The Guggenheim exhibition: curator Weng Xiaoyu hopes the Greater China show will go beyond narrow Chineseness
Ten artists from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan have been asked to produce work for the New York museum’s Chinese art initiative
A select group of 10 Chinese visual artists has come of age to showcase their connections with the world of art in their debut at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
Last week, the renowned institution announced that five individual artists, a three-member group and a collaborative duo would produce new works for the Guggenheim’s collection by artists born in Greater China. The 10 come from the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
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“All except one has submitted proposals of their works for the exhibition that opens on November 4,” said Weng Xiaoyu, associate curator of The Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Chinese Art Initiative at the Guggenheim.
Weng, a Shanghai native who has been based in the US since 2008, recalled that the selection, which set no quota on the number of artists for each place, took her and her mentor, the Italy-based consulting curator Hou Hanru, some four months to finalise after on-site visits to artists and studios.
“The artists we selected show more of a universal than a nationalistic perspective of humanity, and that is in line with the museum’s focus on connection and relationship that is more important than singling out a country or a region,” she explained.
“They also share a common contemporary art language to express their ideas. So we are not working with artists expressing through traditional Chinese art such as calligraphy or ink painting, but artists using video, scripture and installation that are shared among contemporary artists globally,” she said.