Exhibition puts the spotlight on women artists from China

A historic all-female Chinese contemporary art exhibition in Philadelphia, United States, attempts to pay tribute to those who hold up Half the Sky, as the collection is titled. Hosted by Drexel University and co-curated with the National Art Museum of China (NAMC), the exhibition features more than 60 artworks by 22 female Chinese artists, including the internationally renowned Yin Xiuzhen, Cui Xiuwen and Cao Fei, among others.

Spanning the mediums of photography, painting, installation art, video and sculpture, the collection is on display at the Leonard Pearlstein Gallery at Drexel University through Nov 12.

The title of the exhibition refers to Mao Zedong's famous slogan, "Women hold up half the sky", popularized during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) in conjunction with a marriage law that banned polygamy and mandated that women should work in the fields as equals.