Friday Tour: Beyond Boundaries

The Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago is a site for rigorous inquiry and exchange that encourages the examination of complex issues through the lens of art objects and artistic practice. Through strong community and scholarly partnerships, the Museum incorporates diverse ideas, identities, and experiences into its exhibitions and collections, academic initiatives, and public programming. The Smart first opened in 1974. Admission is always free.

Smart Museum of Art

Join Metcalf intern and curatorial assistant Tianhe Chen, alongside the Smart Engagement Fellow Ian Brundige, for a guided tour.

Join Metcalf intern and curatorial assistant Tianhe Chen, alongside the Smart Engagement Fellow Ian Brundige, for a guided tour of <a href="https://smartmuseum.uchicago.edu/exhibitions/beyond-boundaries" title="https://smartmuseum.uchicago.edu/exhibitions/beyond-boundaries" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Beyond Boundaries: Three Decades of Contemporary Chinese Art at the Smart</a>.<a href="https://smartmuseum.uchicago.edu/exhibitions/beyond-boundaries" title="https://smartmuseum.uchicago.edu/exhibitions/beyond-boundaries" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://smartmuseum.uchicago.edu/exhibitions/beyond-boundaries</a>

<h2>ABOUT THE EXHIBITION</h2>This exhibition foregrounds the University of Chicago’s pivotal role in studying and exhibiting contemporary Chinese art since the mid-1990s. In February 1999, Wu Hung, Harrie A. Vanderstappen Distinguished Service Professor of Chinese Art History at the university, opened his first exhibition at the Smart Museum of Art. Entitled Transience: Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the Twentieth Century (1999), the exhibition – and many more Wu curated in the ensuing years – was field-defining and forged new avenues for situating Chinese art within a broader global contemporary framework.Taking these earlier exhibitions as points of departure, Beyond Boundaries: Three Decades of Contemporary Chinese Art at the Smart reflects on the enduring adaptability of contemporary art from China as it continues to grow within and beyond cultural and academic institutions. Bringing together artworks acquired by the Museum over the last three decades, archival materials, ephemera, as well as new work, Beyond Boundaries explores how artists navigate and challenge physical limitations across cultural, environmental, and political terrains. Through strategies of fluidity, they confront dominant social expectations and political hegemonies – not only within a rapidly transforming China, but also amid broader global uncertainties. In doing so, Beyond Boundaries invites us to revisit fleeting moments, environments, and actions, and urges us to reconnect, return, and remember.

Beyond Boundaries: Three Decades of Contemporary Chinese Art at the Smart is organized in collaboration with the <a href="https://caea.uchicago.edu/" title="https://caea.uchicago.edu/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Center for the Art of East Asia</a> (CAEA).

<h2>IMAGE</h2>Wang Wei, 1/30th of a Second Underwater, 1999, chromogenic transparencies on translucent polyester base. Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, Purchase, Gift of Carl Rungius, by exchange, 2001.121d ©Wang Wei

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Friday Tour: Beyond Boundaries

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Friday Tour: Beyond Boundaries

Good to know

Location

Smart Museum of Art

How do you want to get there?

More events from Smart Museum of Art

Discover more events from Smart Museum of Art, from Arts to other experiences you might love.

Family Day: Zooming in and Zine-ing Out: What Does Science Mean to You?

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