White Rabbit’s Reformation Exhibition

By Benjamen Judd

Book Accommodation Official Website

There is an unending supply of art exhibitions that go above and beyond the standard of amazing at the moment. Whatever you’re doing Sydney, keep it up! One such awesome collection is Reformation, which is currently showing at White Rabbit Gallery in Chippendale.

Reformation explores the vibrant and tumultuous cultural shifts that have taken place behind the façade of contemporary China. Reforms are the trademark of modern China. Few nations have changed so much so fast, or been so traumatised in the process. In the 1890s, an emperor who ordered Western-style reforms was overthrown by his courtiers. In the mid 20th century, the Maoists reformed China by force, killing all who stood in their way. When that project failed, Deng Xiaoping launched a counter-reformation, easing the Party’s grip on people’s lives and “opening up” China to the world.

Artists revelled in the change and in the freedom to try new things. Contemporary art was alien to China, its idioms and vocabulary borrowed from the West. But its boundless possibilities fired their imaginations. With energy, wit and finesse, they set about taking contemporary art to the limit—and teaching it to speak Chinese.

More than 50 works, including painting-sculptures, mechanical art, sensor-linked videos, and installations on an architectural scale will be on display. Most have never been shown in Australia, and many were created in the past year or two. Here under one roof are the best of China’s new contemporary artists: confident, audacious, commercially savvy, the boldest experimenters in what the head of China’s national art academy calls “the most experimental country in the world”.

Reformation is now showing at White Rabbit Gallery until August 3.