The Australia China Art Foundation (ACAF), Bridging Hope Charity Foundation and OCT Contemporary Art Terminal Shanghai announce their first collaboration in Australia, to mark ACAF’s inaugural exhibition in new Sydney-based creative space ACAF Art Terminal T1, in St. Leonard’s, North Sydney. “Degeneration” first opened December 2013 in Shanghai, curated by OCAT Artistic Director Mariagrazia Costantino, and overseen by OCAT Executive Director, new media luminary Zhang Peili. The exhibition showcases a group of China’s leading young media artists, all born between 1980 and 1987. Working across film, sound, projection, digital collage, sculpture and photography, together they demonstrate a persistent questioning of the senses, how we experience and form knowledge in the era of the fast-everything and how, through history and memory, we shape our idea of the world.

"Degeneration" perhaps also reflects the contributing artists refusal to be part of a "generation" within the confines of the current Chinese art world but to see themselves as part of a wider commentary on the whole evolving critical assessment of the plight of humans on the planet.

These are truly stunning works by some of China's most famous young contemporary artists and cinematographers. An experience that will stay in the mind and change the way many think of the Chinese perspective. A delight for the senses but a jolt for the mind.

Participating artists include Chen Wei, Chen Zhou, Cheng Ran, Guan Xiao, Hu Yun, Li Ming, Li Ran, Lu Yang, Ma Qiusha, Ye Linghan. For many of these artists, it is their first time showing work in the southern hemisphere.

ACAF Art Terminal T1 will feature a unique series of public programs in conjunction with “Degeneration”, including a discussion and panel with visiting curator Mariagrazia Costantino, and a teen workshop focused on producing a 15 second video work with smart phones, in response to Li Ming’s piece Nothing Happened Today, in addition to a scheduled talk by Wang Jianwei, Beijing-based artist who has become the first artist commissioned for the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Chinese Art Initiative at New York’s Guggenheim Museum. The commissioned work, which has the working title, “Wang Jianwei: The Texture of Reality,” will be exhibited in fall 2014.

-Australia China Art Foundation

Image: © Chen Wei
Broken Tomato
2009
Archival inkjet print
100 x 130cm