In the past three decades since reform and opening up, China has been experiencing great changes day by day. People’s living quality in both materials and spirits is highly improved. With the increase of national power, some dreams of thousands of years are coming true. The constant success of Shenzhou Spaceship realizes our dream of flying in the sky, and above-sea bridges in Hangzhou and Qingdao fulfill our expectation for barrier-free transportation. With these admirable achievements, we can’t help feeling excited. Chinese people are creating an unprecedented history, and especially in the field of culture and arts, all measures are adopted to promote the development and prosperity of culture. Chinese artists, through their various excellent artworks, express their praise for lofty ideal, concern for humanitarian thoughts and humanism and pursuit of harmony among humankind, nature and society.
Thoughts about future and reality are undoubtedly the main resources for artists’ creation. Under a circumstance of economic prosperity and national security, artists are more prone to address the problems in the reality with vigilant awareness, which is just the case for Chinese artists who have undergone varied difficulties. Many of them take passionate part in life, focus on social reform and the following problems, and put forward solutions with their wisdom and artistry.
Therefore, Chinese artists gave positive and sensitive feedback to the theme of the 5th BIAB “Future and Reality”, and thousands of artists sent their plan and sketches to the organizing committee of BIAB. Moreover, the organizing committee specially invited several renowned artists to create or dedicate their recent quality artworks according to the theme. Based upon the two sources, 224 pieces or groups of works were finally selected by group discussion.
The subjects in the works have a large range, namely real life, historical incidents, social problem, literature, fable and landscape. As to art expression style in variety, realistic presentation is the majority with some few of abstract symbolism. Besides oil painting, print, gouache, water color and sculpture, there are a certain quantity of traditional Chinese paintings as well.
The subject of people and social scenery is a main characteristic of the participant works. Many paintings provide a vivid presentation of people from all walks of life in multiple perspectives, while some works of landscape or flower and bird as well as abstract paintings and sculptures still reflect the artists’ concern with contemporary people and their living conditions. Some convey their expectation for a better future, while others utter their criticism against the dark side in the reality.
