Exhibition Name: "The Camel Bell from north of the Great Wall - A Special Exhibition on Northwest Sketches and Dunhuang Paintings from the 1940s by Guan Shanyue in the Collection of the Museum"

Exhibition location: 2nd floor of Shenzhen Guan Shanyue Art Museum

Exhibition period: August 20, 2020- June 26, 2021

Organizers: Shenzhen Guan Shanyue Art Museum and Dunhuang Research Institute

Co organizer: Guan Shanyue Art Foundation

Special Fund Support Project for the Development of Propaganda and Culture in Shenzhen

The northwest has witnessed the brilliant civilization of the Chinese nation and is a hub of the ancient Silk Road and the intersection of Eastern and Western cultures. However, with the changes in history, the northwest was once blurred in the visual focus of the world. In the 1930s, the pressure of the Anti Japanese War and the crisis of the nation forced us to face, understand and comprehend the Northwest again, and explore the cultural foundation of the medieval era. Especially with the discovery of Dunhuang, artists such as Li Dinglong, Zhang Daqian, Zhao Wangyun, Chang Shuhong, Guan Shanyue, Zhang Zhenduo, Dong Xiwen, Wu Zuoren, and Han Leran traveled thousands of miles to the northwest to seek the traditional context of national art and protect the dignity of national art; Travel to Dunhuang for sketching and investigation of copying. Their efforts have enhanced people's cultural identity and confidence in multi-ethnic countries, and promoted the modernization of Chinese art.

In 1943, Guan Shanyue and his wife, along with Zhao Wangyun and Zhang Zhenduo, went through difficulties and traveled back and forth, passing through the Hexi Corridor, entering the Qilian Mountains, leaving Jiayuguan, and arriving at Dunhuang to copy murals. In this extraordinary journey of sketching, Guan Shanyue gained a visual experience completely different from the Lingnan region. The unique style of Dunhuang murals, the magnificent northwest scenery, and the peculiar customs of multiple ethnic groups injected new vitality into his works. The Guan Shanyue Art Museum, based on the collection of Guan Shanyue's 1940s northwest sketches and Copying murals in Dunhuang, collaborated with the Dunhuang Research Institute to launch a special exhibition. The exhibition has been selected for the 2020 National Fine Arts Museum Collection Exhibition Season by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

We attempt to explore and study the Northwest sketching of Guan Shanyue and Copying murals in Dunhuang from a new perspective, in order to re understand the difficult exploration and practice of that generation of artists. This inspires us to reflect on issues such as tradition and modernity, inheritance and development, and local and global relations; At the same time, it also provides new resources for the development and value construction of Chinese art in the new era.   Through this exhibition, we hope to place Guan Shanyue's northwest sketching and Dunhuang painting on the profound accumulation of the history and culture of the Silk Road, providing specific humanistic nourishment and support for the construction of the "New Silk Road Economic Belt", and melting the power of culture into the historical process of promoting the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.