AFTER YEARS OF REPRESSION, ART THRIVES IN BEIJING

Repeated crackdowns on free expression in the wake of 1989’s prodemocracy protests forced many Chinese artists into exile. But now, Antoaneta Bezlova reports in the Asia Times, the expatriates are returning in large numbers and transforming a Beijing industrial district into an artists’ colony—complete with studios, galleries, bars and nightclubs. The government’s tolerance of contemporary art appears to be on the upswing, and the Ministry of Culture’s agreement to sponsor a pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale may constitute a “watershed in official policy, which has thus far held that Chinese contemporary art is subversive, disturbing and too abstract to appeal to Chinese esthetics,” writes Bezlova.