Chinese Glass Between Memory and the Future

Transparent as water or opaque as jade, seemingly fragile yet capable of enduring through the centuries: glass is a material full of contradictions. At Beijing’s Today Art Museum, it takes centre stage in Cheng Gu · Ning Xin, an exhibition exploring how contemporary Chinese artists are reinventing an ancient tradition. Curated by Li Jing and organised by the Academy of Arts & Design at Tsinghua University, the exhibition brings together 110 works and groups of works. Its title captures the idea at its heart: Cheng means to clarify or make transparent, but also suggests looking back at the past in order to understand it, Ning, meanwhile, evokes condensation and the act of giving form to something new. The exhibition follows this movement between memory and experimentation. Three sections, Translating Tradition, A Language of Its Own and Expanding Expression, reveal how techniques handed down over time can be transformed into a distinctly contemporary language. The exhibition is worth visiting above all to discover how different glass can be from what we imagine: transparent or tactile, luminous or dense, delicate or surprisingly sculptural. More than a show about a technique, Cheng Gu · Ning Xin is a journey into Chinese creativity today, seen through one of art’s most fascinating and unpredictable materials.