by patrick w. deegan. the world of art collection and criticism seems just as agog with china these days as regular reportage on politics and economics. and perhaps the coverage is deserved, because the synergy between its bullish (dragonish) economy and various socio-cultural and political forces has continued the boom of china’s art world. hardly a day seems to pass without an art celebrity from china making headlines in some foreign collector’s collection or some international art fair. even in the near future, chinese art favorite ai weiwei has invited over one thousand fellow chinese to documenta 12 as a part of his latest work. ai’s invitees ostensibly come from a wide swath of society, including the unemployed, farmers, and students; which brings to a point something that the art press often belies: the other countless chinese artists that do not make the art coverage. in fact, despite the clichéd “hotness” of china’s art scene, except for a handful of art celebrities not much else is known. this lack is compounded in the case of china’s burgeoning new media art scene, which like its overseas counterparts maintains its resistance to collection and its niche status for curation. to this end then, what does new media in china look like? who produces new media art, and under what conditions? this essay seeks to provide one glance of some of the present conditions for new media art production in china.
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