Chinese Printmaking Today
Woodblock Printing in China 1980-2000
First Art Exhibition at the British Library
In association with the Muban Foundation
The British Library, London
7 November 2003 - 7 March 2004



Biggest Ever, Best Yet
The British Library is to host the biggest ever exhibition in Europe of contemporary, post-Cultural Revolution Chinese woodblock prints, by leading artists from the whole of mainland China. Comprising around 200 prints from over 90 artists, the exhibition will highlight the contemporary re-evaluation of a traditional Eastern art form.

An intriguing insight into the way in which the relative political freedom which began in the 1980s has affected artists' work, the exhibition is curated by Chinese print expert Anne Farrer from prints selected from the collection of the Muban Foundation of London.

Chinese Printmaking Today will showcase this huge variety of formats - from vast images shown through multiple sets of hanging scrolls to single sheet prints, and from the tiny to the monumental. The wide range of woodblock printing techniques includes multi-block colour printed works using water-soluble and oil-based inks, as well as embossing, ink-rubbing and reduction-printing.

The Artists
The artists, who range in age from 20s to 80s, tackle a wide range of subject matter, from landscapes to abstracts. Among them are the celebrated installation artist Xu Bing, whose work includes an invented, unreadable language of pseudo-Chinese characters, and self-taught artist Song Enhou, who makes workers and factories the subject of his colourful prints.

Breaking Ground
Frances Wood, Head of the Library's Chinese Collections, said: "The British Library is a uniquely appropriate setting for this ground-breaking exhibition of Chinese woodblock prints. Our Chinese collections are unrivalled, with material dating back 3,000 years, including the well-known Diamond Sutra (868AD), which is one of the oldest examples of printing in the world."

Woodblock printmaking has a long and distinguished history in China, and in the Far East in general. Chinese Printmaking Today shows how contemporary artists have embraced this traditional form, engaging with it in new ways. At the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), printmaking in China was dominated by a range of subject matter based on earlier social-realism and politically correct romantic realism.

Creative Explosion
This exhibition shows how there has been a creative explosion, with artists developing both traditional forms and new categories of prints. They express modernism through the representation of architectural subjects, realism in portraiture and figure studies, and more lyrical styles depicting landscape and natural subjects, as well as post-modern conceptual work.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a 208-page catalogue fully illustrated in colour, compiled and edited by Dr Anne Farrer, who runs the MA in East Asian Art at Sotheby's Institute of Art, London, and who formerly curated the Chinese print and painting collection at the British Museum.

Catalogue is Source Book
Written by a group of specialists in the field including David Barker (University of Ulster), Beth McKillop (British Library) Qi Fengge (from the People's Republic of China) and Frances Wood (British Library), the catalogue will include essays, biographies of the artists, histories of the Chinese arts academies and an extensive bibliography. As well as providing a detailed guide to the exhibition, the book will be the most comprehensive source book to date published in English on contemporary Chinese printmaking.

A varied and extensive programme of events will also be staged, including a dedicated study day on November 15 with lectures and demonstrations on woodblock printing by London-based artist Xu Zhongmin.

Films, Gallery Talks, Big Scroll, Too
There will be an opportunity to see one or two renowned films made in China over the last 20 years, with English subtitles, and a creative research fellow will be appointed to work with educational audiences in responding imaginatively to the exhibition. As well as gallery talks in the exhibition and a programme of events for young people, Sichuan artist Xu Zhongou will be printing a ten-metre scroll depicting village life from a series of woodblocks brought from China.

The exhibition will be opened by His Excellency, Mr Zha Peixin, Ambassador of the People's Republic of China to the United Kingdom, at a reception at which some of the artists will be present. Admission is free. Exhibition hours are: Monday, Wednesday-Friday 09.30-18.00, Tuesday 09.30-20.00, Saturday 09.30-17.00, Sunday and Bank Holiday Mondays 11.00-17.00. The British Library's permanent exhibition galleries are open free of charge. All galleries are accessible by wheelchair. Information can be requested from Visitor Services staff on 020 7412 7332. For further information about the British Library and its exhibitions please see www.bl.uk

About The Muban Foundation
The Muban Foundation of London was set up in 1997 by Christer von der Burg and the late Verena Bolinder. The Foundation works to raise the profile of Chinese printmaking in the West, and to revitalise the field in contemporary China. The Foundation's name 'Muban' means 'woodblock' in Chinese. Its collection comprises Chinese prints spanning hundreds of years, with outstanding holdings of 20th century printing.


The Artists
An BinA GeBan LingChao MeiChen HaiyanChen LongChen QiChen XuhaiChen YixinChen YupingDai ZhengshengFang LijunFang LiminFeng ZhaopingFeng ZhongtieGao HuaGao RongshengGu ZhijunGuan WeixiaoGuang JunHan LikunHao PingHao QiangHe KunHe WeiminJi SchichengJia LijianJiang BiboKang NingKong FanjiaKou YanmingLi YanpengLi YaqinLi YiliLi ZhongLiang DongLin ZhiyaoLiu YuhuiLou ZhuhuPan MinShao KepingShen RoujianShi YiShi YongjunSong EnhouSong Yuanwen Su XinpingTeng YufengWang 		 

 

BingWang ChaoWang HuaxiangWang JieyinWang JinxuWang QiWang WeixinWang WenmingWu HaichengWu JideXiang SilouXu BingXu KuangXu ZhongminXu ZhongouYan HanYan ZhongYang ChunhuaYang FengYang KeyangYao TianmuYing TianqiYu ChengyouYu QihuiYuan QingluZhang ChaoyangZhang FengZhang GuanghuiZhang HhaijiangZhang HongxunZhang JiaruiZhang MinjieZhang SongzuZhang YuanfanZhang YueZhao YannianZhao ZongzaoZheng ShuangZheng ZijiangZhong ChangqingZhou BaopingZhou DongshenZhou Shengua

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