New China New Art

BOM (Book of the Month) for May: New China New Art

Ed. Richard Vine. Prestel, 2008.

A man wearing a rack of ribs; goats' heads popping out of a ball of blue fur; headless dolls on plates; a vat of soy sauce cooking a man and a boar; the images in New China New Art are striking and sometimes shocking. Many depict violence, exploitation, degradation, the crassness of capitalism and the oppression of Mao Zedong's regime.

The book, editied by Richard Vine, Senior Editor for Asia of Art in America magazine, features paintings, photos, sculptures, performance art and video art from dozens of contemporary Chinese artists. While the cultural changes in the nation's recent history are reflected in the work, Vine says in the opening chapter, "the focus of this book is more concrete, based on the conviction that artworks are generated by individuals, working with particular materials, under their own set of circumstances."