The Art Beijing 2020, the Chinese capital's largest art expo held annually since 2006, was scheduled for May but postponed several times due to the pandemic, and eventually cancelled.

But its organizers are warming up to a reboot next year with a special group show at the Lei Shing Hong Art Center in northern Beijing.

Running through Jan 3, the three-part exhibition, Art Beijing Discovery 2020, encompasses more than 100 oils, prints, sculptures and mixed media works, created by 10 established artists of the older generations, 10 emerging young artists, and 10 newly graduated art majors from the China Central Academy of Fine Arts.

"The outbreak kept us almost in a state of paralysis for most of the year. But we never stopped thinking about the future," Art Beijing's founder Dong Mengyang said at the show's opening ceremony on Dec 16.

"We believe the Chinese art market, arguably the largest of its kind in the world, will recover in the coming year as life gradually comes back to normal. With this exhibition, we intend to usher in a new year of discoveries for art aficionados from home and abroad," Dong added.

Unlike previous exhibitions, next year's art expo will morph into two events -- Art Beijing 2021, to be staged in early May, and Art Discovery 2021, to be held in early September, said Li Bin, curator of the group show and a chief organizer of next year's art expos. "The first event focuses on established and mature artists and art groups while the second event highlights emerging artists whose works are far more experimental," Li noted.