ABSTRACT

Since 2007, Sydney’s White Rabbit Collection has delivered a sustained sequence of game-changing exhibitions of contemporary Chinese arts. White Rabbit takes new departures in collecting, philanthropy and public engagement. It has forged new directions in representing the practices, values and paradoxes of Chinese cultural worlds. Notably, as an independent and privately funded body, it offers an alternative use of Chinese art in cultural diplomacy, one that frequently differs from images presented by both the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and in the Australian mainstream art world. White Rabbit often presents exhibitions different from official PRC-state-promoted cultural propaganda through its selection of politically banned artists, canon-expanding works or alternative presentations of Chinese identity. Its exhibitions have also confronted head-on the racism and ambivalence of white Australians and the Australian state towards Chinese people. White Rabbit’s 2016 ‘Vile Bodies’ exhibition alternately shocked, intrigued, disturbed and delighted visitors in their journeys through its astonishingly diverse purview. Its eclectic selections and uncomfortable juxtapositions confronted viewers’ sensibilities, sometimes at a visceral level, and challenged essentialist notions of ‘Chinese art’, ‘Chinese visual culture’ or even assumptions of a ‘Chineseness’ of cultural identity. ‘The Dark Matters’ of 2017 expanded on this curatorial reach, presenting rich statements of independent creative invention that continue to challenge monodimensional constructs of aesthetic or cultural identity. Conversely, however, ‘The Dark Matters’ also invites deeper reflections on the relationships between contemporary aesthetic engagements and the enduring practices, ideals and sensibilities of China’s visual pasts. Shards of these cultural memories continue to inflect contemporary sensibilities, arts making and appreciations of Chinese creative engagements today. If these juxtapositions seem incongruous, illogical or discomfiting, they are also infectious. The attractions of Chinese visual phenomena, experienced through the unique amalgam of White Rabbit’s substantial collections and curatorial acumen, inform and challenge appreciations of Chinese cultural engagements today in Australia and beyond.