This chapter offers some concluding remarks on the distinctive position that Wang Bing has acquired on the international scene and across different exhibition spaces, namely, film festivals, art galleries, and museums. In his career, Wang Bing has defined his profile by affirming the role of the documentary filmmaker as that of an auteur, as I have argued throughout this book. During the last two decades, not only has he shaped his own aesthetics, but his activities have provoked, challenged, and changed the patterns of the viewing experience across film festivals and art exhibition spaces. With his diverse output – documentaries of long duration, video installations, and photographic series – presented across the film festival and art exhibition circuits, he has contributed to breaking through the conventions of theatrical exhibitions and demonstrated how increasingly intertwined film and the visual arts have become.

The interest of art curators in his work has strengthened thanks to his crossover activities, and the pace of his own production has also increased, thanks to the several commissions he has received from major art institutions. Scholarly attention has grown in parallel, as have attempts to define and classify his works. Film critics and scholars alike have often discussed his cinema in relation to major issues, such as labour and poverty, as Wang’s documentaries provide a visual archive of the impact of state policies and show less-known aspects of Chinese society in a distinctive manner.