This weekend is the last chance to catch one of the most interesting art exhibitions in town, even though the show in question doesn’t have a single actual art work on display.

What there is at the Wall Art Museum, though, is the private archive of noted curator, Gao Minglu, telling the story of the seminal China/Avant-Garde Exhibition, which had its all too brief run twenty years ago this month. That show is often referred to as the No U-turn exhibition – because of the logo that appeared on the invitations (which are now collectors items). Maybe it's also because looking back we can see that, despite everything, since then there has been no turning back for Chinese contemporary art.

Looking at the roll call of artists who participated is to be amazed at the sheer range and depth of artistic talent on display. Xu Bing; Zhang Xiaogang; Fang Lijun, Wang Guangyi and Su Xinping are just some of the artists who were virtual unknowns when they appeared in the exhibition and yet today are amongst the most collected artists in the world.

In the current exhibition you can read and see all the struggles that the artists and curators went through to get the exhibition into the hallowed halls of the National Art Museum of China (better known to us as the Meishuguan and which today still stands virtually un-changed in Wusi Dajie) There are wonderful photos of the multiplicity of meetings the artists held from Beijing to Huangshan to the relaxed environs of  the “Special Economic Zone” of Zhuhai, where they sweated over how best to display the extraordinary upsurge of artistic endeavour that marked the late 1980s.

But the highlight is the photographic reproductions of the works that were exhibited twenty years ago, many of which appear as vital and challenging today as they did then.

When the exhibition opened twenty years ago there was exhilaration – Chinese contemporary art, the participants felt, had finally arrived. Only ten years before, in 1979, the Stars Group of artists (whose alumni include such fixtures of today’s scene as Ai Weiwei and Huang Rui) had been politely shown the door when they suggested exhibiting at the Meishuguan. Famously they decided to exhibit their works on the railings outside the building instead and accordingly found themselves staging the very first contemporary art exhibition ever to be held in China (the thirtieth anniversary of which we will celebrate this September).

 In the end, of course, the China/Avant-Garde exhibition lasted only a few days – brought to a chaotic close at the hand of one of its own artists, Xiao Lu, whose armed assault on her own work proved too much for the Meishuguan. Ever since Xiao has claimed she thought her gun was loaded only with blanks. But her all too real bullets, and the bomb scare that followed a couple of days later, delivered the coup de grace to the historic show.
 

Today you can make your own judgement on the China/Avant Garde Exhibition, without the distraction of bullets or bomb scares.

Which is not to say the current exhibition has been staged entirely without incident. The opening day two weeks ago was enlivened by Xiao Lu turning up, without her gun this time, in full wedding regalia to hold a mock wedding. Accompanied by a traditional Chinese wedding band – and some caged doves – Xiao proved she still knows how to make an entrance.

Earlier in the day, Beijing’s authorities proved the French adage plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, when they refused permission for a twentieth anniversary event to go ahead at the National Agricultural Exhibition Center (read more courtesy of the LA Times. Gao Minglu found himself with a serious case of déjà vu as he addressed the locked out crowd that milled outside. But the reaction was more bemusement than dismay, and the assembled artists and their friends repaired to the Wall Art Museum near the new CCTV Headquarters on Dongsanhuan to celebrate nonetheless.

It’s often remarked that the '80s in China was like the '60s in the West, which should mean that if you remember the decade you weren’t actually there. At the opening two weeks ago the artists disproved that adage at least.  They were there twenty years ago and are still here today, older and wiser maybe, but memories as sharp as ever.

Links and Sources
Wall Art Museum: Twenty Year Anniversary of China Avant Garde Exhbition
Yu Hong's Sina Blog: Images from the show (images)
Yu Hong's Sina Blog: Images of Xiao Lu arriving in wedding dress
Review.artintern.net: Image of sign out the front of exhibition