This summer, the two floors of Art Museum Tennis Palace will be filled with contemporary Chinese photographs. The exhibition A Strange Heaven will introduce some 42 artists from China, Taiwan or Hong Kong. The pictures are from the last 15 years and form a comprehensive presentation of Chinese art photography, which has never been shown as extensively in Finland.

In the past ten years, contemporary Chinese painting, video art, installation, music and architecture have established themselves on the international art scene. In contrast, Chinese artists have only been using photography since the 1990s when it evolved into an independent art form in China.

The principal themes of the exhibition are founded on the diversity of contemporary Chinese reality. The works deal mainly with individual identity, family and society in an ever-changing present. Many of the works are also visibly influenced by ancient cultures and philosophical traditions, and others by recent political upheavals. China’s economy has been expanding rapidly for some decades, which has led to unanticipated social change. This, too, is reflected in the works, which deal with problems that are new to China: urbanisation and globalisation. Many of the artists also deal with the universal problems of sexuality, sensuality and gender.

The exhibition was compiled by Galerie Rudolfinum in Prague and its curators are Chang Tsong-zung and Galerie Rudolfinum’s director Petr Nedoma.

The exhibition includes a richly illustrated 188-page catalogue, with articles by Petr Nedoma and Chang Tsong-zung.

Guided tours: Guided tours free of charge in Finnish on Wednesdays at 18 o’clock, on Saturdays and Sundays at 14 o’clock and in Swedish on the first and third Sunday of every month at 15 o’clock. To book a private tour at another time or in another language, please call tel. +358 9 310 87003.