The three-decade-long friendship between two art schools in China and the United States has not only been an experiment in the development of global communities, but an example of how important it is to build bridges of understanding through art and art education.

At the opening ceremony on Nov 16 to kick off an exhibition titled From/To:the Frontier of Chinese Art Education, artists from the China Academy of Art (CAA) and the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) shared their long-held belief that the connectedness established through art will always remind people more of their similarities than differences.

Xu Jiang, president of CAA, explained the theme and purpose of the exhibition, which includes traditional ink paintings, oil paintings, prints, sculptures, large-scale installations and immersive virtual reality displays. It will run though Dec 9 on two SFAI campuses.

"The year of 2018 is of great significance in many ways — it marks the 50th anniversary of the 'May Storms' in France, the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening-up, the 90th anniversary of China Academy of Art," said Xu. "It also recorded the close relationship of 30 years between us and the San Francisco Art Institute."

No matter how society evolves and technologies have transformed an individual's everyday life, it's the artist's mission to reflect the changes.

Xu said that by asking the audience questions to make art speak out loud, "We aim to return to art itself. Art not only deals with political and social issues, but also needs to self-reflect its own dilemmas: whether it has deviated from its origin and lost its inspirational power."

Besides the exhibition, a two-day symposium and film series, titled Poverty of Sensibility — Panel 21: Art/Education in the 21st Century III, was held on Nov 16-17.

Leading artists, art professors and art program directors from museums and galleries in China, the US and the rest of the world were invited to participate in the dialogue, analyzing the current state of art and education and exploring their potential under the background of technological development.

Ren Min, who graduated from CAA 30 years ago and is a professor at SFAI and the assistant to the school's president, was extensively involved in the initiation and execution of the exhibition.

"Friendship between the two art schools is much talked about," he said.

In the mid-1980s, the then-SFAI president Frederick Martin led a group of students and faculties to visit the Zhejiang Academy of Art in Hangzhou, the forerunner of today's CAA, unveiling the first batch of collaborations and exchanges in the art arenas and art education between China and America.

In June 2017, Martin revisited CAA and donated 36 pieces of his work along with several of his notebooks, which detail his artistic exploration and perspective.

"Martin is visionary and a real pioneer," said Ren. "Through his arrangement, the two art schools are able to communicate frequently and launch ongoing exchanges among artists, faculties and students."

The 91-year-old Martin stood up responding to a cheering crowd on Nov 16. "We are here to talk, to share our knowledge and to learn from each other: China, so vast, so complex with 6,000 years of past, and the United States, so brief with only 250 years of past and still squabbling about what it was and what it is," he said.

Martin encouraged artists from all over the world to "use whatever materials we can get to make whatever speech we can. We must teach the mastery of materials and methods, but it's the inspiration of the soul that matters," he added.

Martin's successor, Gordon Knox, vowed to extend the current relationship, "which is full of energy and open-mindedness", with his Chinese counterparts. "We understand how important it is to build the bond with China through the school of art."

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