The exhibition shows how artists have drawn on their diverse day-today experiences to reflect on dramatic social change throughout the decades, such as excessive consumption, a money culture, tensions in interpersonal relations and pop culture.

Among the widely known works to address these problems are paintings and prints by Fang Lijun and Yue Minjun on show, both featuring exaggerated smiling faces. The humorous styles of their art are loaded with a serious attitude toward the life issues that haunt people's minds.

The exhibition also shows a renewed employment of the forms of traditional Chinese art to render a contemporary touch, or to examine current problems.