Contemporary art often veers into frustratingly abstract territory, and no medium more so than video installations. Artists tend to focus on building a feeling through pictures, but lack even a rough frame on which to hang the images. Wang Qingsong is the rare artist who easily navigates such obstacles.
In ... Read More
For many an art world layman, the word "art" often brings to mind images of paintings, drawings, photos or other two-dimensional works. But sculpture is very much an art form, if one that is often overlooked by the masses in favor of colored bits of canvas. New Age Gallery's ... Read More
In a country where pollution is as much byproduct of factory output as it is dust kicked up from the innumerable construction sites that are rapidly expanding China's urban centers, "3D City: Future China" at the Beijing Center for the Arts is a refreshing look at a possible future ... Read More
Many an amateur art critic has shaken his head in frustration or bemusement at intentionally vague works and their accompanying descriptions. But Wen Fang's "Birthday Present" - currently on display at Galerie Paris-Beijing in 798 - is an exercise in directness that neatly excises any distraction from her intended meaning.
Six ... Read More
Beijing Tokyo Art Projects | Super Acrylic Skin Photon — Imaginary Temperature ★★★✩✩
The first solo show on the Chinese mainland for Japanese animation artist Hiroyuki Matsuura is now on at Beijing Tokyo Art Projects. It’s an all-too-brief foray into the fascinatingly kitsch world of manga.
From a sensory perspective, the show ... Read More
Once the cradle of China’s petroleum industry, the town of Yumen in Gansu Province is a now a rundown backwater town, perpetually shrouded in pollution and overrun with shuttered storefronts and disgruntled workers. When Zhuang Hui and his girlfriend Dan’er decided to open a photography studio here in ... Read More
When an artist purposefully pulls himself out of the rising avant-garde art movement of his contemporaries, you know you’re dealing with a unique voice. Wang Yin decided he would document the evolution of modern Chinese oil painting, and has done so, often to unsettling effect.
There is always something ... Read More
Sophie McKinnon takes a look at one of the year's most important shows in 798, Ai Weiwei's World Map
Ai Weiwei is known for his tireless engagement with social issues through art, and his efforts have made him the focus of debate and controversy. It’s fitting then ... Read More
The quantum physics principle of wave-particle duality allows light to be both a wave and a particle at the same time. In the hands of photographer Tokihiro Sato, however, it is unclear whether light is either. Here it verges on something else altogether, stranger and more wonderful.
In “Respiration,” Sato ... Read More
Though aficionados flock to 798 to view works from the latest names in contemporary Chinese art, checking out unknown talent often reveals hidden gems.
F2 Gallery is showcasing recent graduates of Hangzhou’s Academy of Art, an institute known for its encouragement of the adventurous and the avante-garde. Pieces from ... Read More
Shadows usually call up dark corners and black emotions in the collective consciousness. But up and coming Indonesian artist Eko Nugroho’s first solo exhibit in Beijing at Pekin Fine Arts has a more whimsical take on the qualities of darkness. Nugroho’s exhibit plays with shadows in a fanciful ... Read More
Capturing the essence of a person, much less a country, in a photo is a notoriously difficult thing to do. Successful portrait photographers need to display the core of their subjects without falling into the trap of convenient stereotype.
As it is with all things China, stereotyping through imagery is ... Read More
Artist Sheng Qi is famous for cutting off his left pinky finger two decades ago and burying it in a flowerpot in a grotesque act of performance art. Though not as viscerally shocking, “Power of the People,” a solo exhibition of Sheng’s recent acrylic paintings at F2 gallery, is ... Read More
Ju Douqi’s Vegetable Museum subverts its subjects in a manner so overtly playful that it is easy to overlook the powerfully encoded message. Ju’s photographs, which are packed with intense color, are bold re-creations of world-famous paintings ... with a vegetal twist.
Images we instantly recognise, such as Warhol ... Read More
Fashionably Edgy
This spectacular show lacks the glossy glamour that we associate with haute couture. Instead, upon entry, one is propelled through a white tunnel spliced with a series of heavy pearl curtains that read “white cloud” in Chinese characters—only to emerge in a disorienting black room room punctuated ... Read More
How many ways can you photograph a wall? Since the fall of the Ming dynasty, the Great Wall of China has gone from being a fortress against nomadic northern invasions to becoming one of the top ten tourist attractions in the world—and the most photographed site in China. Of ... Read More
That’s Heavy
Based in Seoul, web-art collective Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries (YHCHI) has produced new text-based videos for its first solo exhibition in China, “The Cultural Revolution,” at doART in Caochangdi. South Korean Chang Young-Hae and American Marc Voge make up the two-artist collective of Heavy Industrires. They collaborate ... Read More
Colors of India
Acclaimed textile artist Kimsooja takes us along on her spiritual journey in “Mumbai: A Laundry Field.” Exploring properties of fabric through video, sculpture and installation, she uses embroidered and brightly colored fabrics, not only as bedcovers, but also as bundle wraps to carry personal belongings. Each bedcover ... Read More
6 Mile, 3 Shadows
RongRong and inri’s seven-year artistic relationship took on new force and meaning after establishing the Three Shadows Art Centre last year. Created as a space for artists by artists, it has held a series of exhibitions dedicated to both old masters and newcomers alike. The ... Read More
Traditionally Modern
Beijing Center for the Arts, the new multi-story gallery space at the Legation Quarters, has extensive room for installations and large scale art pieces given the tall pillars and beams that frame its central open space. The gallery’s debut exhibition, Beyond Reminiscence features artists’ works that bring ... Read More
The Lazy Guide to Finding Love
By DRAGONCAKE79
Fabulous article Nikkia! Made me chuckle. The filter option online is definit... >>