迈克尔·克雷格-马丁中国巡展

The opening event of the 2015 China-UK Year of Cultural Exchange has kicked off in Shanghai with an exhibition by Michael Craig-Martin, one of the first generation of British conceptual artists. The 'cultural exchange year' is the first to promote the two countries' arts and creative industry.

Michael Craig-Martin began to make line drawings of ordinary objects way back in the 1970s. He said he wanted to record modern life through brush-strokes, by showing the objects that people can easily recognize. He started his preparation for the exhibition in the city's Himalayas Museum two years ago when he first visited Shanghai. This year he has brought 50 works with him, including this iPhone.

"I know that in ten years that the iPhone will have disappeared but something else will replace it and people will say 'What is that? Do you remember what that was? Oh, that was an iPhone', because with our turnover in the way objects look is so fast now, whereas in the past, many objects stayed consistent for years, for generations," he said.

"It's not very complicated for people to understand the meaning of the art works. I mean, it's very good for beginners to understand what's kind of art it is."

When asked about his strong sense for using mixed colors, Martin said he used color as freely and vividly as possible, to make each painting particular and alive in the moment.

"The picture of one thing looks completely different from the picture of another thing. I try to make each object the way I painted it becomes a particular world of color," he said.

The exhibition is the first event of the China-UK Year of Cultural Exchange. 13 more events from Britain will be staged in the first half of this year in China, while 15 cultural projects from China will be staged in Britain later on.

"For me, one of the really interesting things is coming up in Shanghai in the next couple of months is that the Royal Court Theater is coming to explore new writing in China to work with 25 Chinese playwrights and look to develop new plays that over the next three to four years can be developed hopefully with an English-speaking audience in mind, too. And that process of translation will allow Chinese stories to reach the world through theater."

Craig-Martin's show will run till the end of March. And the China-UK Year of Cultural Exchange will peak when the Duke of Cambridge, better known as Prince William, visits Shanghai next month.