With The China Moment, the documenta Institute is focusing on a crucial phase in contemporary Chinese art. The 1980s marked the beginning of a period of profound political and economic change. Influenced by Deng Xiaoping’s reforms, a new artistic language emerged that combined individuality, social participation and humanistic perspectives. At the same time, China’s opening up and increasing international networking offered new spaces for artistic experimentation and exchange with global discourses on individualism and social transformation.
The exhibition shows how art not only reflected social developments, but often anticipated them. It reveals how the relationships between the individual, the state and society shifted and what social energies, collective experiments and individual self-concepts emerged during this period. Using archival materials, painting, photography, video, installation, sound and performance, The China Moment presents itself as both a research project and an exhibition: archival and narrative at the same time. It presents not only works of art, but also the social contexts in which they were created – from spontaneous gatherings and illegal exhibitions in apartments to experimental club and performance scenes. The China Moment spans the period from the 1980s to the present day and examines how art in China reflected society during a phase of profound transformation – against the backdrop of a shift from globalisation to the multipolar present.
Participating artists:
CAO Fei & OU Ning, CHEN Shaoxiong, Datong Dazhang, HAN Lei, HONG Hao & YAN Lei, JIANG Jie, KAN Xuan, LIN Yilin, Living Dance Studio (Wen Hui), MA Liuming, New Measurement Group (Gu Dexin, Wang Luyan, Chen Shaoping), NI Haifeng, SUI Jianguo, WANG Molin, TONG Sze Hong, ZHAO Chuan, WANG Bing, WANG Guangyi, WANG Tuo, WANG Youshen, WU Wenguang, XIAO Lu, ZHAO Yinou, ZHENG Guogu, ZHOU Tiehai, ZHUANG Hui
The exhibition catalogue accompanying the exhibition includes new contributions by Mi You, Su Wei and Anna-Lisa Scherfose, as well as republished historical texts by Wang Hui, Zhao Dingxin, Qin Hui, Zhang Xudong, Yang Guoqiang, Hong Zicheng and Wang Wei, some of which appear in English for the first time. Curated by Su Wei, Mi You and Anna-Lisa Scherfose.