V&A Museum Acquisition: Renqian Yang & Meng Du
October 29, 2025
Renqian Yang, Contradictory Flow, 2023. Colored porcelain with glaze and gold luster, 12.5 x 10 x 16 inches. ©Renqian Yang, courtesy of Fou Gallery (New York) and V&A Museum (London). Donated by Felix Maotong Xu.
Meng Du, Cat in the Corner – Summer No.2, 2025. Glass, mixed-media, found object, 7.3 x 4.7 x 10.2 inches. ©Meng Du, courtesy of Fou Gallery (New York) and V&A Museum (London). Donated by En Zhang.
London — The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), London, has acquired works by artists Renqian Yang and Meng Du. The acquisition forms a key part of Dimensions: Contemporary Chinese Studio Crafts, a major curatorial and research initiative led by Dr. Xiaoxin Li, Curator of China at the V&A. Supported by the Art Fund and other private donors, the project encompasses four areas—collection, exhibition, publication, and public programming—aiming to reexamine the creative expressions, conceptual depth, and cultural continuity of Chinese studio craft from a contemporary academic perspective
Collection | A Systematic Field-Based Acquisition Initiative
Dimensions: Contemporary Chinese Studio Crafts represents one of the most extensive museum-led collecting efforts on Chinese contemporary craft in recent years, bringing together nearly eighty works.
Over five years of research and field study across major creative and production centers in China—including Beijing, Hangzhou, Jingdezhen, Nanjing, Yixing, and Fuzhou—Dr. Li engaged directly with artists, workshops, and academic institutions to identify practices of both aesthetic significance and intellectual rigor.
The inclusion of Renqian Yang and Meng Du into the V&A’s permanent collection marks a significant milestone for both artists. Their works, which explore materiality, memory, and the spirit of craftsmanship, now enter the narrative of a leading global museum devoted to the history of design and making.
Exhibition | Dimensions: Contemporary Chinese Studio Craft
On view: 28 October 2025–27 September 2026
Location: V&A South Kensington, Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL (Room 44 and Room 146)
The exhibition will feature nearly eighty Chinese artists and makers working across ceramics, lacquer, glass, metal, fiber, and jewelry. Through the lens of “dimensions,” the curatorial team explores the multifaceted evolution of material practice in contemporary China and the dialogues between art, craft, and tradition.
Presenting works from pioneering figures in modern ceramics and lacquer to established educators and emerging international award-winning artists, the exhibition offers the most comprehensive view yet of China’s contemporary studio craft landscape.
A major publication will accompany the exhibition, documenting the curatorial research, artist dialogues, and reflections on making and time.
This display is supported by KennedyTing & Tiān Foundation.
*“Display Highlights,” Dimensions: Contemporary Chinese Studio Craft webpage, V&A Museum official website.
Public Programs | Dialogues and Screenings
Throughout the exhibition period, the V&A will host a series of talks, conversations, and screenings to deepen engagement with contemporary Chinese craft and culture.
Lecture: Dimensions: Contemporary Chinese Studio Craft
Date: Thursday, 30 October 2025 | 1:00–2:00 PM
Venue: V&A South Kensington, Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL
About the Works
Renqian Yang
Contradictory Flow, 2023. Colored porcelain with glaze and gold luster, 12.5 x 10 x 16 inches.
In Contradictory Flow, tension and harmony coalesce. Yang’s fluid, fragmented forms trace the rhythms between stillness and change, revealing the emotional resonance of life’s inherent paradoxes. The piece derives from the series Retrace, in which Yang transforms humble household fragments into lyrical clay forms, tracing the delicate balance between restraint and release, pessimism and hope.
Meng Du
Cat in the Corner – Summer No.2, 2025. Glass, mixed-media, found object, 7.3 x 4.7 x 10.2 inches.
Meng Du’s Cat in the Corner–Summer No.2 is a composition of glass, tea, and found material converging into a fragile vessel of remembrance. Within its translucent body lies a delicate equilibrium: closeness and distance, solitude and companionship, fragility and persistence. Through subtle infusions of tea and the interplay of casting and blowing, the work conjures a nostalgic atmosphere—one that preserves memory even as it acknowledges its inevitable fading, reflecting the cycles of life, gently layered with a longing for peace.
About the Artists
Renqian Yang (b. 1987, Xiangtan, Hunan Province, China) earned a B.F.A. in Ceramics from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, China (2009) and an M.F.A. from Syracuse University (2014). She currently serves as an Associate Professor at SUNY Oswego, New York. Yang's artistic journey encompasses exhibitions in venues across the U.S.A., China, Japan and Korea, including: Korea National Assembly Proceeding Hall, Seoul (2023); as part of NCECA conference, ADC Fine Art Gallery, Ohio (2023); Northern Kentucky University Art Gallery, Kentucky (2021); Prefectural Museum of Art and Design, Toyama, Japan (2021); Fou Gallery, New York (2017, 2019, 2021); Cayuga Museum of History and Art, Auburn, New York (2019); Taoxichuan Ceramic Art Avenue Art Gallery, Jingdezhen, China (2018). She served as a residency artist at the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts (2017, 2023), Craigardan (2018), Jingdezhen International Studio (2018, 2023), andSTARworks, NC (2022). In 2022, Yang was honored with an invitation to the Korea-China Ceramic Art Symposium in South Korea, commemorating three decades of diplomatic ties between China and South Korea.
Meng Du (b. 1986, Beijing, China) graduated from Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing (B.F.A.) in 2008 and Rochester Institute of Technology (M.F.A.) in 2013. Currently, she is living and working in Beijing. Her work has continued to exhibit in China, Europe, and in the United States, including Shanghai Museum of Glass, Shanghai (2023); Genesis Foundation, Beijing (2022); Today Art Museum, Beijing (2021); An+ Art & Design Center, Shenzhen (2020); The Delaware Contemporary, U.S.A. (2020); Shiinoki Cultural Complex, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan (2016). She served as a residency artist at Seto International Ceramic & Glass Art Exchange Program, Seto, Japan (2021) and Aichi University of Education Glass Program, Aichi, Japan (2017). Her work has been widely featured in China Daily, People’s Daily, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Yitiao, Art China, CAFA Art Info, and other media platforms. She was invited to give lectures at YiXi (2020) and ROG International Art Project Online Symposium (2020). In 2016, she won the Honorable Mention for The International Exhibition of Glass Kanazawa (Kanazawa, Japan). In 2018, she won the 2018 Saxe Emerging Artist Award at 48th Glass Art Society Conference (Venice, Italy). She is the youngest artist who presented a solo exhibition at the Shanghai Museum of Glass.