Chinese Art, in One Man’s Translation – Holland Cotter

From the New York Times:

When the exhibition “Inside Out: New Chinese Art” opened at Asia Society and P.S. 1 in 1998, it caused a stir because it both did and did not meet expectations of contemporary art from China.

The show had plenty of Mao portraits, but they came with jokes: Mao behind bars, Mao in Pop colors, with beauty marks and a flower in his teeth. There was also calligraphy, but it was messed-up calligraphy: illegible, computerized, used to write nonsense characters, fake language….[Full Text]

[Image of Zhang Huan via NYT]