On April 24, the "Today at Sea" Yangtze River Delta Young and Middle-aged Art Invitational Exhibition and the "Today in Vienna" Activating the Future - Vienna Contemporary Art Exhibition opened simultaneously at the Shanghai Shanghai Art Museum. This is not only a renewal and upgrade of the "Today" series of exhibitions independently planned by the Shanghai Shanghai Art Museum, but also a unique form of dialogue to build a bridge for in-depth cultural exchanges between the East and the West.
Entering the Shanghai Art Museum, from the exhibition hall on the first floor to the exhibition site on the second floor, the audience shuttled between the Yangtze River Delta art and Austrian contemporary art, feeling the collision and fusion of the two cultures. They can see the inclusiveness, grandeur and beauty of the art world in the Yangtze River Delta region, and can also clearly feel the exploration, speculation, elegance and warmth of Austrian art, bringing a different artistic aesthetic experience to the audience.
As a high-quality academic exhibition brand of Shanghai Art Museum, the "Today" series of exhibitions has been deeply rooted in the cultural fabric of Shanghai city with its academic positioning and open and inclusive attitude since its debut in 2023, building a multi-dimensional dialogue bridge between art and the public, tradition and contemporary, region and the world. Exhibition chief planners Li Lei and Zhang Jianhua said that after two years of development, this art exhibition brand attempts to realize a dialogue field between China's Yangtze River Delta and European art in a more grand pattern, and realize the deep collision and integration of Eastern and Western art.
Exhibition Hall
Today's Sea: Seeing the Cultural Heritage and Innovation Power of the Yangtze River Delta
The Yangtze River Delta region, as an important part of China's economy and culture, has a profound and unique cultural heritage. The gentle poetry of the Jiangnan water town and the innovative vitality of the modern city blend and collide here, giving birth to generations of talented artists. The "Today's Shanghai" Yangtze River Delta Young and Middle-aged Art Invitational Exhibition can be regarded as a grand tour of the artistic achievements of this fertile land. The exhibition brings together more than 210 masterpieces by 120 young and middle-aged artists in the Yangtze River Delta, covering multiple art forms such as Chinese painting, oil painting, sculpture, lacquer painting, watercolor painting, installation, comprehensive materials, and new media. In these works, there are both innovative breakthroughs in traditional techniques by artists and new explorations of artistic conception. Li Lei, director of the Shanghai School of Art and vice chairman of the Shanghai Artists Association, said that these works show the rich aspects of artistic creation in the Yangtze River Delta from three different sections: "concepts and attitudes", "inheritance and innovation", and "technology and art", reflecting the adherence of Chinese contemporary art to cultural roots and thinking about the future.
"Today at Sea" Yangtze River Delta Young and Middle-aged Art Invitational Exhibition
"Drunk in Yellow Leaves" Chen Weibing, ink and color on paper, 2020
In the exhibition, we can see that artists use their keen observation to capture slices of the times: some use documentary photography to freeze the details of the integration of urban and rural areas in the Yangtze River Delta, some use installation art to present interpersonal connections in the digital age, and use unique artistic language to explain their artistic views and attitudes towards life. These works refuse grand narratives, but show the warmth of social change from a micro perspective, making art a "visual diary" for understanding the present.
Morning Makeup Cao Gang Oil on canvas 2022
In terms of the "creative" transformation of traditional culture, Shanghai culture is a product of diverse integration. In the exhibition, artists reinterpreted traditional elements such as ink painting, intangible cultural heritage, and gardens with contemporary techniques: or reconstructed landscape patterns with deconstructionist techniques on rice paper, or used artificial intelligence technology to make Suzhou embroidery patterns "grow" in digital space. Academic host and well-known critic Zhu Guorong said, "As far as traditional art is concerned, it has been constantly changing and updating with the progress of the times in the development of thousands of years. In the early 20th century, Western culture spread eastward, and the integration of Chinese and Western cultures formed a new art form, which later became a tradition. The contemporary expression of tradition is actually the inheritance of art. The so-called keeping the integrity and making innovations means that the good things of tradition cannot be abandoned in innovation, that is, the artistic laws of brush and ink, character, freehand brushwork, and imagination."
