Site of first Party congress draws crowds

As visitors take the escalator down to the main exhibition floor, they see statues of the 13 delegates who participated in the first national congress of the CPC. Jiang Tieli, the creator of these artworks, says his focus was on creating a collective imagery that reflects the shared aspirations and revolutionary ideals of these individuals.

On the side walls are two iron relief works by sculptor Qiu Jia. They feature the shikumen building, a style featuring Western and Chinese elements, at 108 Wantze Road (now 76 Xingye Road) in Shanghai, where the meeting first took place, and the boat on Nanhu Lake in Jiaxing of Zhejiang province, where the meeting was concluded.

Qiu's works also include a series of iron relief works on the exterior walls of the new hall that presents the urban Shanghai landscape in an abstract and contemporary fashion.

"We were working on an important historical subject, and I wanted to show that they are artworks created in the contemporary period, different from traditional expressions," Qiu says.

A group portrait in the exhibition hall features the first 58 CPC members. To create the piece, painter Chen Shudong visited museums and libraries and interviewed academics to gain as much information as he could about them. But he still found it difficult to create a collective portrait because there was never a moment when these individuals were gathered in the same place.

"I realized I had to shift my focus from documenting a historical reality to creating artistic truth," says Qiu. "I created a base tone that is heavy and solemn, and dimmed each person's profile to create a unified heroic atmosphere."