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University brings contemporary Chinese art to Liverpool

Monday 5 February 2018

THE very best of Chinese contemporary art will be on display in Liverpool, just steps away from the most significant exhibition ever to come out of China.

PRESENCE: A Window into Chinese Contemporary Art, curated by the University of Salford’s arts collection team, will feature work from 19 of the most exciting emerging and established artists who hail from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and the diaspora. 

The exhibition, opening to the public at St George’s Hall on Friday 9 February, coincides with the hotly anticipated China’s First Emperor and the Terracotta Warriors Exhibition at World Museum which features more than 180 artefacts from Shaanxi Province in North West China, most of which have never been on show in the UK before.

The free PRESENCE exhibition includes sculptures, paintings, installations, videos and photographs and will take over the vaults of the Grade I listed Hall – an area not generally open to the public. 

First time collection displayed in full

All works in PRESENCE belong to the University of Salford Art Collection and this is first time the New Collection of Chinese Contemporary Art has been displayed in full.  The Collection has been developed largely in partnership with the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art in Manchester, but also with Liverpool’s Open Eye Gallery.

If China’s First Emperor and the Terracotta Warriors Exhibition presents the culture from 2,000 years ago, PRESENCE looks to the future and tells a story of ‘now'

University of Salford Curator, Lindsay Taylor, said: “It is a true privilege to be exhibiting the University of Salford Art Collection in such an iconic building in my home city, Liverpool. 

“This is the first time we have shown the New Collection of Chinese Contemporary Art in its entirety and the venue provides a perfect combination of intimate galleries and spectacular spaces hidden in the catacombs beneath St George’s Hall.  

“As we are installing the exhibition we are seeing the individual works in a new light, and can fully appreciate the breadth and importance of our evolving collection. What links these two exhibitions is the desire to tell human stories and to reflect on different periods of history. If China’s First Emperor and the Terracotta Warriors Exhibition presents the culture from 2,000 years ago, PRESENCE looks to the future and tells a story of the ‘now’.”

Luke Ching, Cao Fei and Wu Chi-Tsung are among some of the showcased artists, with the pieces covering the themes of consumerism, technology, connectivity and the individual’s place in the world today.

The Chinese century

Artist Cao Fei said: “Chinese contemporary art has become an indispensable component of global art. By promoting, showing, researching, disseminating and collecting, the University of Salford and CFCCA play an important role in the interaction and communication between Chinese and British contemporary art. I look forward to showing my work to audiences in Liverpool.” 

The University of Salford’s Art Collection is distinctive in that it has an active acquisitions policy focused on three strands: ‘About the Digital’, ‘From the North’, and ‘Chinese Contemporary Art’. 

Recognising that we live in the Chinese century, the Art Collection developed a partnership with Manchester’s Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art (CFCCA) and its New Collection of Chinese Contemporary Art continues to grow and commission new work.

PRESENCE: A Window into Chinese Contemporary Art will run until 3 June 2018, opening from 10am – 5pm, Wednesday to Sunday.