CONTEMPORARY Chinese portraiture is all the go in the National Portrait Gallery’s latest show, “Go Figure!”  

Exhibited simultaneously at the NPG and Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation’sSydneygallery, this  exhibition of 55 works includes painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, video and installation works by Chinese artists from 1979 to the present. It is curated by Dr Claire Roberts, senior lecturer in art history at Adelaide University, an expert on Chinese contemporary art. In her view, much of that art involves the idea of play – “the liberal use of humour, irony and the absurd.”

“During a time of significant economic and social change,” the exhibition arguese,  “these artists have negotiated the complex realities of contemporary China.”

Artists represtned  in “Go Figure!” include Ai Weiwei, Fang Lijun, Geng Jianyi, Liu Xiaodong, Peng Yu and Sun Yuan, Shen Shaomin, Wang Guangyi, Wang Jianwei, Yin Xiuzhen, Yu Hong, Zeng Fanzhi, Zhang Peili and Zhang Xiaogang.

The exhibition is drawn from the collection of Uli Sigg, Swiss businessman, former Swiss Ambassador to China and art collector. His collection boasts more than 2,200 artworks by 350 artists in a variety of media.

Sigg began collecting in the 1990s and hnder a part gift/ part purchase agreement, Sigg recently donated 1,463 artworks toHong Kong’s M+ Museum which will open in 2017.

“Go Figure!” will be on display at the National Portrait Gallery,Canberra until February 17.