Reconstructing Humanism and Reality amid the Technological Tide:An Overview of 2024 Chinese Contemporary Art Exhibitions (With a Focus on Beijing and Shanghai)
This paper examines contemporary art exhibitions in Beijing, Shanghai, and other regions of China in 2024, exploring how art returns to and reconstructs its humanism and reality against the backdrop of technological acceleration and globalization. In response to the ongoing impact of AI and digital technology on the ontology of art, artists have increasingly engaged in reflections on fundamental issues such as humanity, materiality, ecology, and history, demonstrating a dual emphasis on techno-criticism and humanistic return. The function of exhibitions has expanded beyond traditional display models, evolving into a composite field that integrate academic research, theoretical exploration, and literature archiving. Themes cover a wide range of directions, including technological reflection, ecological concerns, globalization, and experiments in artistic media. However, there are still issues with interpretive barriers and insufficient critical thinking in current curatorial practices between interdisciplinary integration, deep theoretical involvement, and social reality care. Under multiple pressures from commercial capital, technological dependency, and discursive constraints, whether Chinese contemporary art exhibitions can effectively preserve humanistic spirit and achieve meaningful social intervention remains an open and crucial question.