Modern Chinese painting looks back on a relatively short history. Since it first appeared in the global limelight, it has been marked by a turbulent development. In the early stages, Western influences were distinctly pronounced, albeit with some breaks. Painters placed emphasis on creating their own unmistakable trademarks. Artists saw the bizarre and the grotesque as welcome opportunities to emphasise their own features and arouse attention. The deformation of the familiar was, however, also an act of liberation from tradition and the doctrine of Socialist Realism, which was still highly present. Paintings of soldiers, workers, and farmers became a projection surface for ironic exaggeration.

Following this first phase, which is characterised by deformation and deconstruction in the mode of Western pictorial concepts, a certain consolidation can now be ascertained. Loudness has given way to contemplation. The imitation of the other makes room for the invention of the self. An underlying realism remains the foundation, yet it increasingly opens possibilities for the development of powerful, intensive painting. These current developments in Chinese painting are being presented in the Kunsthalle Recklinghausen with thirteen emerging and established positions, encompassing a panorama of painting between figuration and abstraction, image and reproduction.