In China, it is amid urbanization that contemporary art registers development. Guangdong, as the frontier of reform and opening up, as well as the frontier of artistic innovation and development, has provided a stage for contemporary art creation with its open posture and vitality. Examining the Pearl River Delta in the context of globalization, or focusing on global contemporary art and cultural phenomena from the perspective of the Pearl River Delta, has become a unique phenomenon of cultural research.

By including the domestic urban clusters with Beijing and Shanghai as the core in the frame of comparison and expanding the frame to cover Asia and the Western art arena with Eastern elements, this exhibition hopes to examine the relationship of mutual re-flection, delve into this geographical power structure, and probe the diversity of cultural networks in the south and their cross-boundary communication and connection. In fact, the view of the interweaving of multiple centers increasingly represents the key trend. The many centers, like stars, form chains, which then form webs, thus eliminating rigidborders. The “south”, though based on geographical cognition, transcends this regional construction, and becomes more of a creative perspective. Especially, we try to study, review and present the artistic practice conducted in the deeply-connected historical, ideological and cultural relations that are unfolded from this perspective.

Curator /Director of the School of Arts and Humanities, GAFA
Hu Bin