The exhibition Works in Progress provides a survey of the contemporary Chinese photography scene in real time. New works by twenty-four Chinese photographers and artists are presented in the Museum Folkwang as well as, simultaneously, in various museums and institutions in China. This differentiates this presentation from all other previous survey exhibitions on the theme of contemporary Chinese photography.
For more than ten years now, the international art world has closely followed the explosive energy that radiates from the field of Chinese art photography.

This development is characterised by vivacious experimentation, new funding structures and specialist knowledge, continuously growing public interest, and a new generation of students who hunger for exchange with the international scene. The exhibition presents works by classical photographers and conceptual artists as well as painter-photographers and multimedia artists. The photographers take on personal themes, analyse the world in its chaotic complexity and contradictions, and exercise criticism of and opposition against authority. They investigate the rapid social changes taking place in China, the tensions between the city and the countryside, sexuality and the body, or the medium of photography as such.