Art Labor’s “2nd Impressions” encourages viewers to take the tricky term “contemporary Chinese art,”–referenced by many but defined by few–and rethink its meaning.

Canadian gallerist Martin Kemble dismisses the label as marginalizing. “We seek artists who are not so easily defined by any particular group, just as the gallery is not necessarily a space concerned with the actual [local] art scene,” he explains.

Rejuvenation is an appropriate theme for the booming gallery’s new, larger space. Kemble’s resistance to clichés is a refreshing change from the prevalence of Chinese art catering to Western tastes. You will see no pop art pictures of Mao under McDonald’s golden arches.

Instead, the artists showcase an eclectic range of styles representative of their diverse backgrounds. Danish artist Per Adolfsen’s Day of the Falling Planets ‘Oooooooo!’ offers a fantastical, dreamlike landscape populated by crashing celestial orbs. Swirling patterns rendered in sticky acrylic contrast with the strict linearity of the forest grounds and trees. Colors are jarring and painted with the frenetic energy of a Basquiat. The effect induces claustrophobic anxiety and compelling disorientation.

The sublime grey and white gradations of Chinese artist You Si’s How it All Got Started 1 are intuitively soothing. In this microscopic view of human conception, thousands of painstakingly detailed sperm bend towards a vulva by a centripetal pull. Si tells us that he “put[s] universal themes into a meticulous microcosm.”

The most amusing piece is the video installation The Invisible Dog–Andy by Korean-American artist “Suitman,” né Young Kim. Filmed in Ethiopia and Buenos Aires, it features Kim strolling down the streets walking an invisible dog. His debonair attitude to the obviously absurd situation is a hilarious antithesis to the bewildered stares of passers-by.

That Kemble rejects the politically fraught, identity-obsessed work of the ’90s and instead showcases this exhibition–an exemplary collection of ’00s work–is a potent symbol of the present and future state of an art scene that is far from burgeoning and very much near to explosion.

The image featured above is a piece from Denmark's Per Adolfsen. Adolfsen is featured in the 2nd Impressions exhibit.

DETAILS

What:2nd Impressions

Where: Art Labor 2.0 | Bldg. 4, 570 Yongjia Lu

When: Now until 25 August, 2010

How much:FREE

Tel: 3460-5331

Web: www.artlaborgallery.com