1987 Group Exhibition at USC Pacific Asia Museum
Beyond the Open Door: Contemporary Paintings from The People's Republic of China
In 1987, Kong's work was included in the first North American exhibition of contemporary Chinese art after the Cultural Revolution, which took place at the USC Pacific Asia Museum, one of few U.S. institutions dedicated to the arts and culture of Asia and the Pacific Islands. The paintings comprising the exhibited collection were assembled with the assistance of the Center for U.S.-China Arts Exchange of Columbia University. Henry Kissinger, who served as National Security Adviser during the Nixon administration and played a pivotal role in orchestrating Nixon's historic 1972 visit to China—which ended 25 years of separation between the two countries—wrote the forward of the catalog for this exhibition:
“The opening, or reopening, of China to the West in the 1970s was one of the most momentous political developments of the twentieth century. By the early 1980s it had led to a broad new national program of modernization which, under good leadership, has already brought important benefits to the economy and the society in general. There is no clearer prism through which to perceive these developments than in the art now being created by the new generation of Chinese artists.
In assembling this extraordinary, indeed astonishing, exhibition of paintings, ARCO has made a major contribution to the improvement of Chinese-American understanding.”
Bai Ji Kong's 1985 work, Impressions of Tokyo, was included in this exhibition. 26 x 33.5 inches. Ink and colors and pastels on Chinese paper.
Quotes from Richard Strassberg, who in 1987 was Adjunct Curator of Chinese Art at the Pacific Asia Museum and Associate Professor of Chinese at UCLA, in his article "The Opening Door of Contemporary Chinese Painting", which was included in the exhibition catalog:
“Kong’s street scene of Tokyo conveys at once its frenetic pace and its atomistic, unreal quality dissolving into a skein of lines.”
”There are no museums or art galleries in China where they [the artist’s represented in this exhibition] can regularly become exposed to original western works of high quality. The rare exhibition of art treasures from a foreign country quickly sells out and those who do manage to view it can only gain a brief impression. (Even such instant contact can produce powerful effects. Kong Baiji saw the works of Jackson Pollock at an exhibition sent by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts to Shanghai in 1981 and considers the experience to have profoundly altered his own style and career.)”
Recent quote from the USC Pacific Asia Museum describing the 1987 exhibition:
“In the 1980s, Chinese artists experienced unprecedented cultural, political and social changes that made ideas from the outside world more accessible than during the Cultural Revolution. USC Pacific Asia Museum’s 1987 exhibition Beyond the Open Door: Contemporary Paintings from the People’s Republic of China was the first U.S. exhibition to introduce the most talented and artistically adventurous young Chinese artists, showing how they were experimenting with Western art theories and practices.”
