Telling the story of modern and contemporary art, 27 young

Chinese artists will have a joint debut in the US next year thanks

to a cooperative program between the Tampa Museum of Art

and the Museum of Fine Arts, St Petersburg in Florida.

"Together, we recognized a unique opportunity to offer our

visitors a glimpse into the world of art in what is becoming one

of the most engaging and intriguing centers for art today," said

Todd Smith, executive director of the Tampa Museum of Art.

"This will be the largest and most significant engagement with

art from China in our history."

When Smith visited Beijing and Shanghai earlier this year, he was

struck by the freshness of the artwork he saw and the

wonderfully insightful way in which the many artists he met saw

the world within and outside of China, he said.

The exhibition focuses on a group of artists aged 26 to 37, he

said, because he felt that theirs were stories that he wanted

others to see and experience.

He began working with curator and art critic Barbara Pollack six

months ago on the original concept for this exhibition. Pollack,

who has been covering contemporary Chinese art for US art

magazines for years and began focusing on young, emerging

artists three years ago. Her book Wild, Wild East, which offers

readers a first-hand account of the expanding world of

contemporary Chinese art and the art market, was published in

2011.

Traveling to China, Pollack was so impressed by the work of

young Chinese artists and the fascinating lives they were

leading, that she caught "the bug" and wanted to do a show,

Smith said.

Earlier this summer the Tampa Museum of Art entered into a

partnership with the Museum of Fine Arts, St Petersburg to

present the exhibition in two parts, half at each of the venues at

the same time. In total, they will show about 50 works, some of

which will be created specifically for this show.

The museums are working with several other organizations to

organize a traveling show.

The exhibition is organized to highlight several important

characteristics of the art being produced by this young

generation, addressing issues ranging from the generation gap

and the difficulties of intimate relationships to the urbanization

of the Chinese landscape and pessimism about political

solutions.

In addition, the exhibition also argues that the commonly held

view of artists as narcissistic, apolitical, and unengaged needs

to be rethought.

"As the international art world has become more

interconnected and collectors around the world have greater

and greater access to information about artists around the

block and around the world, it is inevitable that collectors in the

US will grow in their interest and knowledge of contemporary

Chinese artists," Smith said.

"This exhibition is meant as an introduction for US collectors and

museum goers to a generation of Chinese artists who have

begun to establish careers within China, throughout Asia and

who have just started to find followings in the US and Western

Europe," he said.

Contemporary Chinese artists have begun to be shown fairly

regularly in galleries and museums in New York or Los Angeles,

but in a city like Tampa, most of US visitors have very little

knowledge about China's latest art movements.

"It is important to bring these artworks from China to our

museum-goers, and perhaps through this exchange, our visitors

will get a better understanding of what is happening in China,

beyond the news headlines," he said.

Many people in the US, even with little knowledge of Chinese

contemporary art, probably have the impression that Chinese

artists are still fascinated by the "cultural revolution" (1966-76).

But this younger generation goes beyond these first impressions,

creating works with a greater range of styles and issues, he said.

"I believe that these works, made in the last ten years, will be

more accessible to US audiences because they demonstrate a

wider range of individuality and personal expression," he said.

Younger artists are also more knowledgeable and comfortable

with international art movements and are therefore more easily

understood by Western audiences, he added.