On December 26, 2025, the Wanli Contemporary Art Center opened its doors and unveiled its first exhibition "The Most Beneficial Spring of the Year", officially opening its doors to the public and embarking on a new journey of integration and symbiosis between art and life.
The opening ceremony was held on the morning of the 26th at the "Central Cloud Cave" of the Art Center. Leaders from the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, the State owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the Beijing Municipal People's Government, Beijing Infrastructure Investment Co., Ltd., Beijing Capital Tourism Group Co., Ltd., Beijing Urban Construction Group Co., Ltd., and the Grand Canal Professional Committee of the Chinese Cultural Relics Society attended the event together. After an elegant classical dance performance, a solemn and enthusiastic ribbon cutting ceremony was held. As the green silk symbolizing rebirth and hope slowly descended, the Wanli Contemporary Art Center officially set sail.
The Wanli Contemporary Art Center is located on the fifth floor of the WellTown commercial complex in Wanli Wangfujing, with an art space of approximately 5000 square meters. The Art Center breaks through the traditional venue operation mode, using contemporary art as a carrier, gathering diverse life scenes such as exhibitions, music, drama, public education, coffee, and cultural creativity, integrating art into daily life, injecting cultural momentum into the business district, and creating an open and interactive comprehensive cultural platform.
As a grand opening gift dedicated to the sub center of the city, the "Most Beneficial Spring of the Year" exhibition has attracted much attention. This exhibition, with Wu Hongliang, the president of the Beijing Academy of Painting, serving as the art consultant, presents for the first time the modern and contemporary calligraphy and painting treasures collected by the Beijing Hotel in a systematic and public manner. Collecting authentic works from dozens of art masters such as Qi Baishi, Xu Beihong, and Huang Yongyu, the works run through themes such as spring, flowers and trees, elegant collections, and landscapes, presenting a flowing visual poem.
Curator Wang Jinghan explained in his speech, "The double meaning behind the phrase 'the greatest benefit of spring' is twofold: firstly, the opening of the Wanli Contemporary Art Center at the beginning of the new year is like the rebirth of spring, injecting a sustained and vibrant artistic atmosphere into the city; secondly, the exhibition takes' spring 'as a guide, presenting modern Chinese painting masterpieces through scene based and youthful narratives, awakening traditional brushwork from a contemporary perspective, and revitalizing the traditional culture accumulated in it like spring trees in the rain
Narrating the themes of "One Day Garden" and "One Day Heaven and Earth", the exhibition focuses on creating artistic conception, supplemented by real-life displays, to bring calligraphy and painting back to the context of daily life. The five major units are connected by word and sign names - "knocking in the heart, blooming in the courtyard, drunk in the shade of flowers, encountering joy forever, and looking far away", interpreting Chinese aesthetics from shallow to deep.
The exhibition takes "Seeking Spring" as the clue, from desk offerings to courtyard flower shadows, from the long scroll of mountains and waters to spiritual journeys, inviting the audience to experience the Eastern aesthetic interest of "swimming in gardens and walking in mountains and waters" in the unique scenery. “
Subsequently, the Art Center held a themed salon titled "Flowing Context: The Ancient and Modern Circulation of the Millennium Canal and the Wind on Both Sides". Ren Deyong, the guardian and narrator of Beijing culture; Tang Keyang, a scholar in the field of interdisciplinary architecture research at Tsinghua University and a professor and doctoral supervisor at Tsinghua University; Pu Xiaoyi, architectural critic, member of Beijing Women Architects Association, and representative of Beishi Architectural Firm in China; China-Chic artists are crooked; Cui Chun, the artistic director of TARGET Target, attended the salon as a guest.
The salon takes the "Canal Millennium" as a link, tracing its historical role and engineering wisdom as a national artery, analyzing how the canal drives economic circulation and the formation of common culture, exploring the artistic expression and aesthetic influence of the integration of North and South cultures along the river, and jointly considering the protection, transformation, and innovation path of cultural heritage in contemporary times. This dialogue extends the exploration of art to the attention to the profound historical and cultural heritage of the local area, presenting a convergence of ideas that runs through ancient and modern times and integrates multiple disciplines.
The opening of the Wanli Contemporary Art Center is not only the birth of a new art space, but also a positive practice of the integration of art and urban, commercial and cultural life. In the future, it will continue to cultivate the cultural soil along the Grand Canal, using art as a link to bring high-quality and diverse cultural experiences to the sub center of the city.
Exhibition Information
Host: WellTown Wangfujing, Wanli
Supporting units: Beijing Capital Tourism Group Co., Ltd., Beijing Hotel Co., Ltd
Organizer: Wanli Contemporary Art Center
Art Consultant: Wu Hongliang
Chief planner: Cao Huijun, Zhang Zhang, Li Lin
Curator: Wang Jinghan
Exhibition Name: The Most Beneficial Spring of the Year - Traveling in Gardens, Walking in Mountains and Rivers
Exhibition time: December 2025- June 2026
Exhibition location: Wanli Contemporary Art Center
Exhibition Address: 5th Floor, WellTown Wangfujing, Wanli, Tongzhou District, Beijing