The history of the Glass House museum begins with its designer Philip Johnson, an influential American modernist architect born in 1906. Following trips throughout Europe in his youth, Johnson drew inspiration from the icons of architectural history as well as the burgeoning modernist architectural movements in Germany and France in the 1920s. After completing his education at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design,…

“My University (1990-2010): Liu Dahong and the Shuangbai Studio” opened on June 20, 2010 at Iberia Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing. Liu Dahong, artist, professor, and director of the Shuangbai Studio, graduated in 1985 from the Oil Painting Department of Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts, and has served as an instructor at Shanghai Normal University for the…

The self is fraught these days, but particularly so in Shenzhen, a city with no history—or only thirty years of it, as the saying goes. It is a concrete sprawl of flash developments and relaxed economic regulations, brimming with migrants who pass through loose borders looking for fast money. Every one of Shenzhen’s nearly nine million inhabitants comes from someplace, yet…

Matt Hope has spent the last three years deep within the recesses of a studio and gallery compound on the south side of Caochangdi, putting off his debut solo exhibition. Instead of rushing into the public eye, he has used this time to explore the processes and infrastructures of fabrication throughout Mainland China. Hope knows his fabricators well: from the machine…

“When an established artist reaches middle age, what sort of work should he or she create?” This is a question that many of us face today. It concerns us, when we consider an artwork, and it concerns the artist, in how he or she should assess their own creation. Whether or not we like to admit it, art—in terms of…

In September of 1995, the Fourth World Conference on Women was held in the Beijing suburb of Huairou, one of the landmark events of China’s 1990s. In addition to the official schedule, a large number of related activities were held by officials and members of the arts and cultural communities, including the Ministry of Culture and the China Women’s Federation’s organization…

When the harvest moon comes out, we feel the pangs of place. American schools hold homecomings. Jews build booths. Chinese families reunite to stare into the sky. There is something fundamentally human in the autumn air, the feeling that things have turned, cyclically, but irrevocably all the same. The fruits of the bygone summer are…

Symposium on “The Borders of Art” DATE: 2010.5.30 / LOCATION: CENTRAL ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS MUSEUM, VIP LOUNGE Held in conjunction with “Pan Gongkai Conceptual Art Exhibition” FROM LEFT PAN GONGKAI Art theorist and educator; President, China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) ZHU QINGSHENG Professor of Art, Peking University AN YUANYUAN Director, Art and…

This is an issue about “art youth,” a designation that sounds much more natural in Chinese. It’s hard to convey all the connotations it instantly summons, but for starters, it doesn’t mean “young artist.” It’s a subcategory of the “arts and culture youth,” a stock character in the contemporary urban imagination who sports Warrior sneakers…

As we were nearing press time a few days ago, it occurred to us to try and capture one specific example of China’s waxing presence in Africa, the Parc Culturel et ses Sept Merveilles de Dakar, near the Senegalese capital’s bustling seaport. There, Chinese laborers, backed by Chinese investment and in keeping with Chinese foreign…

On our cover this month you’ll see an image that might not make sense at first. From a corner, our photographer captures the workshop in which sculptor Zhan Wang’s stainless steel scholar’s rocks come to life. Under Zhan’s direction, a team of highly skilled workers bring these unlikely objects into existence, first hammering out shapes…