The artists of the Cartoon Generation are not of the "cartoon generation." They are the same age as all of the other artists London has met, about twenty-eight to forty years old. The three youngsters from Hangzhou (see dispatch 22 Sept) are the only students known to do media arts. Usually art students spend all their time learning what they are told, and an old guard dictates the art curriculum. For anyone familiar with the radicalism of American art schools, the conformity in art schools here is hard to understand.

Yang explains, somewhat. [RealAudio] 2:10 min

Another enigma is the artists over forty. None of the established artists have experimented with media art, or any other new form that emerged in the last few decades. Surely, some artists over forty are adventuresome. Where are their experiments? Maybe the next few days will bring an answer.

 

WANG HUIMIN Wang is a performance artist. She performs alone, very much a solitary figure. In "I Take Noise," she unspools an audio tape, alone in a storefront gallery while viewers watch outside. Wang moves slowly, deliberately, a beautiful woman who draws attention.
From the performance "Margrethe: The First Dress"
Wang's work is mostly about "looking." In "I Live in the Mirror," Wang looked at herself for one hour. "Margrethe: The First Dress," a Scandinavian folk tale that she performed in several Nordic countries, has Wang looking at video projections of herself as she interprets the story of Margrethe. What is it about a person that makes them attractive.