If humans like to impose some measure of harmony upon the natural world—whether by representing animals together in paintings, or by forcibly keeping them separate in zoos—Sun Xun’s recent show at Max Protetch Gallery, titled “Animals,” renounces any such aspirations for idyll. Rather, a sense of menace imbues Sun’s menagerie of horses, crows, butterflies, pigs and turtles. Rendered…

In both its Chinese and English renderings, the title of Liu Wentao’s show “View” at White Space Beijing carries the meaning of “careful examination.” If we treat this as a demand on the viewer, it sh…

For the past ten years, Chen Wenbo has been painting scenes of isolated objects without people. The isolation comes from the relationship between restraint and erasure, lending Chen’s work an air of c…

Like the show’s title states, what Li Jinghu confronts is a kind of quotidian experience, and from his found objects we see that while he uses items ordinarily buried in daily life, he tries to rescue…

By introducing itself as a “significant shift” in Lee Kit’s practice, this show asks us to note that the works on display are completely different in form from any previous works. But this makes me wo…

Since 2007, the Shenzhen Biennial or the “Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture” has expanded to Hong Kong to become the “Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of UrbanismÄArchitecture.” The 2005 inaugural show’s theme, “Open City, Open Door!” allowed architects to spearhead a vast, public and citywide exhibition. In the 2007 biennial curated by Ma Qingyun, architects focused…

It is very difficult for commentary on “Time-lapse” to separate itself from the circumstances of the show, particularly the ongoing development of Chinese contemporary art and new media education. Thu…

“Modernism’s transposition of perception from life to formal values is complete,” wrote Brian O’Doherty of the modern gallery space. In his seminal 1976 treatise, Inside the White Cube, O’Doherty argued that the context in which art was shown had become irrevocably conflated with the art object’s own content, a Gesaumtkunstwerklike sublimation of subject and object, art and life…

“Who are the next generation of artists in China?” This is the question the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art’s (UCCA) second anniversary exhibition “Breaking Forecast” aims to answer. But in attempting to establish a contemporary history, the show raises an equally important question: Who is qualified to name a generation? Eight artists are named as the “key…