Young Beijing: China's capital, once stifled by officialdom, now hosts a myriad of emerging artists, dealers and curators who are attempting to turn the mega-city into a truly global art center—at startling speed

Art in America, June-July, 2004 by Jonathan Napack

Early performances in Beijing by Yan Lei (39) were among the most intense of the 1990s. After moving to Hong Kong in 1997 (he stayed five years), he shifted from extreme body experiments to malicious pranks. He forged invitations to participate in the 1997 Documenta and sent them to leading Chinese artists, mocking their aspirations to international acceptance. He contributed to one group show by placing a banner that read "Welcome Yan Lei to Shanghai" at the entrance to the gallery, thereby deeply angering the other artists. For the 2003 survey "Alors, la Chine?" in Paris, he hung a massive portrait on the Centre Pompidou next to Georges Pompidou's image (recalling, implicitly, Mao's on Tiananmen Square). It depicted a Chinese illegal immigrant he found painting portraits in the courtyard in front of the museum. For the current "Fifth System" in Shenzhen, sponsored by a real-estate company, he has fenced off one hectare of land and declared that it cannot be developed (at least for two years, the running time of the exhibition). Yan Lei says he believes art is a sham and that real life as closer to "art" than we might think.

Cui Xiuwen (34) is less brutally frank, but no less provocative. Her photographs in the series "Chengcheng and Beibei" (2002) explore the sexuality of young children in a manner somewhere between those of Sally Mann and Larry Clark. In her video work Lady's (1998), she concealed a camera in her underwear and filmed the goings-on in the restroom of an upscale Beijing "karaoke" (i.e., nightclub-brothel). A constant stream of women pass in front of the camera, but they are viewed only from behind of in the mirror, applying makeup and adjusting their breasts in the "private" space of the bathroom. These works express something about contemporary China not only in the subject matter but in the lack of "responsibility" and propriety on the part of the artist--it's an ironic form of protest via celebration of perverse societal values. Liu Wei (32), not to be confused with the older painter whose name is identical in its English version, specializes in paradoxical installations such as Event of Art (2003) shown recently at the opening of the Duolun Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai. Though the English phrase "everyone has a right to speak" was projected on the wall, visitors who picked up one of the accompanying microphones found their statements ruined by ear-shattering feedback.

This fast development is increasingly supported by an emerging infrastructure. Several art magazines--such as those whose titles translate as Art World and Modern Art--appear regularly now, and mainstream newspapers have art coverage (particularly Beijing Youth Daily, with a weekly supplement). The Web site at arts.tom.com is probably the most important outlet of all, a venue for many important critical statements with a chat room that serves as an important forum for public debate. Specialized art bookshops also exist, most notably publisher Robert Bernell's Timezone 8 just across from Factory 798 in the new Dashanzi Art District. The firm's Web site, Timezone8.com, and on-line newsletter provide a wealth of information on contemporary Chinese art events around the world. Its publishing branch produces dozens of English-language (or bilingual) monographs and books of art criticism.