What are young Chinese artists doing in New York? This is an interesting question.
The artists, with background like this, are likely to be expected to conform to a specific, predictable worldview, focused on several Chinese styles, as spokespersonsfor a singular cultural or social identity. But the young generation are defying this expectation. They ignore labels, they tell their own stories, they make their own gestures. They resist being defined as “Chinese” artists; they are just “artists.” In this way, their work rejects being considered as a unified group; it defies a single categorization, which makes it hard to name this group show.
It is still provocative to put them together– this exhibition is a survey of six young artists who were born in mainland China and came to New York. Their work reflects an awareness of a broad range of artistic focuses. Their work cannot be confined to a certain national identity – it seems to come from somewhere else.
