From 2008 onward, Song Kun began building a new internal reality, related to life but existing through images. This “realism” is alive in the world of her works. In contrast to real life, she weeds out the underbrush and preserves only what is real and essential, allowing the images to emerge transcendent and clear. Her…

The most eye-catching spectacle of Zhang Ding’s “Buddha Jumps over the Wall” can be found atop two monumental metal columns; a lean man, holding a knife and a gun, on a ritualistic platform such that to see him we have no choice but to look up. The subjects of video-looped “sacrifice” must either directly face…

The word “more” is a word full of hunger. It is also a word many Chinese people associate with the American cigarette brand “More”— or “Mó’ěr,” its transliteration in Chinese. In the 1980s and 90s, these slim cigarettes were all the rage in China. A large contingent of teenage boys became fond of collecting the…