More than 40 large-scale photographs created in China between 1993 and 2006 make up Looking Back Toward the Future at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.

Featuring the work of 14 contemporary artists, the survey represents a wide cross section of the conceptual photography that flourished in the nation in the decades following the 1989 protests and massacre in Tiananmen Square – a pivotal moment of sociopolitical change that signaled the beginning of strict repressive measures and ended democratic social reforms that had been initiated after the death of communist leader Mao Zedong in 1976.

The free exhibition is divided into three interrelated thematic sections – The Presence of the Past, East and West and Performance and the Body – which together explore how these artists used performance in conjunction with diverse photographic and aesthetic methods to capture, freeze and criticize the new sociopolitical, economic and cultural environment of China.

On view for the first time at the museum on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis, these glossy photographs constitute a significant recent addition to the institution’s holdings of contemporary Chinese art. Created during a tumultuous period of recent history, they together make visible the radical transformations that China underwent during these critical decades, challenging past, present and future.