There is a wide diversity of practices—from video to sculpture to painting, from Asia and Europe and North America, with a wide variety of concern—in the encyclopedic show of contemporary art practices showcased now at Rockbund, but what seems to unify them is a simmering dissatisfaction with the world as it is.

As the Centre Pompidou visits Chengdu, proposing a “Cosmopolis,” it’s fair to ask: why do the people of Chengdu need to pay the Centre Pompidou in order to discover themselves?