All the things you'd want to do this Monday through Thursday. On the schedule this week: Yoga superstar master Duncan Wong is in town, catch an arty lecture at Sasha's, a special project at Bridge 8, or one of most well known Chinese plays, 'Rhinoceros in Love' is on at the Shanghai Grand Theater! Read on (or check out our calendar) for more! more ›

According to Ai Weiwei's Twitter feed, Sina's Art and Finance section recently put up a vote for Most Powerful Contemporary Artists of the Year. By far the most high-profile artist in the country, Ai Weiwei unsurprisingly sprung to the top of the list (as seen above, where Ai Weiwei is second from the left on the bottom row.) The voting option was quickly taken down by Sina and Ai Weiwei removed from the list, seen in its present form here. Voting was then allowed on a selection of art studios instead. Ai Weiwei's Three Shadows gallery, despite being listed almost last, again quickly rose to the top. Observers then watched as another studio suspiciously jumped a thousand votes up while Three Shadows dropped a few hundred right before voting ended (compare screen grabs here and here.) Scandalous, to say the least. Here's a summary from his English Twitter feed: more ›

The only surprise to this story is how Ai Weiwei managed to stay not arrested for so long. Still we're a little sad that we won't have a chance to party with the guy come this weekend. According to his tumblr-based translators: "The Beijing State Security and Chaoyang State Security have come to declare the decision of their superiors: Ai Weiwei, immediately until 12:00 on the 7th, is under house arrest. He may not leave his residence. Outside the door of Caochangdi 258 [Ai's studio] the police are guarding. Please take care of the Twitter friends of the demolition of Ai Weiwei's studio in Malu Jiading, Shanghai and the grass mud horses who have come to the river crab feast. Accept my biggest apologies." more ›

After the construction dust of the Bund finally settled down, Studio Rouge reopened at its old spot last night. Art lovers flocked in the rain to 17 Fuzhou Lu, getting treated to a new exhibition of pop art called "To Get Rich is Glorious." more ›

Du was raised in a small town in Jiangsu Province before he went to the prestigious China Academy of Fine Arts. Last year, his "City impression: Window series" was awarded top marks at the Ministry of Culture-sponsored "National Youth Art Exhibition." Recently, I got the chance to talk to Du about his work, why he moved to Shanghai, and what he thinks about the new generation of Chinese artists. more ›

Recently we were at a party when the topic of contemporary Chinese art came up. "It's a shame we don't see any more from Wang Xiaojin right? His works sold so well," someone tittered to us. Who? was our reply. "Do you think Xiao Lu has any future past her shock value?" another one asked. Buuuh, we gave as an answer. If only we had ArtSpeakChina to quickly wiki an opinion - or at least a hint about what was going on - up. more ›

We've worked at art auction houses before, and we've come to understand that the Chinese Art world has pretty much entirely passed over the years under Mao. Besides, when we think of the soviet realist artwork that was produced during that time, we struggle to see anything beyond the cheap souvenirs sold on Dongtai Lu. Interestingly, Bloomsbury Auctions is holding the first ever revolutionary Chinese art auction, with memorabilia (Maomorabilia?) that ranges from porcelain works to little red books. The 170 lots are expected to fetch around £130,000: we wonder what Mao would think of that? photo by Transpacifica more ›

• Chinese Scientists Reprogram Cells to Create Mice [WSJ] "Two teams of Chinese researchers working separately have reprogrammed mature skin cells of mice to an embryonic-like state and used the resulting cells to create live mouse offspring. The reprogramming may bring scientists one step closer to creating medically useful stem-cell lines for treating human disease without having to resort to controversial laboratory techniques. However, the advance poses fresh ethical challenges because the results could make it easier to create human clones and babies with specific genetic traits."
• Chinese Art, Still Invest-Worthy [GlobalPost] "Compared to the stock market, or nearly any other place one can put one’s money these days, Chinese contemporary art still looks like a very good investment. Recent art auctions in Hong Kong have registered sales at the high end of their estimates, even though the targets the auction houses are setting for themselves are less ambitious today than previous years. The owners of some of the best Beijing galleries said the shakeout promises to be a positive development for dealers, but also for artists. No one likes a bubble and there was growing concern that easy riches were destroying creativity by encouraging Chinese artists to go after major sales, rather than the real thing."
• It's Electric: Chinese Streets Full of Popular Electric Bicycles [FOXNews] "The bicycle was a vivid symbol of China in more doctrinaire communist times, when virtually no one owned a car. Even now, nearly two decades after the country began its great leap into capitalism, it still has 430 million bicycles by government count, outnumbering electric bikes and scooters 7-1. But production of electric two-wheelers has soared from fewer than 200,000 eight years ago to 22 million last year, mostly for the domestic market. The industry estimates about 65 million are on Chinese roads."

• China halts £18bn hydropower dam project over environmental concerns[guardian.co.uk] "China's environment ministry sought to reassert its authority on Friday by blocking a 200bn yuan (£18bn) cascade of hydropower dams near Shangri-la that would generate as much electricity as the Three Gorges Dam. Despite pressure from local governments that want to push ahead with big ticket development projects to offset the financial downturn, the ministry suspended approval of the project along the Jinsha iver in Yunnan province for failing to carry out adequate assessment of the environmental impact."
• All Eyes Inward [Newsweek] "Until recently, the way Chinese artists got famous was to talk politics. The generation that grew up during the Cultural Revolution and the difficult years that followed was highly politicized and gained global recognition for its tongue-in-cheek images of Mao Zedong and Tiananmen Square, often rendered in eye-popping color... Though still hot, those new-wave artists are giving way to a very different group: the "me-first" generation, whose members talk about each other and themselves."
• New tax plan sparks China protest [BBC] "Protesters in the south-eastern Chinese city of Nankang have overturned police cars and blocked roads over plans to more strictly enforce payment of taxes. Officials in Nankang said several hundred protesters blocked a major road while others delivered a petition to a local government office."

NYT takes a closer look at China's female contemporary artists who deserve more attention than they are currently getting as they struggle to explore art, feminism and a changing China. (Source) more ›