Tobin Ohashi Gallery
Closes June 5
The status of contemporary Chinese art often seems driven by the notion that China is projected to overtake America as the world's leading economy and superpower sometime in the future, combined with the rather naive hope that artistic freedoms will somehow spill over into wider political freedoms.
The inherent qualities of the art seem somehow secondary in this grand socio-economic-artistic narrative. That Chinese art has accrued such a political patina is enough reason to be wary of it, but among all the buzz and chatter of a preternaturally active art scene, it is still possible to find art that sidesteps the hype and exists on its own terms as the culmination of authentic artistic processes.