The Year of Chinese Contemporary Art

This year has been a turning point for Chinese contemporary art — no longer an emerging phenomenon, Chinese art now sets the world's agenda. Foreshadowing events to come, the Tate Liverpool opened The Real Thing: Contemporary Art from China in March, in which the collaborative Yangjiang Group staged a mock fireworks battle over Liverpool. Ai Weiwei further enlivened the UK's oldest Chinese community by installing a gigantic, glittering chandelier in the Albert Dock, modeled after Vladimir Tatlin's Monument to the Third International.

The year's other major museum show, China Power Station: Part II at the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo, gave relative unknowns a chance to shine. Shanghai photo collective Birdhead exhibited alongside Guangzhou conceptual artist Chu Yun. Elsewhere, shows such as China — Facing Reality at Vienna's Museum Moderner Kunst, China Welcomes You... at Kunsthaus Graz, and Made in China at the Israel Museum kept the PRC theme in heavy international rotation.

Chinese artists also starred in the year's major fairs and biennials. Ai Weiwei wowed crowds at documenta by bringing his own contingent of 1,001 Chinese citizens who responded to an invitation posted on his blog. Yang Fudong's five-part film cycle, Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest, paced the Venice Biennale's centerpiece exhibition at the Arsenale, with individual viewing booths for each part of the work. At the Biennale's Chinese Pavilion, San Francisco-based curator Hou Hanru installed site-specific works by four female artists, including Shen Yuan's giant baby bottles and pacifiers. Hou resurfaced to direct the Istanbul Biennial with another Venice participant, Cao Fei, who also brought the Chinese art explosion into the virtual realm of Second Life with her China Tracy and RMB City projects.