Since its foundation in 2007, the ArtChina Gallery has been dedicated to contemporary art in China. Numerous group and solo exhibitions of established but also young artists give an insight into the diverse and vital art scene that developed in the post-Maoist era (since about 1979).
In a country that is still shaped by the communist form of government, but which is clearly under the influence of the consumer-oriented Western world, the artists do not reflect on social changes without humour and irony. In doing so, they deal with their own national identity and specific art history, which can look back on millennia-old traditions, but which also includes the socialist realism prescribed by the state until the late 1970s. The themes that the artists deal with, such as the importance of the individual in a society that understands itself as socialist, the effects of globalization or the clash of Western and Chinese culture, often take shape in colourful imagery and signal an opening to the international art world, but without adapting to it.
It is precisely this combination of figurative representation inspired by Pop Art and the critical content conveyed above that is also what makes the gallery’s focal point and which becomes visible in the originals, edition graphics and photographic works presented there.
