Facing other cultures

Tsinghua University's Tour-Portrait exhibition may be over, but the show's culturally diverse works can still be experienced virtually, Lin Qi reports.

The temporary shutdown of museums amid the COVID-19 pandemic has deprived people of visiting exhibitions. Fortunately, virtual tours of art shows, whether they have ended or are coming to a close, are still available online to provide people an approximate on-site experience.

Tsinghua University Art Museum, for example, has recently made digital the Tour-Portrait, an exhibition for which the curtains came down on Sunday. However, it continues on museum's website and WeChat account, where people can navigate the exhibition which has been divided into two parts.

It gathers more than 100 paintings and sculptures made by 80 artists from seven member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, namely, China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India is also a member.

When artists around the world adopt more angles and use a wider range of mediums to produce work, the form of the portrait, either painted or sculpted, has lost its position of dominance. But, portraits continue to play an important part in the work of the artists from the countries featured at the exhibition, allowing them to delineate the mentality of their people and ever-changing social realities.