Celebrated editor, publisher and art collector Larry Warsh recently gifted 56 works of Chinese photography to the Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis.
This spring, the museum will publicly display 43 of those works, all made between 1993 and 2006, for the first time. “Looking Back Toward the Future: Contemporary Photography from China,” on view Feb. 27 to July 27, will explore how a generation of avant-garde Chinese artists used large-scale photography and ephemeral performance art to visualize changing urban and social landscapes, capturing and criticizing Westernization and the disappearance of genuine Chinese history and culture. The photographs employ a diverse range of photographic methods unique to this moment in Chinese history.
“This gift constitutes a major expansion of the Kemper Art Museum’s holdings of contemporary Chinese art,” said Sabine Eckmann, the William T. Kemper Director and chief curator at the Kemper Art Museum. “It substantially expands the representation of global voices within the museum’s permanent collection and contributes to Washington University’s study of Asian art and culture. We are extremely grateful to Larry for this generous gift.”
Warsh began collecting Chinese photography more than two decades ago, during a trip to Beijing. “These artists were grappling with some of the most critical issues of their time, and yet their work remains little seen, both in China and in the West. It is important for me to help shine a light on this critical transitional moment in the history of Chinese art.”