Schooling the Artists’ Republic of China
From New York Times:
On a recent lazy afternoon Wang Haiyang, a student at China’s top art school, was quietly packing away some of his new oil paintings in the campus’s printmaking department. He is 23, and he just had his first major art exhibition at a big Beijing gallery.
Many of his works sold for more than $3,000 each, he said. And he hasn’t even graduated.
“This is one of my new works,” he said proudly, gesturing toward a sexually provocative painting of a couple embracing. “I’ll be having another show in Singapore in March.”
For better or for worse — depending on whom you talk to — Beijing’s state-run Central Academy of Fine Arts has been transformed into a breeding ground for hot young artists and designers who are quickly snapped up by dealers in Beijing and Shanghai.
Origin: David Barboza, New York Times
