White Rabbit’s third stunning exhibition celebrates the explosive changes that have transformed Chinese art in the 21st century.

Entry to the World Trade Organisation ended decades of isolation and hurled China and its people head-on into the global economy. As controls on travel, Internet access and personal expression eased, contemporary artists lost no time making the most of their freedoms. No longer hemmed in by strict censorship or hypnotised by the figure of Mao, they applied their superb technical training to a dizzying array of new subjects, styles and media.

For younger artists, wired and Web-smart products of the one-child policy, artistic movements and political dogmas are old hat. If there’s a common theme in their work, it is change—social and cultural. If there’s a common perspective, it is ziwo, “I myself”.

The Big Bang surveys this artistic supernova through the work of 40 artists, including Wang Jianwei’s giant sculpture-video installation on the paradoxes of time and motion, Li Hongbo’s endlessly expandable cardboard Slinky-man, the exquisite “digital-print” oil paintings of Cao Xiaodong, Chen Fei’s sly commentary on the new religion of excess, and a room devoted to the contemporary artists of Tibet.

About the White Rabbit Collection and China's Artistic Big Bang

From “Dialogue”, by Wang Zhiyuan, in the Collection’s book, The Big Bang

How did the White Rabbit Contemporary Chinese Art Collection begin?

The Director, Judith Neilson, and I met in 1999, while I was still living in Sydney. We became acquainted as a result of her collecting my work. ... In the spring of 2006 [after I had returned to China], Judith brought her youngest daughter to Beijing for a holiday. I took them to visit several artists’ studios, where Judith acquired a few works. Beijing’s and China’s transformation left a very strong impression on Judith’s mind. A month after her return to Australia I received a call from her, detailing very clearly her plan to establish a not-for-profit collection of Chinese contemporary art in Sydney, and inviting me to help her make it happen. ... I never imagined that as time went by, the collection would grow into such a significant and magnificent project.

What was behind the decision to collect only works created in 2000 or thereafter?

The year 2000, as the turning point of a century and a millennium as well, has symbolic significance. It is also an important point in the process of China’s artistic opening-up, which is, of course, inseparable from the bigger changes taking place in the country. ... How are these enormous social changes manifested in art? These are the issues in which the White Rabbit Collection is most interested.

How are the post-2000 works chosen for the collection different from works done before 2000?

The environment Chinese artists now face is one of ever more complex “multiple antagonisms”: between environmental concerns and money worship, market and art, native and Western cultures, tradition and modernity, wealth and poverty. There is also the issue of people’s growing self-consciousness and the anxieties that result from it.

Chinese contemporary artists have entered an age that is anarchic yet diverse, vibrant and dynamic. The way in which social changes and changes in the creative environment are affecting art, and how they are reflected through art, is the focus of the White Rabbit Collection.

How significant is the White Rabbit Collection for driving contemporary Chinese art forward?

In a way, the White Rabbit Collection serves as a form of sponsorship for Chinese artists. Of course, China is very large, and White Rabbit alone is only capable of doing so much. I hope that many more private organisations, both in and outside China, will participate and contribute. Not only is the White Rabbit Collection providing spiritual envouragement for many artists, it is also bringing them financial support, making it possible for a limited number of artists to continue their creative pursuits. Every artist has a dream. But in art today, no dream can be realised without the backing of capital.