Our Home—The Belt and Road Nation’s Art Exhibition

Shanghai Art Museum
Del 3 de noviembre de 2020 al 31 de marzo de 2021
Shanghai · República Popular China

Miscegenation
Oil on canvas
100 x 140 cm
2016

On the afternoon of November 2nd, Our Home—The Belt and Road Nation’s Art Exhibition was solemnly opened at Shanghai Art Museum, an event organized by China Artists Association and Shanghai Art Museum. This exhibition is specially designed to facilitate the 3rd China International Import Expo (CIIE). It strongly supports key exhibition projects of China, so as to give full play to culture and art in strengthening people-to-people exchanges and promoting the idea of a community with a shared future for mankind. Guests attending the opening ceremony included FENG Yuan, Vice Chairman of China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, Honorary Chairman of China Artists Association, Deputy Curator of CPC Central Research Institute of Culture and History, and Consultant of Shanghai Art Museum; CHEN Tong, Vice Mayor of Shanghai; TAO Qin, Deputy Secretary of Leading Party Members Groups and the First-class Inspector of China Artists Association; MA Shulin, former Deputy Director of National Art Museum of China and Director of Academic Committee of Shanghai Art Museum; GAO Yunfei, Vice Minister of Publicity Department of Shanghai Committee of the Communist Party of China; HANG Chunfang, Deputy Secretary of Leading Party Members Groups and Deputy Director of Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture and Tourism; and HAN Chenqing, Deputy Secretary of Leading Party Members Groups and Deputy Chairman of Shanghai Federation of Literary and Art Circles. They were also joined by representatives from consulate generals of Laos, Fiji, Slovakia, Uruguay, Cuba, Poland, Italy, Ukraine, Hungary and United Arab Emirates in Shanghai, and guests from various art institutions, art galleries and art colleges in Shanghai and from Yangtze River Delta Art Museum. SHEN Jie, Executive Curator of Shanghai Art Museum, presided over the opening ceremony.

TAO Qin delivered a speech at the opening ceremony on behalf of China Artists Association, one of the organizers of the event. Ms. TAO stressed that it was of great significance for us to gather together here in this beautiful autumn. This showed a great achievement made by all the Chinese people, who fought arduously against Covid-19 in the past few months under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee. President Xi Jinping pointed out when delivering a speech at CIIE that “what is traded is goods and services, and what is exchanged is culture and ideas”. This was in line with the main purpose of CIIE. The theme of this exhibition, Our Home, was closely connected with the great idea and efforts of building a community with a shared future for mankind, to which all exhibits from nearly 70 partner countries of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) could attest. Unfolding the landscapes and customs of partner countries via artworks created by artists from various countries, the exhibition aimed at presenting the status quo of art development in these countries and giving full play to art in promoting cultural and people-to-people exchanges. Moreover, this exhibition also showed the profound understanding and proactive response of the art circles to the BRI put forward by President Xi and the main purpose of CIIE. Then, Ms. TAO said that among more than 200 artworks in this exhibition, over 140 were created by foreign artists, of which 94 were works donated to the Beijing Biennales and then collected by the Chinese Artists Association. These were the most suitable works selected from nearly 700 collections of the Beijing Biennales. They proved that artists from all over the world recognized the curatorial concepts and academic standards of the Beijing Biennales and that the Beijing Biennales could follow closely the trend of the times and establish relevant themes. She hoped that collections and exhibitions, together with CIIE, could join hand in hand to show the generosity, kindness and commitment of China as a major country.