Founded in 1999, the focus of the MKM – Centre for Modern and Contemporary Art in Duisburg is German painting since 1945. The collection presents masterpieces by Georg Baselitz, Joseph Beuys, K. O. Götz, Anselm Kiefer, Markus Lüpertz, Gerhard Richter, Bernard Schultze, Fred Thieler, and other artists from the Ströher Collection who have closely accompanied and left their mark on the development of art in Germany. In keeping with the concept of the institution, the MKM is presenting within the framework of the exhibition CHINA 8 paintings by ten Chinese artists whose development the museum has been following intensely for twenty years and who are now firmly established within the Chinese art scene and, in some cases, also internationally.

The artists, whose works are exhibited in the MKM, were born primarily in the late 1950s and 1960s, completed their studies in the early 1980s, and began their artistic careers soon after. At the academies, they were taught according to the methods of Socialist Realism. In Chinese society, a realistic painting style and distinctive craftsmanship are traditionally an important sign of artistic quality; nevertheless, much more than this is necessary today to create art that will continue to live on in the future. The Centre for Modern and Contemporary Art in Duisburg is thus presenting the stylistic and thematic diversity of contemporary Chinese painting, which reveals itself to be an ‘aesthetic vocabulary of the visible world’.