SLIDE/SHOW*: PROJECTIONS AND CONTEMPORARY ART IN CHINA

Co-produced by the Institute for Photography and the UCCA Centre for Contemporary Art (Beijing), where it was shown in 2023, *Slide/Show. Projections and Contemporary Art in China is making a stop at the Frac Grand Large (Dunkirk) for its first European presentation.

Curator: Holly Roussell, Curator, UCCA Centre for Contemporary Art (Beijing)

An exhibition by the Hauts-de-France Institute of Photography, co-produced with the UCCA Centre for Contemporary Art (Beijing).

In China, from the 1980s onwards, against a backdrop of transformation and greater openness to international exchange, art-historical texts and images from the rest of the world began to circulate. At the same time, the reopening of art schools and the emergence of independent art groups spurred a shift characterised by experimentation, the assertion of the individual and new conceptual practices. Easily transportable and reproducible, the slide thus played a central role: initially a medium for transmission and exchange, it also became a strategic tool for shaping the discourse of the artistic avant-garde.

Bringing together leading figures in Chinese contemporary art, this exhibition — co-produced with the UCCA Centre for Contemporary Art (Beijing) and presented for the first time in Europe — highlights the fundamental role of photographic projection in the development of contemporary art in China, from the Cultural Revolution to the 2010s.

* Slide show

Artists: Song Dong (1966–), Wang Gongxin (1960–), Zhu Jia (1963–), Lin Jiahua (1953–), Geng Jianyi (1962–2017), Liang Juhui (1959–2006), Zhang Peili (1957–), Lin Tianmiao (1961–), Wang Wei (1972–), Li Yongbin (1963–), Wang Youshen (1964–).