26.05.2015
to
01.11.2015
Museum für Asiatische Kunst
The ruins of modern high-rise tenement blocks set against the backdrop of a brand-new, glistening skyline. Stunning mountain landscapes that look like traditional panoramas at first glance. On closer inspection, these seemingly contrasting subjects reveal certain similarities and underlying themes. Landscape painting from the early years of the People’s Republic was obliged to fulfil a political agenda of presenting an acceptable face for communist urban planning. The inclusion of new recurring motifs such as overhead power lines and truck convoys, or stylistic devices, such as the prominent use of shades of red were an expression of hope in the country’s progress and the promise of a better life for the people.
The desire for a better future lives on today. But the fact that some dreams have long since fallen by the wayside is captured in the haunting photographs of Tong Lam (b. 1967), historian and photographer. His documentation of the surreal landscape of Xian Cun, a doomed area within Guangzhou’s (or Canton’s) new CBD offers a glimpse of the precarious lives of the district’s inhabitants, whose futures in the face of progress look bleak. The settlement is one of the many enclaves of collective property, left over from the communist collectivization of land. Surrounded on all sides and soon to be engulfed by the feverish expansion of the Chinese mega-city, it has been left to decay so that its inhabitants will eventually have no option but to succumb to the city’s relentless urban regeneration policy.
Organizer
Venue
Address / Getting there
Visitor entrance
Lansstraße 8 / Arnimallee 25
14195 Berlin
partially wheelchair accessible
Opening hours
Sun 11:00 - 18:00
Mon closed
Tue 10:00 - 17:00
Wed 10:00 - 17:00
Thu 10:00 - 17:00
Fri 10:00 - 17:00
Sat 11:00 - 18:00
Prices / Tickets
Admission ticket Museum Europäischer Kulturen
8,00 EUR Concessions 4,00
Buy ticket
Museum Pass Berlin 3 days for permanent exhibitions
29,00 EUR Concessions 14,50
Buy ticket
Annual ticket Basic
permanent exhibitions, certain times
25,00 EUR
Annual ticket Classic
temporary exhibitions not included
50,00 EUR Concessions 25,00
Annual ticket Classic Plus
all exhibitions
100,00 EUR Concessions 50,00
Annual membership Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
from just 25,00 EUR
Annual Passes for the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin