing, Zhang Yexing, and Zhang Zipiao.

The ensemble of the works on show this time outlines the transformation period in contemporary Chinese art since 2000. Post-70s artists are characterised by their rigorous and rational creative consciousness, with a focus on wholeness, historicity, narrative, cultural essence and spirituality. In contrast, post-80s and post-90s artists tend to focus more on individual narratives and experiences, visually presenting concreteness, diffuseness and uncertainty.

In this vein, executive curators Wang Jing and Evonne Jiawei Yuan explore a concrete issue: “How can the production of image in painting maintain its self-discipline as an aesthetic object and convey sociality in a similar way to an artificial language, despite the ever-changing technological realities? Therefore, to convey the intertextual and speculative relationships between different works as much as possible, while fully interpreting the thematic concepts, the exhibition presentation follows the logic of alternating collage and mirror. The exhibition reasserts on one hand the attraction and penetration power of painting; while on the other hand presenting artworks in a non-focused, multi-perspective relationship to avoid any explicit narrative intention from interfering with the perception of the subtle painting context. The fundamental intention of the exhibition is to use these unique and fresh cases to illustrate that painting today is a means of posing questions rather than providing solutions.”

Co-curation with Yi Ying and Wang Jing.

Venue: Natonal Art Museum of China, Beijing

Dates: 2024.4.6–16