I'm thinking, as I write this, about beauty. I'm thinking about beauty because I'm flying over Siberia, and below me there is an expanse of softly sculpted white. I'm thinking about beauty because I'm returning from Paris, where I spent the last few days -- ostensibly on a writing assignment, but mostly exploring old neighborhoods, drinking good wine in cafes and visiting museums and galleries.
And I'm thinking about beauty because of Chinese performance artist Ma Liuming, who is tall and slender and fair -- and is currently showing works in Tokyo, at the Zeit-Foto Salon.
Liuming, 32, was born in the Hubei Province of China, where he studied oil painting at the Academy of Fine Arts. After graduating, he moved to the capital, where he became one of the "Beijing East Village" artists credited with challenging his country's censorship of dissident art. While many other artists of Liuming's generation worked with communist icons, he expressed himself primarily by removing his clothes.