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A groundbreaking exhibition on contemporary art and China.
Exhibition

Art and China after 1989

Theater of the World
November 10, 2018–February 24, 2019
Floor 7

Bracketed by the end of the student protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989 and the Beijing Olympics in 2008, Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World presents works by more than sixty artists and artists’ groups that anticipated, chronicled, and agitated for the sweeping social transformation that saw the rise of China as a global power in the new millennium. The exhibition examines conceptually based performances, paintings, photographs, installations, videos, and socially engaged projects that question consumerism, authoritarianism, and the rapid development transforming society and China’s role in the world, placing their experiments firmly in a global art-historical context. The artists serve as both skeptics of and catalysts for the massive changes unfolding around them, and their work continues to inspire new thinking at a moment when questions of identity, equality, ideology, and control have pressing relevance.

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Exhibition Preview

a man dancing in the aisle of a store
wooden box containing glass plane and crumpled newspaper
a pained portrait of two men in front of Chairman Mao
Naked bodies lying on top of each other on a mountain
black and white image of a person wearing an opera mask
three black and white photographs of a man dropping a vase
painting of men biking and pulling two dead penguins

Cao Fei, Whose Utopia, 2006 (still); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, purchased with funds contributed by the International Director’s Council and Executive Committee Members; © Cao Fei

Huang Yong Ping, The History of Chinese Painting and A Concise History of Modern Painting Washed in a Washing Machine for Two Minutes, 1987 (reconstructed 1993); collection Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, T. B. Walker Acquisition Fund, 2001; photo: Kristopher McKay, © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 2017

Liu Wei, Two Drunk Painters, 1990; collection SFMOMA, gift of Vicki and Kent Logan; © Liu Wei

Cang Xin, Duan Yingmei, Gao Yang, Ma Liuming, Ma Zhongren, Wang Shihua, Zhang Binbin, Zhang Huan, Zhu Ming, and Zuoxiao Zuzhou, To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain, 1995 (production still); courtesy Zhang Huan

Liu Zheng, An Old Peking Opera Actor Playing a Female Role, Beijing, from the series The Chinese, 1995 (printed 2006); Williams College Museum of Art, Museum purchase, Wachenheim Family Fund

Ai Weiwei, Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, 1995 (printed 2017); courtesy Ai Weiwei Studio

Wang Xingwei, New Beijing, 2001; M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong, by donation; photo: courtesy M+, Hong Kong

SFMOMA 101: China, Film, and Society

Leading local voices address the global Chinese diaspora’s artistic and cultural impact on the everyday lives of its more than sixty million people.

a man dancing in the aisle of a store See All


Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World is organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York.

Major support for Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World is provided by Diana Nelson and John Atwater, and Susy and Jack Wadsworth.

Generous support is provided by Shannon and Dennis Wong, and Akiko Yamazaki and Jerry Yang.

Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World is made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This exhibition is organized by Alexandra Munroe, Samsung Senior Curator, Asian Art, and Senior Advisor, Global Arts, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and guest co-curators Philip Tinari, Director, UCCA, Beijing; and Hou Hanru, Artistic Director, MAXXI, National Museum of 21st Century Arts, Rome. At the Guggenheim, Xiaorui Zhu-Nowell and Kyung An provided curatorial research and support.

The curators worked with an international advisory committee that has met under the auspices of the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, and the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing.

The SFMOMA presentation is organized by Rudolf Frieling, curator of media arts; Gary Garrels, Elise S. Haas Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture; and Eungie Joo, curator of contemporary art.

Header image: Cao Fei, Whose Utopia, 2006 (detail of still); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, purchased with funds contributed by the International Director’s Council and Executive Committee Members; © Cao Fei