"Lone Pine in Huangshan" Gu Cunyan Ink on paper 2024
In the technology and art section, we can see that technology's empowerment of art is increasingly becoming a point of interest for artists. Many works combine real life with artificial intelligence, philosophical concepts with inner emotions in the expression of themes, bursting out with the innovative vitality of the cross-border integration of art and technology, reflecting the 2.0 version of the era.
"Chinese Map of Xi'an Ink Painting" Si Shanglin, wood board and acrylic, 2018
Regarding the exhibition series "Today's Sea", curator Chen Yi said that both curating and setting up the exhibition brought him excitement and passion for secondary creation. "This is the pride and honor that belongs only to curators. It is a complete integration with the artists and their works, and the works interpret the temperament of the artists. Listening carefully, the cries from hundreds of works of art, and the air in the exhibition hall, constantly condense brilliance and extraordinaryness."
"Today at Sea" Yangtze River Delta Young and Middle-aged Art Invitational Exhibition
"Vienna Today": Activating the Future and Presenting Austrian Contemporary Art
The "Vienna Today: Activating the Future - Vienna Contemporary Art Exhibition" was also exhibited. It was curated by Austrian curator Margarita Sandhoff and fully presented the thriving ecology of Austrian contemporary art. The exhibition, with a framework full of speculation and aesthetic tension, brought together multiple media such as painting, sculpture, photography, video, fashion and digital art, and brought together 27 contemporary artists - both internationally renowned artists who represented Austria at the Venice Biennale and emerging cutting-edge forces, many of which were specially created for the exhibition.
Shanghai Art Museum "Vienna Today: Activating the Future - Vienna Contemporary Art Exhibition"
According to Margareta Sandhofer, the core of this exhibition is to explore the evolving relationship between humans, nature and technology, in which "nature" is seen as a comprehensive, living system. Through artistic exploration, the exhibition reflects on this dynamic interaction in a serious and critical manner, but also in a humorous and ironic way.
Elisabeth von Samsenoff, Woman in a Landscape, 2020, Museum copy, giclee print, Photo: Leo Pluschkowitz
The exhibition opens with a giant installation by Maja, which transforms an abandoned oil pipeline into a forward-thinking artistic statement. Elisabeth von Samsenoff’s poetic photography delves into the connection to the earth, while Angelica Loedler’s bronze sculptures create an aesthetic harmony. Matthias Keller’s work confronts dystopian landscapes, while Lena Kienzel combines industrial topography with artistic creation. Sevda Chikutova’s delicate ink paintings merge human and animal images into a harmonious unity.
Georgia Kramer, Untitled (for Shanghai), 2024, photography, black ink on wall, Vienna, 2025
Georgia Kramer creates a utopian interior that combines natural and artificial qualities, while Dorothea Goltz merges the past, present and future in her digital paintings. Augmented reality works by Eva Schlegel, Valerie Metheny and Damjan Minovsky blur the boundaries between virtual and real. Georgia Kramer returns with an installation of two giant hands reaching towards each other, conveying a message of hope, while Otto Zitko's lithographs unleash the autonomy of line in dynamic self-empowerment.
Silke Grabinger, Convergence, 2024, video, sound, loop, 2 minutes and 4 seconds, Silke Grabinger in collaboration with the Circus of Knowledge and the Institute of Robotics at the University of Linz, Vienna, 2025
Silke Grabinger’s performances with robot dogs create equal and ecstatic encounters between humans, animals and machines. Gerwald Rockenschio’s animations explore the ambiguous alliance between nature and fiction, while Nina Rick Springer’s photography documents the world’s increasingly abstract trajectory. Claudia Rachner collaborates with AI to generate futuristic floral still lifes, and her video work imagines a visionary symbiotic triad between humans, plants and AI. Iris Andrasek’s paintings hover between myth and reality.
Joy, Iris Andrasek, 2025, pastel and ink on parchment, Vienna, 2025
At the end of the exhibition, painting makes a strong comeback: in addition to Christian Schwarzwald's blurred paintings, the works of Eva Berezin and Olga Sheblikina hover between dreams and disorder. Heimo Zobernig transfers painting to the digital realm, while Gunter and Loredana Selihar make the fading nature itself the creator of abstract paintings.
The curator said that "Vienna Today" invites the audience to discover new perspectives through aesthetic encounters, respond to urgent issues with art, and build a bridge for dialogue between cultures. Through aesthetic experience, the exhibition aims to inspire progressive thinking and a vision for the future.
The exhibition will run until May 25th.