Visitors take in artist Lü Shengzhong's newest painting Rooster at the Today Art Museum in Beijing on Sunday. Photo: Xu Liuliu/GT

Owning a Chinese New Year picture featuring a rooster had been a dream for artist Lü Shengzhong since he first saw one hanging in his neighbor's home in 1960. At the time, such pictures were so popular that they were often out of stock, making it difficult for him to get one. Now, this animal that he often could only admire when visiting other people's homes appears in his newly painted oil painting Rooster.

Starting from Sunday, this painting together with installation and paper-cut works have formed the basis of the 63-year-old's new exhibition Last Century at the Today Art Museum in Beijing. With nearly 30 years having gone by since his debut exhibition Paper-cut Art Show at the National Art Museum of China and about 10 years since his last New York solo show The New Emerging From the Old, the new exhibition has been highly anticipated.

For the artist, the concepts of "last century" and "the problems of the last century" have been issues that have weighed heavily on his mind for years. 

"Last century is where it all starts. It was the beginning of modernity. The problems that we spent a hundred years solving are all problems of the last century. We suffered a lot and paid a huge cost during the process, all the while looking for a different answer. We needn't live only for today," the artist writes in the preface to the exhibition.

His painting Rooster, sees the proud animal standing on the ground crowing just like those Chinese New Year pictures of old, yet another remnant of the "last century" in today's world. However, unlike the traditional Chinese New Year pictures, this rooster is now surrounded by modern buildings seen in the far background, while sites still under construction replace the farmlands and forests of yesteryear.

The exhibition is set to end on January 1.