Linking East and West, confirming the attention that the National Archaeological Museum dedicates to China: the exhibition “The contemporary for archeology : Chinese artists at MANN ”, promoted by the Zhejiang Art Museum.

This is not a new foray by the Museum into the culture of the country of the dragon: in fact, a year has passed since the opening of the great exhibition “Mortali Immortali. The treasures of Sichuan in ancient China "(December 2018 / March 2020) which presented, for the first time in Europe, 130 artifacts, dating from the Bronze Age (2nd millennium BC) to the Han era (2nd century AD) ); last spring, again, the museum collections were enriched by the sky ladder Cai Guo-Qiang, who set up his solo exhibition following the “explosion” made in the Pompeii Amphitheater.

Thanks to the exhibit " The contemporary for archeology ", the MANN is projected towards 2020, the year of the "Rat", with a particular, learned and curious path: about seventy works are presented in three different sections, entitled, respectively, "Ancient imagination", "The evidence of the image on history" and "Incidendo nel tempo".

The starting point of the exhibition, the dialogue between East and West, playing on the subjects and constituent elements of the works: the six contemporary artists, who exhibit in the first section, create their works in paper, with a reference to the historical origin of the work. and the manufacture of this material.

Among the most particular creations, presented at the beginning of the exhibition, “There is no Essence- Hercules”, a reproduction of the Farnese Hercules signed by Ho Yoon Shin (born in 1975, famous for his paper and metal sculptures); the re-proposal (strictly on paper) of the Michelangelo figure of the "Night" of the Medici Chapels, as well as the amusing "flip-flop", "stretch" and "openable" heads of Li Hongbo; the work “The evolution series” by Qiu Zhijie, which recreates, on a paper surface, the footprints of fossils.

In the second part of the exhibit, the charm of ancient Chinese books predominates (some date back to the Han dynasty and the Ming dynasty), precious for binding, workmanship, filigree and illustrations: these works are compared with the contemporary reinterpretation of Zhang Xiaofeng.

A large appendix dedicated to modern oriental prints closes the exhibition: by recovering ancient paper processing techniques, the artists “engrave over time” , using the same support (paper) to tell new visions.

In the last section of the exhibition, landscapes and demons of nature are re-proposed with techniques that refer to the past: among the images, "Smoke-like color" by Wang Chao stands out, a winter landscape in which the mountain profiles are indefinite (Chinese or European ? Ancient or modern?).