A visitor at a work by Li Xianhai 
The show, dubbed ?Openness and Integration?, contains 120 oil paintings, traditional Chinese ink paintings, graphic works and sculpture from the collection of the National Art Museum of China.
 
The Museum of Fine Arts has never hosted such a large temporary exhibition, nor has China ever sent such a big collection of contemporary to Europe, said museum director László Baán. Hungary?s role as a bridge between East and West is especially important, and this show is a significant element of this, he added.
 
National Art Museum of China deputy director Ma Shulin said the exhibition, which can be seen exclusively in Budapest, was divided into three sections and started in 1978, with the close of the Chinese cultural revolution.
 A visitor at a work by Wu Tong depicting charecters of the Beijing Opera
 
The show of the best contemporary works from the National Art Museum of China?s collection is reciprocation for a show of several hundred works by contemporary Hungarian artists in Beijing in 2011.
 
Asked by a journalist about the absence of work by the well known artist Ai Weiwei in the show, the Chinese deputy director said the pieces were picked based on aesthetics not politics, thus some work criticises the events that occurred during the cultural revolution and others express criticism of today?s society.
 
Yi E, the show?s curator, said the work of 125 artists would be on display as some of the pieces were joint efforts.
 
The exhibition?s first section, called ?The Adversities of Time?, contains work created after the return of artists that had been exiled from their profession, work that depicts real people and real lives instead of idealised workers and farmers.
 
The section called ?The Poetry of Nature? shows the return to traditional Chinese landscape painting, an art in which the landscape is a reflection of the internal world of the painter.
 
?The Delights of the Diversity? focuses on a new golden age for both traditional genres and contemporary trends.
 
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI) / Photo: MTI