Poetry goes no further than language: A historical moment of art becoming art again

Poetry goes no further than language  revisits a defining moment in mid-1980s China, when a group of artists began to question all existing values and presumptions about art.

Among them were the Beijing collective New Measurement Group and Shanghai-based artist Qian Weikang. Dissatisfied with the mainstream visual trends of expression and symbolism, they turned instead to conceptualism, using systems of measurement, process and chance as their artistic material.

Active for only a short time, their experiments circulated among small networks of artists and critics before many of the works were dispersed, dismantled or destroyed.

Drawing on extensive research and careful reconstruction, this exhibition reunites the complete experimental output of New Measurement Group alongside key works by Qian Weikang, bringing this rarely seen chapter of art history to Australia for the first time.

A new responsive commission by Melbourne-based artist Darcey Bella Arnold unfolds throughout the exhibition, creating a dialogue across time, space and language.

Curated by Liu Ding and Carol Yinghua Lu.

Image credit: New Measurement Group (L-R: Wang Luyan, Chen Shaoping, Gu Dexin). Image courtesy of Wang Luyan.