Bloodline Series: Comrade No. 120 (1998)

An anonymous bidder paid $979,200 for "Bloodline Series: Comrade No. 120" (1998), one of Zhang Xiaogang's first large-scale single portraits, setting a record for the artist at Sotheby's auction in March. Zhang's other work can be found here and here.

Yue Minjun’s Lions, 1998

Yue Minjun’s painting Lions, 1998, identical or similar to the above, sold to an anonymous bidder for $564,800 at Sotheby’s in New York in April. Some of his other work can be seen here and here. An article, by Monica Dematte, describing the artist and his art can be found here.

Wang Qingsong won award at Rencontres d'Arles photography festival

Chinese photographer Wang Qingsong won the Outreach Award for "Glorious Life," a series of surreal, Photoshopped fantasies exploring the physical and psychological spaces occupied by the people of his rapidly changing country. Wang's images can also be found on artnet.

Fleshbot images on China Daily

More and more people are noticing that there are a great number of explicit images showing up on official Chinese media websites. The latest example reported by danwei.org is that the state-owned China Daily carrying images from Fleshbot, the porn-watching blog of the New York based Gawker Media. Go figure.

Contemporary Chinese Photography on Conscientious

Conscientious has one of its categories dedicated to Contemporary Chinese Photography. Works of quite a few photographers are included, like this one by Song Chao.

Gao Xingjian: La Montagne de Reve (Ink on paper)

The Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature (2000) Gao Xingjian is also a painter. A small sample of his work can be found here. Gao believes that the world cannot be explained and that artistic creation offers the only way to escape into meaning. His images convey these aspects of an inexplicable world-the black-and-white inner world that underlies the complexity of human existence. Two collections of his paintings, Ink Paintings by Gao Xingjian, and Return to Painting, can be found in the bookstores.

3,300 years-old artwork

Photo taken on July 12, 2006 shows an enlarged sculpture whose prototype is a jade article unearthed at the ruins of ancient China's Shang Dynasty capital in Anyang City. The site was inscribed into the World Heritage List on July 13, 2006 by the 30th session of the World Heritage Committee (WHC) in VILNIUS, Lithuania. The full report can be found here.

Pei Jing: To Serve the People (watercolour)

One of the popular themes of Chinese contemporary art is to show the irony by mixing the motif of contemporary life with the "revolutionary" elements from the 60's of last century. That probably is a pretty accurate reflection of the current Chinese psyche. You can find Pei Jing's other work here.

Stefan Landsberger's Chinese Propaganda Poster Pages

It turned out there is at least another site that is dedicated to the Chinese Propaganda Posters. Stefan Landsberger has brought together quite a nice collection of some 1,900 titles, spanning more than five decades of Chinese poster production. What's unique on this site is that the collection includes much newer posters as the one about SARS, as well as the ones of the Great Leap Forward. An earlier post on PictorialChina mentioned Maopost.com.

China's first "MBA monks"

ChinaNews.cn proudly reported (2006-06-30 15:28:23) that China's first "MBA training course for monks" held a graduation ceremony at the Antai College of Economics & Management of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The piece went on to call monks taking MBA courses "unprecedented". INDEED. Wait until SNL's Tina Fay gets hold of it.

10 Wonders of the New China

BusinessWeekOnline featured a story on DECEMBER 23, 2005 (in case you have not read it) about "China's current building boom ... creating a stage for some of today's boldest architecture and engineering", showing 10 of the most intriguing examples, including the Olympic Stadium, Beijing.

Mei Mei - Little Sister

Mei Mei - Little Sister: Portraits from a Chinese Orphanage, by photographer Richard Bowen, available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

Contemporary Chinese Photography on Conscientious

Conscientious has Contemporary Chinese Photography as one of the categories listed on the blog site. That category contains some very interesting entries. So check it out.

Maopost.com -- China propaganda posters

Maopost is a site dedicated to vintage Chinese propaganda posters. The site has a sizable collection. You can browse by category or period. You can also view the enlarged individual images. However, according to Maopost, "Our posters are not for sale. They are only here to please your eyes and your mind. However, if you fall in love with one of them, you can contact us. We may be able to unearth another original for you."

Maleonn's photography

Tension and anxiety expressed through theatrical treatment of the subjects and surroundings. The photographer's portfolio can be found on usefilm, photoseen, and altphotos. Maleonn's solo exhibition "Wonderland" was reported by smartshanghai. He was quoted saying "My photography...is just like life: unpredictable and full of hints, but no answers... we are trying to understand the deeper meaning of our culture."