Featuring 35 artists born in China, a new exhibition at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art presents 70 contemporary works that reinvigorate, subvert and honor the traditional Chinese medium of ink painting.

On display through April 2014, Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China includes works in the media of painting, calligraphy, woodblock prints, video, sculpture and photography by such artists as Xu Bing, Gu Wenda, Liu Dan, Zhang Yu, Liu Dan and others.

"This exhibition is an opportunity to showcase works of art that have deep resonance with China's past and could benefit from being seen in conjunction with traditional work," said curator and chairman of the museum's department of Asian art Mike Hearn.

Ink painting is an ancient art, but artists working in the medium today have added fresh life to the medium, transforming their sources through updated modes of expression, he said.

In Xu Bing's installation "Book from the Sky," the artist presents thousands of characters that do not exist, filling scrolls that slope and hang from the ceiling. Zhang Huan's "Family Tree" photographic series documents a performance in which his face is gradually painted over by physiognomic texts.

"Each object in the show fundamentally alters inherited Chinese traditions in some way by responding to, subverting or reinterpreting traditional idioms," said Metropolitan Museum director Thomas Campbell. "These responses embrace a broad range of media that somehow remain indelibly Chinese."

In four sections titled The Written Word, New Landscapes, Abstraction and Beyond the Brush, the show "demonstrates how China's ancient pattern of seeking cultural renewal through the reinterpretation of past models remains a viable creative path", according to the museum.

The Beyond the Brush section includes performance-related pieces: Cai Guo-Qiang's video and album "Project to Extend the Great Wall of China by 10,000 Meters: Project for Extraterrestrials No. 10"; and a 43-foot-long hand scroll documenting Huang Yongping's installation pieces.

The Metropolitan Museum, which will also present a full-day symposium on ink art and a studio workshop, is in the unique position of being able to present work that spans ancient eras to the present day, Hearn said.

"Instead of being presented by the Metropolitan's department of modern and contemporary art, Ink Art is curated by members of the department of Asian art and displayed in the museum's permanent galleries for Chinese painting and calligraphy, featuring artworks that may best be understood as part of the continuum of China's traditional culture," Hearn said in an official statement. "While these works may also be appreciated from the perspective of global art, the curatorial argument is that, by examining them through the lens of Chinese historical artistic paradigms, layers of meaning and cultural significance that might otherwise go unnoticed are revealed. Ultimately, both points of view contribute to a more enriched understanding of these creations."

The department of Asian art has a responsibility to reflect the changing landscape of Chinese art, Hearn said.

"We make it a point to display contemporary Chinese art integrated with traditional pieces," he said. "The new exhibition is enlightening, challenging, and will hopefully engage new audiences to appreciate both traditional and contemporary art forms."