Meulensteen

In 2011, Meulensteen presented In a Perfect World…, a group show featuring a bold new generation of Chinese artists whose perspectives differ markedly from their acclaimed predecessors. These emerging artists are creating work informed by China’s rapid transformation in a language that addresses the world at large. Curated by James Elaine, past curator of the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and the Drawing Center in New York, the exhibition encompasses painting, sculpture, video, and installation. As a curator Elaine has focused on emerging artists for 20 years and has been based in China since 2008 while investigating new art throughout Asia. In a Perfect World… marks the first time many of these emerging artists are exhibiting in the United States and the first New York exhibition Elaine has organized since relocating to China. In James Elaine’s own words: China is being redefined and reborn with every successive generation; it is not the same China that Westerners might imagine from their early education or from their knowledge of the first waves of Chinese contemporary art to reach our shores. My first trip to China was in 2002, with my family, to see this incredible land and visit Shandong Province where my mother was born and raised. My memories of the country at that time were of cities ruled by bicycles, Friendship Stores (where only foreigners could shop), guided tours, and a couple of new glitzy department stores stocked with massive amounts of merchandise but completely void of shoppers. In Beijing, I remember only two contemporary art galleries. It is a different world now. Things are changing here at an incomprehensible speed. In the ten short years since my first visit, China has emerged as a new global influence and its burgeoning contemporary art scene is following suit. Propelled by the sheer force of China’s numbers, growth of its art academies, development of a new collector base, emergence of new galleries, access to huge inexpensive studio spaces and fabrication facilities, and a new widespread interest in contemporary art within the country, China’s art world has become the most dynamic on earth. Thanks to these changes, artists in China enjoy a new status. The scene recalls New York’s East Village in the mid 80’s but on a far grander scale. On the other hand, in contrast to all of these encouraging new developments and the hype we hear, not everything here is right. As the title of the show might suggest, today’s China is no perfect world. There are many obstacles in place including the ever-present cloud of authority, a lack of philanthropy and real non-profit institutions, difficulties in entering the international marketplace, and censorship. Still, despite all of these challenges, and as the show’s title also suggests, anything seems possible here; the artists are pushing the limits day by day and in so doing are helping to shape the identity of this new dynamic China. In a Perfect World… features 12 young Chinese artists who were born in different regions of China between the late 70s and the late 80s and thus were raised after the end of the Cultural Revolution. They have different aspirations and greater access to global information than their predecessors, and their work, materials, and media reflect these new influences. Generally speaking the old China is not in their view;

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