New Gallery’s exhibition “New China” presents the juggernaut that is the Chinese art world today. The social, political, and pop cultural extravaganza of “the new China” presented by these cutting edge artists exemplifies the growth and change in Chinese society and its newfound consumerism.

China: where everything old is new again and everything new is startlingly so. The young artists of today’s China are redefining the global art market. These men and women could be called artistic entrepreneurs, refining and redefining Pop Art and American Pop Culture as well as 5,000 years of their own Chinese History. Many of the artists represented in this show will also be featured in the exhibition “RED HOT—Asian Art Today from the Chaney Family Collection,” opening at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston later this month.

One prominent Chinese art family, the Luo brothers, will have two signature works in this show. The Luo brothers entice the eye and the mind “with their obsessive attention to detail and craftsmanship at odds with the banality of the objects they depict.” These three brothers powerfully convey the dizzying disorientation, the joy, and the emptiness that characterizes the post-modern experience in China. Their work craftily replaces political ideology with exciting consumerism and materialism at its candy-coated excess.

Another prominent young artist well represented in this show is Chen Wenling. In his “Blissful Life Series,” the artist confronts the image of the pig, which is a major symbol in Chinese culture. The pig exists as an optimistic form of self-analysis. Each pig and person in the various works seems to live in an ecstatic, separate state. Such a phenomenon is a result of Chen Wenling’s shift towards satire directed at consumer socialist ideology.

Zhang Dali is one of the better-known new artists from China. His graffiti-like profile symbol has appeared as a cultural change marker throughout Beijing. These works are a strong commentary on the destruction of the “old” China and the loss of traditional neighborhoods being systematically erased from sight and memory.

Liu Bolin is shown with works from his “Hiding in the City” series. Here, the artist physically meshes into the metaphorical fabric of Chinese society by photographing himself painted to blend in with major visual symbols of contemporary Chinese socio-politics. His photographs really illustrate the sublimation of the individual into the physical and cultural landscape of China.

Other prominent artists in the show are Jiao Xingtao, who creates an exciting new twist by “wrapping” porcelain and bronze busts of Mao and painting them in trompe l’oeil of Wrigley’s gum-wrappers. Also of note are the gorgeous and glossy sculptures of Yu Fan as well as works by Yang Xun, Lu Peng, Suo Tan, and Zhao Bo.

This is a great opportunity for the collector to get in on this burgeoning colossus of the international art world.  Since many people may be out of town for much of the summer and to compliment the “RED HOT” show at the Museum of Fine Arts, we will keep this exhibition until September 1st, 2007. See it early, see it late, but this is a show you don’t want to miss.