Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Today's trends
It's much harder to pick out trends in today's ferment of activity, but many artists are unsur-
prisingly preoccupied with documenting the destruction of the Chinese urban landscape and
the gut-wrenching changes that have accompanied
modernization
. As spaces for viewing art
have increased, artists have diversified into
new media
such as performance and video; two
to look out for are
CaoFei
, who films and photographs fantasy tableaux, and
YangFudong
,
who makes wistful images of modern life. With all the noise, you need to shout to make your-
self heard - and the loudest modern artists are the impresario
Zhang Huang
, who produces
witty sculptures on an enormous scale, and art celebrity
Ai Weiwei
, who helped design the
concept behind the
Bird's Nest
Olympic stadium.
The contemporary art scene is, however, facing a few major challenges. Artists and photo-
graphers have fewer problems with
censorship
than writers or musicians, though the gov-
ernmental shackles are still in place. Counterfeiting has also become a real issue - unlike
Chinese copies of overseas-brand handbags, smartphones or golf clubs, this is having a dis-
cernibly negative local impact. There has been a massive surge in
forgeries
, compounded by
the fact that only 70 percent of works bought at auction are actually getting paid for. In addi-
tion, some of what does actually sell goes for an inflated price - either as status symbols to
the nouveau riche, or (allegedly) as tools of high-level bribery. Government regulation may
take some time to catch up with these dark inner workings of the local art scene.
