Xu Bing
Xu Bing is the first Chinese contemporary artist to win the Artes Mundi ("Arts of the World"), in Wales, a major prize in the art world. Working in a wide range of media, Xu creates installations that question the idea of communicating meaning through language, demonstrating how both meanings and written words can be easily manipulated. His works like A Book from the Sky, Cultural Animal and Ghosts Pounding the Wall have strongly challenged visual sense, cultural consciousness and feelings of shame among both Chinese and foreigners.
Li Shan
Growing out of what is considered "political pop," Li Shan has been, over the past three years, depicting a surreal world inhabited by magical creatures, half humans - half animals, figures with butterfly wings and other mutant beings. He raises questions of what human existence is and where it is going. In terms of artistic style, the artist has adopted decorative methods similar to those of folk art, thus creating intimate, eccentric and oddly organic objects.
