The 20th Century Chinese Art Tour: Century Go West – NAMOC Classic Collections Western Itinerant Exhibition, a project of National Art Museum of China to activate its collections funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, was kicked off in the Guangxi Art Museum on October 18, 2015. The activity was launched to expand the coverage of the public cultural resources, implement the spirit of letting the people to enjoy the collections and collecting the artistic works for the people, enabling people of the western regions short of cultural resources to be equally entitled to cultural rights, and facilitate the art to melt with the society, life and people. It was co-sponsored by NAMOC and the publicity department of the Communist Party of China Guangxi regional committee, and organized by Guangxi Tourism Development Group and Guangxi Art Museum.

The exhibition is among a series of theme exhibitions NAMOC carried out in response to the important instruction of General Secretary Xi Jinping on “making cultural relics collected in museums come alive” and to serve the grassroots with national art resources. As a project among the first subsidized by the National Endowment for the Arts, the “Go West” exhibition stood out of the 4,256 applicant projects across the country. It was listed along with 13 other projects to win the subsidy under the category of promoting communication in the form of exhibitions. Since the project was approved, NAMOC made elaborate plans and active organization for implementation. Upholding the objective of launching public interest cultural service to the western regions, it made full use of collected art resources on the western theme. It plans to work with Guangxi, Ningxia and Chongqing to complete itinerant exhibitions there in one year. It will offer sideline academic forums and lectures on special subjects, carry out public education activities in various forms, and explore the application of mass communication mode in the new media background. It will actively make use of the comprehensive media tools including Internet and video programs to activate traditional resources, enrich exhibition ideas, maximize cultural influence of collection resources, launch media publicity for public welfare aesthetic education in an all-round way, so as to advance and enrich Chinese cultural spirit, mirror Chinese aesthetics, and achieve new breakthroughs and highlights in making prominent the theme of the Chinese Dream for great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Since the start, the exhibition has won widespread praise in the society.