2025 East and West: International Dialogue Exhibition – From Shanghai to Rome
Curated by Gabriele Simongini and Zhang Xiaoling
The exhibition 2025 East and West: International Dialogue Exhibition – From Shanghai to Rome, curated by Gabriele Simongini and Zhang Xiaoling, is organised by the Ministero della Cultura, the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts and the Shanghai Artists Association, and produced by Zhong Art International. The exhibition is held under the patronage of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Italy, the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze, the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma and RUFA – Rome University of Fine Arts, with the support of Shanghai University.
Featuring more than seventy works by over forty artists, 2025 East and West: International Dialogue Exhibition – From Shanghai to Rome is centred on a comparison between Chinese artists from Shanghai and the historical collection of the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea: a dialogue with works by major Italian artists of the twentieth century who are particularly well known and highly regarded in China, and who are considered absolute masters in the East, to be admired and studied with respect. The exhibition therefore brings together works by Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Amedeo Modigliani, Carlo Carrà, Giorgio de Chirico, Giorgio Morandi, Alberto Burri, Lucio Fontana, Jannis Kounellis and Mario Schifano, offering a concise overview of an entire century through a wide range of different visions—from Futurism to a post-metaphysical suspension, from Art Informel to the Scuola di Piazza del Popolo and Arte Povera. These works are presented alongside works by internationally renowned contemporary artists such as Maurizio Cattelan and Rudolf Stingel, as well as emerging artists who establish a multifaceted dialogue: Daniela De Lorenzo, Alessandro Piangiamore, Emanuele Becheri and Davide Rivalta.
The works on display reveal a combination of technical perfection and images of powerful visual impact, formally charged with intensity. Numerous references to Chinese cultural traditions emerge throughout the exhibition. Structured around three progressive thematic sections—“Reflections of Space-Time”, “Expansion of Thought” and “Generation of the Imaginary”—the exhibition brings together a plurality of historical perspectives, transformations of media and contemporary perceptions, creating a field of dialogue that traverses culture, history and inner experience.
The first section, “Reflections of Space-Time”, explores how, from the twentieth century to the present day, Chinese and Italian artists have addressed the processes of modernisation, investigating the reconstruction of cultural identity and the renewal of artistic language between the spiritual continuity of tradition and contemporary visual collisions. “Expansion of Thought” focuses on the transformation of materials, media and conceptual languages: through sculptures, installations and constructive paintings, the artists transform “materiality” into a metaphor for the structure of thought and reality, giving form to a narrative of the present that is at once perceptive and rational. Finally, in “Generation of the Imaginary”, the works are rooted in local experience, urban memory and individual narratives, generating social landscapes and psychological scenarios in which abstraction and figuration intertwine.
By building a new bridge with China, 2025 East and West: International Dialogue Exhibition – From Shanghai to Rome celebrates differences and distinctive characteristics without seeking a single, uniform consensus; rather, it aims to embrace every possibility precisely within diversity. The journey from Shanghai to Rome represents a profound intersection of the simultaneously distinctive and universal languages of East and West, transcending boundaries between tradition and the future, between East and West.
On the occasion of the 55th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Italy and China, the exhibition 2025 East and West: International Dialogue Exhibition – From Shanghai to Rome, curated by Gabriele Simongini and Zhang Xiaoling, is organised by the Ministero della Cultura, the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts and the Shanghai Artists Association, and produced by Zhong Art International. The exhibition is held under the patronage of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Italy, the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze, the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma and RUFA – Rome University of Fine Arts, with the support of Shanghai University.
Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts
Founded in 1912 as the Shanghai School of Fine Arts and re-established in 1959, the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts embodies the spirit of modern Chinese art, rooted in the important “Haipai” (Shanghai School) painting tradition. Today, under the leadership of its current President Zeng Chenggang—who is also President of the Chinese Sculpture Society—the Academy offers four first-level doctoral programmes, two postdoctoral programmes, seventeen three-year undergraduate degree programmes and eight teaching departments, as well as a national experimental teaching demonstration centre. With two active campuses and a new main “Baowu” campus currently under construction, the Academy is committed to an educational vision founded on the values of “For the people, for art, for life, for the city”, working towards the goal of establishing a world-class academy.