Between Turbulence and Transformation - Contemporary Art in China Today

Contemporary art in China finds itself in a complex position. It enjoys both a global following and a domestic support base, yet finds itself outside the social mainstream. Its visual language is increasingly cosmopolitan, to such an extent that some critics have begun to ask what makes it specifically Chinese. It is embraced by certain official institutions and academies, yet still constrained by the pressures and sensitivities of both the political system and the market. What are the urgent questions facing artists in China today? How do they relate to earlier generations of artists there and to the international art world? What might the future hold?

Join us for this discussion among exhibition artist Qiu Zhijie, who has been active on the Chinese art scene as a writer, educator, and curator in addition to his own practice, since the early 1990s; the critic and Bentu, des artistes chinois dans la turbulence des mutations catalogue essayist Lu Mingjun, a young professor at Sichuan University who has extensively researched the new generation of Chinese artists; and Emmanuel Lincot, professor at the Institut Catholique de Paris and associate researcher at the Institut de Relations internationales et stratégiques (IRIS), specialist in contemporary Chinese political and cultural history; moderated by Bentu co-curator and director of the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art Philip Tinari.