A cultural revolution: China art scene

Britta Erickson in The Atlantic:

ArtcaofeiContemporary Chinese art is attracting widespread international interest, thanks to the extraordinary prices being paid at auction. Last November, in Hong Kong, Zhang Xiaogang’s Tiananmen Square (1993) sold for $2.3 million, and Liu Xiaodong’s Three Gorges: Newly Displaced Population (2004) sold for more than $2.7 million.

The headline-grabbing sales have been dominated by a handful of Beijing-based painters whose works have a signature look easily recognizable as Chinese. Museums worldwide, though, are beginning to take a much broader interest in the Chinese art scene, exhibiting artists working in a variety of media, from ink painting and sculpture to installations and performance art. Major solo exhibitions—such as those of Huang Yong Ping at Minnesota’s Walker Art Center, Cai Guo-Qiang at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Zhou Tiehai at Tokyo’s Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, and Yang Fudong at the Kunsthalle Vienna—show an increasing appreciation of the breadth of the work being created in China and provide evidence of the rapid integration of Chinese artists into the international art arena.

More here.