A Tribute to Tradition, a touring exhibition on contemporary paper art, has wowed local visitors while drawing mixed views from academics.

"I was taken aback when I saw artist Li Hongbo stretching the bust of Roman Youth and making it move!" said Song Nan, a visitor to the show's Beijing leg. "The showpiece had only looked like a plaster statue to me."

Inspired by the craft of paper gourds, a type of folk art decoration Chinese people use to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival, Li glued thousands of layers of paper together and articulated them in a way that allows the whole statue to move like an accordion.

This showpiece is one of more than 120 contemporary Chinese paper art creations, spanning from paper-cutting and installation to sculpture and relief, on display at the Shandong Art Museum in Ji'nan before gracing Shenyang, Xi'an, and Wuhan.

They were created by 59 contemporary Chinese artists, ranging from budding artists in their 20s to those in their 60s and 70s.

Also on view are two giant paper-cuts by late folk artist Ku Shulan (1920-2004), a near-mythical figure known as the "Goddess of Paper-cutting".

"China is home to paper-making, but there had not been any exhibitions dedicated to contemporary paper art," said Li Hongbo, the curator and a participating artist of the exhibition. "I want to show there is so much artistic richness to paper despite the shrinking demand for the material in the digital age."

Li said he spent two solid years on his first curatorial effort. But he had harbored the idea for years of mounting an exhibit to showcase modern Chinese artists' experimentation with paper, a humble material for artistic creations.

"Paper is an inexpensive, readily available material that can be either fragile as a feather or hard as stone; besides, it can be colored, folded, carved, cut, burnt, soaked and then whipped into pulp, holding so much potential for artists to explore," Li explained.

However, reviving China's profound paper tradition has been only part of the young curator's aspiration.

"I don't know what else paper can do, nor do I know what it cannot do," said Li, who heads the country's first paper art institute established in 2017 by Jilin Normal University in Changchun, in Northeast China's Jilin province.

Li is the brains behind building the China Paper Art Museum in his university. Now in trial operation, the 3,200-square-meter venue houses over 3,000 types of ancient and modern paper, displays hundreds of traditional and contemporary paper artworks, and holds extensive literature on paper-making and paper art.

Li said the exhibition examines how Chinese contemporary artists, steeped in the profound Chinese cultural traditions, have blazed trails in artistic expression by capitalizing on paper's manifold properties.

For example, instead of painting on paper, artist Qiu Deshu pasted fragments of white paper onto the surface of colored canvas or paper, thus creating fissures that resemble lightning piercing the dark sky. Ink artist Wang Tiande used incense sticks to create burn marks on Xuan paper which, when viewed from afar, look no different than ink paintings. Artist Fu Xiaotong pierced nearly half a million holes in a piece of handmade Xuan paper, evoking an imposing mountain image of the Chinese ink landscape.

And the form of paper has vanished in a roster of showpieces, seemingly having metamorphosed into other materials such as plaster, stone, and even porcelain.

Other pieces that have attracted intense attention from viewers include Wang Lei's delicate paper-woven Chinese robe and tapestry made of yarn from slicing and twisting newspapers and dictionary pages; Lei Lei's A Jar's Nirvana-Rebirth 1, a withered porcelain-like jar juxtaposed with an intact one, both made from glutinous paper and honey; and Wang Weiwei's Expect, which appears to be a stone woman statue but is actually made of a blend of ink and pulp.

A fish-eye lens on the contemporary exploration of paper's new possibilities, the show has drawn mixed reviews from art critics.

Zhang Gan, a professor with the Arts & Design Academy of Tsinghua University, praised the exhibition for "raising a great question about how we should deal with the relationship between our tradition and the times".

"Admittedly, we can no longer pride ourselves on making the best paper in the world, as like porcelain, Chinese people are now more willing to buy imported ones, " Zhang said. "And it's great to see artists explore its artistic possibilities and help it gain a new lease on life, as China's paper tradition is waning in modern society."

"The exhibition shows contemporary art outperforms traditional art in exploring the properties of paper, giving us a fresh understanding of the material," commented Wang Duanting, a professor with the Chinese National Academy of Arts.

''The value of contemporary art comes down to what questions the work raises and what concepts it conveys," said Yin Shuangxi, an art critic and professor with the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA). ''Quite a number of showpieces are awe-inspiring in terms of showing the artists' patience, devotion, and exquisite craftsmanship in working with paper. But they are far from enough when it comes to making a piece of art.''

''It is true that Chinese scholars and artists have long had a special affinity with paper. Even though they should pay close attention to the choice of materials in art creations, those materials should not be overly emphasized or even worshipped,'' Yin pointed out.

"Some exhibits are corny and only focus on paper processing techniques. They fail to address current issues," said CAFA Art Museum deputy director Wang Chunchen, echoing Yin's comments.

The exhibition's title, A Tribute to Tradition, brought much criticism as well.

"Using such a title seems a bit too broad, and can even hinder viewers from appreciating showpieces of noteworthy significance," commented art critic Wu Hong. "Many artists choose the material simply because it can best serve their artistic purposes and may have not thought about offering homage to tradition."

Aside from paying tribute to paper, a millennia-old material born in China, the exhibition aims to highlight the profound influence of Chinese cultural traditions such as traditional paper art forms, ink landscape painting, and Taoism on contemporary Chinese artists, explained Li Hongbo, the curator of the exhibition.

"Indeed, we cannot detach ourselves from our tradition and history, but what attitude we should adopt toward them matters more in contemporary art creations," commented Wang Chunchen, adding "Paper is already a globalized material, so Chinese artists may as well think about integrating it with other media for greater creations."