New exhibition offers visitors a mix of artwork

Building (Xu Zhongmin)

The National Art Museum of China's current exhibition, Inter-vision, stimulates visitors' senses using various forms of media including paintings, videos and interactive facilities.

When people walk near Xu Zhongmin's Building, a 3-meter-high mechanical installation with flashing blue lights, it begins to rotate.

At Tsai Keun-lin's installation Underground Stream, viewers enter a cube in which the artist from Taiwan connects household appliances such as bathtubs and stools with dozens of plastic pipes.

Inter-vision is a huge experiment conducted by both sides of the Taiwan Straits to boost dialogue on contemporary art. Since 2009, NAMOC and the Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts have jointly presented a biennial exhibition at both venues to introduce new trends in the art landscape. Its previous two sessions bore the motif of Speak - Describe and Flourishing and Flowing.

“The word ‘inter-vision' has many extended meanings, such as communication, interaction, improvement and renovation,” says NAMOC's deputy-director Liang Jiang. “Art circles on the mainland and Taiwan both absorbed Western contemporary art by imitating it for a period of time. But to leverage our art to a higher level, we have to create original works and find a new language to express our true feelings and ideas.”

Lin Hsiao-yu, the exhibition's executive curator from Taiwan, says the theme is to present how artists reflect on traditions and respond with reality. “By performing experiments with different mediums, the artists are able to rethink the roles of technology and information in society, and they reinvent their memories and experiences,” Lin said.

The exhibition combines artwork from a mainland artists and one from Taiwan to juxtapose how various sub-cultures of Chinese origin stand up to the challenges of globalization.

Both Zhan Wang from Beijing and Lee Yi-hong from Taiwan highlight stones in their artwork. Zhan, a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, used stainless steel objects to create the illusion that visitors are walking in the universe's center. Lee's artwork resembles the light and shadows of the sea.

Lee has long been committed to traditional ink painting. He says he never thought about painting contemporary works just for the sake of “being contemporary”.

“I introduced contemporary elements into my works spontaneously, only after I experienced the booms of Modernism and Postmodernism. I still base my paintings on the lines of conventional ink-and-wash art. Then I employ the diverse languages of contemporary art and interweave multiple media to reinforce viewers' understanding of my works.”

It never occurred to Lee that his work would be juxtaposed with Zhan's, allowing their pieces to be interpreted in a more meaningful way.

Zhang says that although artists across the Taiwan Straits are from the same cultural origins and their works look similar, artists from Taiwan have given more profound thoughts to their subjects.

“I hope the communication can solve some common questions, particularly the problems of over-commercialization and restlessness in mainland's contemporary art scene,” he says.

IF YOU GO

Inter-vision: A Contemporary Art Exhibition across the Straits 2013

9 am-5 pm, no entrance after 4 pm, until Sept 25. National Art Museum of China, 1 Wusi Dajie Street, Dongcheng district, Beijing. 010-6400-1476.