How contemporary Chinese art mirrors change

New wealth, mobility, consumerism, spiritual emptiness, and the loneliness of only children are leaving their mark on Chinese art. At Bern’s Zentrum Paul Klee and Museum of Fine Arts, works by Chinese artists like Ai Weiwei and Zhuang Hui provide insight into the world of China in an exhibition called “Chinese Whispers”. “Chinese Whispers,” “Telephone,” or “Whisper Down the Lane” is the name of a game in which children sit in a circle and pass on a message by whispering it from one to the next. The fun of the game is that the original message is increasingly distorted from the first to the last message. As an educational exercise, the game shows how rumours and misunderstandings can arise and makes clear how unreliable oral communication can be in general. It is therefore particularly appropriate as a metaphor for discussing contemporary Chinese art – art that is alien to us because of the cultural, historical and political differences, but also increasingly ...