“Surrealism” was introduced to China in the 1930s, where it gradually took root within the local artistic context. By the 1980s, it had become more visibly embedded in the trajectory of contemporary Chinese art. Today, Surrealism has long transcended the boundaries of stylistic categorization. While it is no longer simply synonymous with the avant-garde, its departure from rationalism and its disruption of everyday logic continue to shape the pictorial language through which a new generation of artists conducts experimental practices.
Reality, Surreality: A Major Exhibition of Contemporary Chinese Painting , held at Today Art Museum from April 14 to June 1, 2026, marks the second stop of a touring exhibition following its presentation in Shenzhen. Curated by the art historian Lü Peng, the exhibition brings together artists active from the late twentieth century to the present, including those born in the 1980s and 1990s. It seeks to trace and present the open-ended experimental approaches to surrealist painting within the Chinese context—an approach that also serves as the curatorial basis for the selection of artists and works in this exhibition.