Kang Yi’s Hickey Art Mixes The Rawness Of Human Flesh With Whatever Roasted Chickens Are Supposed To Symbolize

Hickey art with chicken
What do roast chickens and love have in common? Absofuckinglutely nothing. Form and content in art should go hand in hand. However, in Guangzhou-based performance artist Kang Yi’s recent work, nothing seems to fit. He stands on a podium, stripped down to a thong, with three golden-brown, baked birds hanging from his limbs. A girl... Read more »

Yishus: The Aesthetics Of Chen Guangcheng

Chen Guangcheng is hot
Chen Guangcheng may be leaving China soon, as passports are expected to be issued to his family “within 15 days,” he said, according to the Telegraph. At least one BJC contributor is sad to see him go. By Lola B For the past couple of weeks, scrolling through windows of China news, the only face... Read more »

Yishus: Caochangdi Photospring, Where You Can Take Pictures Of Pictures

Rongrong and Inri
Fan Shisan’s “2 of Us” series (in which the same subject is photographed twice, creating two friends out of one individual) argues that the One-Child-Policy generation is the loneliest generation. My art critic friend and I walked through a Miyazaki spring wonderland of floating tree sperm to make a point of arriving early to Caochangdi on... Read more »

Yishus: In Which Lola Coins The Term “Frivolititties”

Lucian Freud's painting of Bella, his daughter
I’m not sure how the topic came up, but over drinks at a newish bar on Beiluoguxiang, a few friends and I started discussing nudity and a certain sans-vêtements Beijing summer gathering last year (if you didn’t hear about it, your loss). “Oh, we were only naked, it was no big deal,” my friend repeated after... Read more »

Yishus: What Are We Teaching Our Children?

Kids draw the darndest things
I leaned over my Japanese eel handroll bought by the 10-year-old Chinese girl’s mother who was decked in glistening gold chains and a sparkling chemise. Looking squarely at the girl on this, our very first appointment, I asked her, “What is bad art?” She matter-of-factly responded, “Art made by grown-ups.”  As an interim project to... Read more »

Yishus: Am I Really Beauty?

Porn or art
Regarding the “I Am Beauty” sculptures that appeared recently on this site: I suppose I should just be happy to see a public monument to the fact that everyone likes sex. But you have questions, I just know it: Is it porn? Is it art? Is it actually porn cleverly disguised as art? No. To all the above.

Yishus: Who Critiques The Critics?

How interesting
Via Learn to Art Asked why she painted the mausoleum yellow – “This is wrong,” the Chinese art professor scolded – the foreign student at a top Chinese art school provided a thorough rejoinder defending the logic behind her aesthetic choice. The girl’s translator relayed the information to the professor. The next second, the student... Read more »

Now That It’s Arrived In China… What Is Kony?

Kony meme
Tudou video after the jump. By Lola B I sit in my room only wanting to stalk my friends on Facebook, and Kony is the first to greet me at log-in. I leave my door, and Kony hails me from his plastered paper post on the elementary school chain-link fence. Kony is currently the American equivalent... Read more »

Yishus: Have Your Art Professor’s Guy Call My Guy

Booby traps
Via The Green Pea Boat “I like to help my students as much as I can.” Sitting at his dining room table at 10 pm while nibbling on expensive imported dried apricots, the Chinese art professor uttered this while texting recommendations on behalf of his graduating students to collectors and other well-moneyed contacts. “I’m sorry... Read more »