Avatar & China: Idealism, Optical Illusions – Arts & Entertainment

BEIJING–A little more than a decade ago, give or take, Yue Minjun was on the outside, trying hard not to look in. He was an artist, but more than that, a subversive, chafing mightily at the strictures of an authoritarian Chinese government that neither valued his work nor had much patience for his cheeky brand of social satire

I greatly respect and admire Chinese culture. I may not always agree with the politics or the attitudes that I encounter (in fact I often do not) but I am grateful for the opportunity to live here and immerse myself in the culture. I was thinking about my favorite aspects of Chinese culture.

Here a few of my thoughts; feel free to add more.

Having spent a full year as a resident artist at Sichuan University, we interview him here about his impressions of and thoughts on the Chengdu and China art scene.

After just publishing a book on the development of cities in Central and Western China, what does Michiel Hulshof think about Chengdu? I ask him and learn about his two year adventure across Western China in this interview.