A new exhibition at the Dunhuang Contemporary Art Museum in Shanghai brings together cultural relics excavated along the ancient Silk Road and new creations by contemporary artists from China and abroad.
Running until Oct 31, the exhibition How Long Is the Silk Road? is organized by the Shanghai museum and the Gansu Jiandu Museum, with support from the Lanzhou City Museum, Dunhuang Museum, and China Daily Culture Channel.
It features 65 precious cultural relics dating from the late Warring States Period (475-221 BC) to the Tang Dynasty (618-907), alongside 26 newly created artworks produced by artists who participated in a residency program in Dunhuang, Gansu province, in northwestern China.
Du Chenyan, director of the Dunhuang Contemporary Art Museum, stated at the opening on May 23 that the exhibition is not merely an inquiry into the length of a historical route, but a re-examination of the Silk Road's cultural exchanges through the lived experience of each artist. By juxtaposing ancient artifacts with contemporary art, the exhibition aims to immerse viewers in the historical context of the Silk Road and reflect on the continuous evolution of ancient civilizations in a modern context.
Dunhuang, a desert oasis, was an important trading town on the ancient Silk Road, where merchants traveling across Central Asia brought horses, glassware and spices eastward, and carried silk, porcelain and tea westward. The city is home to the renowned Mogao Caves, a network of ancient cave shrines built over centuries. Designated a UNESCO World Heritage site, the Mogao Caves are described by the UNESCO World Heritage Centre as "the largest, most richly endowed and longest-used treasure house of Buddhist art in the world".
During his residency in Dunhuang, artist Guo Hongwei followed in the footsteps of ancient painters into the mountains to learn how they made pigments from ground minerals.
He would spend an entire day at the mining pit, as if he were an ancient painter. But once he stepped out to where his mobile phone regained signal, "all of a sudden, you are overwhelmed by the flood of news and information, which pours over you like a wave of water but freezes, solidifying as it hits you … I want to capture that moment with my painting", he says of his inspiration.
The exhibition is arranged in five chapters. The first chapter presents the length of the Silk Road. Among the exhibits are jiandu — wooden and bamboo slips used in China for writing before paper was invented — excavated along the Silk Road.
On loan from the Gansu Jiandu Museum, which boasts the largest collection of Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) jiandu, these slips record the route and actual distance from one courier station to the next along the stretch of the Silk Road between Dunhuang and Chang'an (today's Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi province).
A hemp sandal dating to the same period is displayed beside a map and wooden documents. Xin Ran, one of the exhibition's curators, says, "We want to give a vivid impression of how people traveled before the transportation we know today came into existence."
The sandal is presented alongside a copy of an ancient painting depicting the Buddhist monk Xuanzang's pilgrimage to India. "You can clearly see that Xuanzang's sandals look very much the same as this one here," she says.
The second chapter explores the theme of journey, followed by three chapters that highlight the Silk Road's transcription, sounds and shadows. The exhibition uses guan (pass) as its spatial motif, transforming the ancient Silk Road's function as an interface for identity verification and information exchange into a physical installation that guides visitors to use their own bodily scale to perceive ancient interactions, according to curator Xu Huanzhi.
