Echoes: Chengdu New Visual Art Documentary Exhibition

Over the past 20 years, starting with the 1985 New Wave art movement, Chengdu has become an important breeding ground for Chinese contemporary art. Being a substantial part of Chinese contemporary art and running parallel to the emergence of many new outstanding painters, a group of new visual artists has made its entry into the Chengdu art world. Performances, installations, videos and other means handed down by the new media have become their language of expression. Over the years, these artists have built up a considerable collection of artistic works and have found their way to numerous exhibitions. This leaves us today with a huge amount of exquisite works. These works and activities have gained an independent value and have become an indispensable source for the history of Chinese contemporary art.

 

Echoes: Chengdu New Visual Art Documentary Exhibition wants to record this piece of history. The exhibition will give a rather exhaustive academic survey of new visual art in Chengdu and will promote the communication and interaction between Chengdu’s new visual art and Chinese contemporary art. Through the listing, ordering and publishing of artistic material, this exhibition aims to make an important contribution to the study of new visual art in Chengdu.

 

1000 PLATEAUS ART SPACE is an art space dedicating itself to the research, exhibition, publication and collection of experimental projects related to contemporary Chinese art. With its proactive development and introduction of philosophy, sociology, architecture as well as other disciplines, it creates a multi-layer communication platform and an arena with a variety of activities. 1000 Plateaus Art Space will also play an active role in the launching of international cooperation projects.

 

In the light of the above described history and driven by a commonly shared passion and interest for new visual art in Chengdu, we present today this exhibition and documentary catalogue. We fully realize the limited scope and weight of an organization as ours. Our exhibition should consequently be seen as a start, a point of departure that can lead to a further in-depth research of Chengdu new visual art.

 

On the presentation of the documentary catalogue of our opening exhibition, I would like to thank all the theoreticians, artists and staff members that have greatly contributed to the research, redaction and correction of the catalogue.