2025-10-21 15:44
A last-minute cancellation led the
nonproft to pull together a timely new exhibition of contemporary Chinese works in just a few months.
“Metamorphosis: Chinese Imagination and Transformation,” an exhibition of contemporary Chinese works, is on view at the China Institute Gallery through Jan. 11. Daniel Terna for The New York Times
By Shivani Vora
Last October, the China Institute in Lower Manhattan found itself in an unexpected bind: the fall 2025 exhibition it had been planning for almost three years could no longer move forward because of a partner museum's change of plans, and it had a void to fill. The organization's gallery committee decided to pivot to a show of contemporary works and asked the veteran independent Asian art curator Susan L. Beningson, a committee member for more than a decade to step in. “We want to bring in a younger audience," the China Institute's chief executive George Geh said.
The independent Asian art curator Susan L. Beningson selected works that she felt would challenge visitors to rethink their preconceptions of Chinese art.
The resulting show, “Metamorphosis: Chinese Imagination and Transformation," came together in just over six months, he added - a time frame that amounts to light speed in the art world, especially for a show of this scope, which is typically conceived two to three years in advance.
The other site-specific commission, which also bears the title “Metamorphosis: Chinese Imagination and Transformation," is a series of wall paintings by the artist Sun Xun. They too have spiritual references and immerse visitors in a sea of shimmery gold-leaf murals, where crabs, lobsters and Buddhist figures float in dreamlike
scenes on the walls of the gallery's foyer and adjacent stairwell.
To create the piece, Beningson said, Sun paired Chinese ink and pigments made from natural materials, such as crushed rose petals and walnut shells, with more contemporary Western materials like acrylic and gold leaf.
The multimedia artist, who was born in Fuxin, a former coal-mining hub in the northeastern province of Liaoning but now lives in Beijing, has had several solo exhibitions, recently at the Guangdong Times Museum in Guangzhou.
Despite China's strict government censorship, Alexandra Munroe, a senior curator of Asian art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and a founder of the Guggenheim's Asian Art Initiative, described the country as “one of the greatest centers of contemporary art expression anywhere in the world across all mediums."
Yet as Beijing increasingly turns inward, opportunities to see new Chinese works in the United States are becoming fewer and farther between, Owen Duffy, the Nancy C. Allen curator and director of exhibitions for Asia Society Texas in Houston, said, making the China Institute's show“urgent, because the channels of dialogue between the U.S. and China are contracting."
Related Artists: SUN XUN 孙逊
Facebook
Instagram
WeChat 微信