Chinese contemporary art is rising in quality and quantity, becoming a protagonist on the international artistic stage, leading Italian art critic Achille Bonito Oliva told Xinhua in an interview.

"Chinese artists have acquired today a good level of autonomy that allows them to be juxtaposed and compared to great Western masters," said Oliva.

One of the greatest art critics of the West, Oliva is the curator of an important contemporary art exhibition opening in April in Beijing, where he will be presenting a group of abstract artists in China.

"These artists distance themselves from main-stream Chinese materialistic and commercial mass art. In their works they express spirituality and individuality, stressing the value of subjectivity. They represent a 21st century Chinese emancipated and free art," he said.

Oliva has a great experience and knowledge of China’s contemporary art. He was the first to introduce abroad the Chinese Avant-garde movement at Venice’s arts exhibition in 1993 and since then has fostered contacts with China’s art system.

According to Oliva, China’s art is contributing to the enrichment of the international contemporary art scene and has conquered its own privileged place as a global protagonist.

For the Italian critic, such a contribution comes from the notion that art is universal and has no boundaries, there being a continuous "cultural identity exchange" between Western and Chinese art based on reciprocal respect and comprehension.

Oliva believes that "art is not a war but a co-existence of diversities. It pierces through the Great Wall in a positive way."

"In the past, Asian and Chinese art influenced the works and philosophy of great Western masters. Today, it’s the other way round: Chinese artists are absorbing from the West in a perennial state of osmosis between the two cultures. This is the great value of art, which is a natural product of multiculturalism," he said.

Reciprocal interest is what drives the cultural exchange. "I was chosen to curate the upcoming exhibition in Beijing for the same reason why I’m interested in Chinese contemporary art myself. "