A New Dynasty - Created In China

A Chinese view of China and a major new installation created for ARoS by the legendary dissident artist Ai Weiwei. This is what the exhibition A New Dynasty - Created in China presents to the public.

ARoS has handpicked 24 contemporary Chinese artists to showcase a diverse bouquet of painting, installation art, video, sculpture and photography for the exhibition A New Dynasty - Created in China. The exhibition breaks with the West's clichéd perception of China as a Made in China culture by presenting the participating Chinese artists' views on China. Major themes such as Chinese nationalism and freedom of expression run as undercurrents through the spectacular artworks.

A New Dynasty - Created in China is a visual, thought-provoking and inspiring encounter with China as it is today. The artworks will give the audience unique keys to understanding a world that is both familiar and foreign to us; the complex and nuanced phenomenon of China.

With this exhibition, ARoS highlights the selected artists' working methods and offbeat approaches to the Chinese reality and emphasises the political and social discrepancies that characterise China: the social elite versus the masses and the communist ideology versus the country's rapidly growing market economy.

Xu Bing (b. 1955):

Xu Bing's installation 1st Class, 2011 consists of 500,000 Chinese cigarettes arranged in an intricate pattern so that from a distance the cigarettes resemble a large tiger skin. The tiger is central to Chinese culture as a symbol of health, strength and prosperity. Xu Bing thus creates a contrasting relationship between the symbolism of the installation - the powerful tiger - and the actual content of the artwork - the hazardous cigarettes. China is the world's largest consumer and producer of tobacco. 43 per cent of the world's cigarettes are produced in China. In addition, over 300 million Chinese, across all social classes, are smokers.

Maleonn (b. 1972):

In his project Mobile Studio, 2012, Maleonn used the social media Weibo to invite all of China to stage himself. The project produced 1,600 images and took up 1 year of Maleonn's life, travelling across the Chinese empire. Mobile Studio simultaneously actualises a global social trend: the culture of self-staging, while at the same time the democratic nature of the project cancels the class division of China and allows high and low to meet in fiction. Mobile Studio presents China as a series of creative, imaginative and humorous individuals whose dreams, thoughts and imagination are universal in nature.

Yin Xiuzhen (b. 1963):

Yin Xiuzhen often works with recycled materials in her sculptures and art installations. As part of his project Portable Cities, Yin Xiuzhen is creating a new work for the exhibition A New Dynasty - Created in China - a 3D suitcase installation of the city of Aarhus made from local discarded textiles. Yin Xiuzhen is concerned with personal memory. She considers memory to be the most important root of humanity in the modern world - especially in a country like China, where social and structural changes are happening at a rapid pace.

Ai Weiwei, Peng Wei, Chen Danqing, Sui Jianguo, Shao Fan, Zhang Xiaogang, Li Songsong, Zhang Dali, Jing Kewen, Wang Yuanzheng, Chen Fei, Miao Xiaochun, Zhang Xiaotao, Xu Bing, Guan Fengdong, Liu Jianhua, Maleonn, Chen Xiaodan, Ji Wenyu, Zhu Weibing, Feng Feng, Yin Xiuzhen, Lam Laam Jaffa, Mao Tongqiang, Song Dong

The exhibition A New Dynasty - Created in China is on display from 21 November 2015 to 22 May 2016 in the special exhibition galleries on level 1 and level 6.

Curator: Erlend G. Høyersten, Museum Director, ARoS.

Exhibition Manager: Pernille Taagaard Dinesen, Curator, ARoS

External curators:

Curator: Feng Boyi

Curator: Bjørn Inge Follevaag

Curator: Wang Dong

Jyllands-Postens Fond

Aage og Johanne Louis-Hansens Fond

S. C. Van Fonden

Spar Nord Fonden

C.A.C. Fonden

Hilmar & Høgsberg Medierådgivning

Hotel Royal

ECU Nordic