Page 50-51 - Annual Review 2009

Reveal
51
The China Project
28 March – 28 June 2009, GoMA
For two decades, the Queensland Art
Gallery has been committed to examining,
exhibiting and collecting the art of Asia and
the Pacific, perhaps best known through the
Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art
series. In focusing on the contemporary art
of just one country, ‘The China Project’ gave
key works a fresh context. Comprising three
interconnected exhibitions, ‘The China Project’
demonstrated the richness and complexity of
the contemporary art of China and its diaspora
since the early 1980s. ‘Three Decades: The
Contemporary Chinese Collection’ brought
together, for the first time, works from the
Gallery’s internationally significant holdings
of contemporary Chinese art.
‘The China Project’ also presented the first
major solo exhibition in Australia of work by
Zhang Xiaogang, co-curated by distinguished
Beijing-based curator Leng Lin, and a site-
specific commission by photographer and
performer William Yang. Together, the
exhibitions featured more than 220 art works,
and were supported by talks, tours, education
programs, dedicated activities in the Children’s
Art Centre, and a major screening program
surveying three prominent Chinese directors —
Xie Jin, Zhang Yimou and Jia Zhang-ke. Almost
118 000 people visited GoMA during the
13-week exhibition season.
The exhibition was sponsored by Ausenco. Funding was
provided through the Queensland Government Exhibition
Indemnity Scheme, administered by Arts Queensland.
Wang Qingsong / China Red 2008–09 / Installation view, ‘Three Decades:
The Contemporary Chinese Collection’ / Gift of the artist through the
Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2009
William Yang presents an artist’s talk. ‘William Yang: Life Lines’
was one of the three exhibitions which comprised ‘The China Project’.