Chinese Art in Akureyri

Chinese Art in Akureyri

The largest overview exhibition of Chinese art held in Iceland will open at the Akureyri Art Museum in northeast Iceland on May 17. Among the artists represented in the exhibition is Zhang Xiaogang, one of the biggest names in Chinese contemporary art.

“It is the most valuable exhibition that the Akureyri Art Museum has ever organized,” Hannes Sigurdsson, the museum’s director, told Morgunbladid. “The artwork will be sent here in a giant container with heat and moisture control, GPS equipment and a digital lock on the inside because the insurance value of the exhibition is more than ISK 1.7 billion [USD 22 million, EUR 14 million].”

“A newspaper in Icelandic will be published [relating to the exhibition] and distributed free of charge and a 250-page book in Chinese and English,” Sigurdsson said.

The Akureyri exhibition is part of an international traveling exhibition and after it closes in Akureyri the Chinese artwork will be displayed in Austria, Norway, Finland, Sweden, and finally, China.

Sigurdsson said that the attention of the art world has been directed towards China over the past few years and therefore the price of Chinese art had taken a swift upturn.
IcelandReview