The Painted Screen: Past and Future

The Painted Screen: Past and Future
画屏：传统与未来

Dates: Sep6 - Dec 6, 2019
Location: Suzhou Museum, Suzhou city, Jiangsu province

Organized by Suzhou Museum and curated by Wu Hung, an art history professor with the University of Chicago, the exhibition was China’s first large display of painted screens.

In ancient China, painted screens were an important painting format and also a piece of furniture widely used to partition off building space as well as decorate houses.

The exhibition juxtaposed modern and past, focusing on the unique art format of the painted screen. In the ancient part of the exhibition, 93 exhibits fell into three units themed on Screens and Ritual Space, Painted Screens, and Paintings Depicting Screens. Items on display included unearthed objects, furniture, architectural components, and traditional Chinese paintings.

Ten of the exhibits werefrom Suzhou Museum’s collection and 83 antiques were on loan from 18 domestic and foreign museums, such as the Palace Museum, Shanghai Museum, and Nanjing Museum, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

In the modern part, 14 groups of art works created by nine contemporary artists were displayed, including ink paintings, sculptures, installations, photography and behavioral art.

Suzhou Museum also provided online resources to the public. A symposium on painted screen and art appreciation courses were held during the exhibition.