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Each year the global prominence of China in economics and culture increases. China's cultural presence is so large today that it is hard to imagine that the first major presentation of Chinese art outside China was in the 1993 exhibition China's New Art, Post 1989, which was followed by the 1998 exhibition Inside Out: New Chinese Art.

Jiang Jian
Zhao Lanying, 74, Hui County,
Henan, 1997

Bates College is proud to be a leader in supporting the emerging field of Chinese contemporary art. Documenting China: Contemporary Photography
and Social Change was one of three such exhibitions, including the site-specific Xu Bing: Calligraphy for the People and Wenda Gu: From Middle Kingdom to Biological Millennium presented at the Bates College Museum of Art.

It has been a great honor to work with internationally renowned curator of photography Gu Zheng on this exhibition. The Museum is overwhelmed by the generosity of the artists Zhou Hai, Jiang Jian, Zhou Ming, Liu Xiaodi, Zhang Xinmin, Luo Yongjin, and Lu Yuanmin who donated their work from the exhibition to the Bates College Museum of Art collection.

This exhibition represents a unique moment in the history of China and will forever be treasured as a special collection within the permanent collection. It is a magnificent visual representation of a culture shifting and turning as it negotiates its local and global role in the twenty-first century.

Mark H.C. Bessire
Director
Bates College Museum of Art
Lewiston, Maine