Retrospective of a Retrospective

The most important art museums on the East Coast of the United States, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, hold around twenty special exhibitions or personal retrospectives annually. Some of these involve enormous expense, years of planning, and global collaboration, making tickets extremely hard to come by. During his time living in the United States, Chen Danqing frequently visited major art museums and galleries to appreciate original artworks.

"Recollections of Retrospectives" chronicles over 50 exhibitions Chen Danqing viewed in the United States, broadly covering significant artists and art movements throughout art history, from ancient Greek sculpture, Caravaggio, Velázquez, Vermeer, to Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and Fauvist representative painters, contemporary artists, and even ancient and modern Chinese artworks. Setting aside art history and established theories, he examines original works from the perspective of an ordinary viewer, recording his silent conversations with masters face-to-face in the form of essays.