To highlight Standard Chartered Bank's role in China's modernization, the bank opens the "PIXEL HORIZONS 1858-2025：Standard Chartered Global Chinese CONTINUUM" in Shanghai on March 27, showcasing its 167-year history in China. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
Standard Chartered Bank, a bank with a 167-year history in China, has pioneered an initiative — "Global Chinese Services" — among foreign banks, to represent its latest breakthrough.
By introducing a holistic service system tailored for the global Chinese community at the group level, the bank not only elevates its business offerings, but also refines service and communication strategies through cultural nuance recognition.
Strategically, as China deepens its global integration and SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) expand overseas, the bank's worldwide network can deliver localized expertise.
It has been learned that Standard Chartered can offer customized financial solutions, trade financing, foreign exchange services, and market insights to empower businesses in international markets. In addition, integrated global resources further support clients in healthcare, education, and overseas living.
This initiative aligns with the bank's "3P Theory" (product-led, proposition-led, purpose-led), exploring mission-driven value creation in cross-cultural commerce.
To highlight Standard Chartered Bank's role in China's modernization, the bank opens the "PIXEL HORIZONS 1858-2025：Standard Chartered Global Chinese CONTINUUM" in Shanghai on March 27, showcasing its 167-year history in China. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
Standard Chartered has long focused on addressing clients' aspirations beyond wealth, seeking shared identity and values among global Chinese communities — a vision resonating with the concept of a "shared destiny".
Meanwhile, to highlight the bank's role in China's modernization, Standard Chartered officially opened the "PIXEL HORIZONS 1858-2025:Standard Chartered Global Chinese CONTINUUM" at Shanghai's century-old historic site ZhangYuan on March 27.
Structured around the bank's 167-year history in China, the exhibition explores three dimensions — history, urbanity, and modernity — through the dual concepts of "reflections" and "boundlessness", showcasing Chinese artists' profound dialogues between cultural exploration and financial civilization.
Co-curated by Richard Li, head of wealth and retail banking, China & DCE China, group head of global Chinese at Standard Chartered, and Cao Dan, president of MMART+ (the Art platform of Meta Media), and publisher of The Art Journal, Art Review China and LEAP (Hypermedia Group's cultural platform), the exhibition features collaborative works from seven groups of Chinese artists based in London, New York, Rotterdam, Shanghai, and beyond.
The choice of ZhangYuan as the venue reflects its deep historical ties with Standard Chartered. The exhibition is housed at No 41 ZhangYuan's Yuan Link (W16), a protected heritage building whose first owner, Wang Xianchen, once served as the comprador for The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China (now Standard Chartered). Wang witnessed the rise of Shanghai's financial sector, leaving indelible imprints of the bank's century-long interplay with the city within this Sino-Western architectural gem.
It has been learned that through this exhibition, Standard Chartered wants to demonstrate its commitment to cultural empowerment. Using bronze mirrors as a symbolic thread, the show interweaves historical archives with contemporary art, highlighting both the bank's role in China's modernization and the cross-media expressions of Chinese artists in fostering cultural identity within a globalized world.
To highlight Standard Chartered Bank's role in China's modernization, the bank opens the "PIXEL HORIZONS 1858-2025：Standard Chartered Global Chinese CONTINUUM" in Shanghai on March 27, showcasing its 167-year history in China. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
As a multinational institution, Standard Chartered leverages art to preserve Chinese cultural heritage and redefine financial ethics in the digital era, embodying the principle of "commerce as a vehicle for values".
Highlights include David Chi's "Chair-Screen" installation, reinterpreting traditional Chinese privacy philosophy through combined seating and screens, and Yang Yongliang's Digital Landscapes reimagining Song Dynasty (960-1279) aesthetics.
The exhibition runs from March 27 to April 26, 2025.
Through layered narratives of images, archives, and space, the exhibition poses a vital proposition: In an era of globalization, Chinese art is both guardian of tradition and vanguard of innovation.
