Paintings are hung on the wall at CAFA Museum's graduate exhibition The Start of a Long Journey. Photo: Courtesy of CAFA Museum [Photo/globaltimes.cn]

As graduation photos fly across the Internet reminding everyone that another school year is coming to an end, things are not quite over for students at art colleges. Not only is this a time for handing in thesis papers and taking pictures with college buddies, they must also worry about joining the various graduate artwork exhibitions that are being held around the country. Mostly starting at the end of June, these graduate exhibitions don't just offer a way for the public to examine the quality of an art college as well as its students, but are also meant as platforms for art galleries and critics to find the art stars of tomorrow.

While the number of colleges joining these annual graduate exhibitions has increased both their scale and importance, some within the art industry are concerned that the quality of work coming from the hands of these potential maestros has been declining over the past few decades.

Fancier not necessarily better

Usually entailing a series of related activities such as fashion shows, design product press conferences and art fairs for the display and sale of artworks, graduate artwork exhibitions - from late May's China Academy of Art (CAA) exhibition to the one held by the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute (SCFAI) in early June, have been getting larger and fancier every year.

In late June, all four floors of the Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum (CAFAM) were filled to the brim with graduation works by a total of 140 undergraduates and master-degree candidates. An astounding number of art works considering when you consider the fact that the department of oil painting held its own separate exhibition elsewhere.

Titled The Start of a Long Journey, this exhibition, ending at the end of July and probably the last exhibition of its kind for the rest of the year, along with numerous similar graduate exhibitions help visitors compare and form a general picture of the quality of students graduating from China's numerous art colleges.

However, one issue people have started to have with these graduate exhibitions is that not only are the exhibitions themselves getting fancier and fancier, but so too are the art works themselves. An issue that some feel reflects an overall drop in quality in art students around the country.

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