What's on

Yellow River show

Long River, Great Path, an art exhibition at the China National Academy of Painting, is displaying some 180 paintings and sculptures of Yellow River landscapes, showing its cultural importance and highlighting the country's efforts to protect the natural environment along the river. Works at the exhibition, which runs up to Oct 30, are drawn from the collections of several cultural institutions, including the National Art Museum of China and the Yellow River Museum. Some were created over the past two years by resident artists from the Chinese National Academy of Arts and the China National Academy of Painting, which organized trips for sketching to areas along the Yellow River, enabling artists to see the changes in landscapes and local people's lives.

54 Xi Sanhuan Beilu, Haidian district, Beijing. 010-6841-2606.

Full bloom

Hundreds of Flowers in Bloom, running at the National Museum of China through Oct 30, features a selection of paintings from the collection of the Beijing Fine Art Academy, a preeminent school for the creation and study of modern Chinese art. Works on show are broken into four sections to introduce accomplishments made over the decades since the academy was established in 1957. The first part is centered around the cultural meanings of "red" and how painters present varying shades of the color. The second part shows the best known paintings from the academy's alumni over the years, mostly modern masters such as Pan Tianshou. The third part shows works by its current resident painters to show the academy's role in cultivating talent in Chinese art. When the academy was founded, it received a generous donation of works from Qi Baishi, the late master painter. The exhibition also shows some of these paintings and shares its research into Qi's art.

9 am-5 pm, closed on Mondays. 16 East Chang'an Avenue, Dongcheng district, Beijing. 010-6511-6400.

Art for children

In the nearly two decades since its establishment, Today Art Museum in Beijing has been exploring children's art education. It presents regular educational programs and holds exhibitions to nurture an interest in art among children and parents, inspiring creativity and broadening their vision of the world. The third Kids Power exhibition, running at the museum through Nov 7, marks this long-standing effort by showing works by children who have attended the museum's art programs. The exhibits, including sculptures and installations jointly created by children and five artists, show how they understand the world and present their own, distinctive explanations of what is happening around them.

10 am-6 pm, closed on Mondays. 32 Baiziwan Road, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 010-5876-0600.

Jadeite as touchstone

For the past three decades, He Yunchang has won fame for using performance art to address social concerns. In the past five years, the contemporary artist has focused his work around jadeite, a mineral carrying important cultural meaning in the long history of China. He Yunchang: Endless Shadowlands, an exhibition at the Wind H Art Center in Beijing through Dec 19, takes the audience on a journey through time and space, history and culture, navigated by He's jadeite sculptures and installations. His explorations with jadeite began after a 2017 trip to his hometown in Yunnan province, known for its jadeite trade. He noticed the changing cultural and historical implications of jadeite－from a sacred material for ritual vessels in archaic times to a common material to decorate everyday life. Works on show are made of or assembled by pieces of rough jadeite but with as little manual work as possible, to accentuate the quality, texture and energy of the material itself. Flowing with poetry and imagination, the works reflect He's philosophical thinking on love, attachment to his hometown, and how individuals are shaped by the world and, in return, shape it. He sees the exhibition as a performance work to renew people's understanding of artistic creation and performance art.

10:30 am-6:30 pm, Wednesday to Sunday. Wind H Art Center, 31A Wanhongli, 798 art zone, Chaoyang district, Beijing.

Focus on Guilin

The term shanshui (mountain and water) is about natural landscapes but has broader cultural meanings, often referring to a spiritual destination where people can find peace and the true meaning of life. Infinite Shanshui, an exhibition running at the Kuei-lin Art Festival, visualizes the splendor of nature combined with art to give people a well-deserved respite. The outdoor exhibition, running through Dec 25 in Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, shows dozens of public artworks in an expensive, poetic environment consisting of meadows and lakes, against a backdrop of mountain ranges and a distinguished karst topology. The festival adds an artistic dimension to the cityscape of Guilin, already known for its mountain and water scenery and hailed as "the best under heaven" in a Chinese expression.

Guihai Qinglan, 22 Hangtian Road, Qixing district, Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.