Free exhibition of 20th-century Chinese art exploring how Han and non-Han artists have depicted nationality and ethnicity.
Sisters, Brothers, Others: Nationality and 20th Century Chinese Art opens at the Ashmolean Museum on Sunday 25 October, and it's on until Sunday 7 March, so you've got plenty of time to fit it in. It's in Gallery 11, and entry is free.
The exhibition looks at how Han and non-Han artists have dealt with nationality and ethnicity, and it starts from a specific fact: while most people in the People's Republic of China are Han, the country officially recognises 56 different 'brother and sister nationalities'. The show asks how artists from both sides of that divide have approached notions of 'self' and 'other' in their work, and it pulls together a wide range of pieces to do it — everything from political propaganda posters to intimate self-portraits.
A lot of this hangs over China's shift from an empire ruled by an emperor into a nation-state after the Manchu Qing dynasty fell in 1912. The Communist Party's solution was to grant minority nationalities cultural, linguistic and territorial autonomy within a majority-Han state, a system that shapes much of the art on display. You'll see woodblock and lithographic prints, oil and ink painting, posters, paper-cuts, matchboxes and books hanging alongside one another, so the scale jumps from the public and political to the small and personal.
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The artists featured include A Ge, Qijia Dawa, Pang Xunqin, Hu Peiheng and Pu Quan. It's a long run — open daily from Sunday 25 October to Sunday 7 March — and since it's free, you can take your time with it. You'll find it in Gallery 11 at the Ashmolean, Beaumont Street, Oxford OX1 2PH.
