The Chinese Artist: Uncensored

In this inaugural event, The Barnard International Artists series is bringing two artists who have made a unique film about a suburb of Beijing that has become a haven for Chinese contemporary artists. Xu Xing, an eminent Chinese writer turned filmmaker, and Andrea Cavazzuti, an Italian filmmaker living and working in Beijing for the past 30 years, have come together to make 5+5, a film that is at once poignant, moving and humorous. It offers an unprecedented look into this vibrant and avant-garde contemporary art scene hidden behind China’s formal facade. At the heart of the film is Mr Jin, a taxi driver and modern-day Don Quixote, who drives artists around the city. It is through his perspective that we are offered a window into both contemporary China and, more universally, the condition of the artist in the modern world.

The Barnard International Artist Series is a forum for thinking about the world through the arts. The series aims to offer students, faculty and friends of Barnard College an opportunity to think about contemporary international realities through the works and ideas of living artists.

MEET THE ARTISTS