Near the entrance of Yang Jian’s solo exhibition “Constructing Ruins,” visitors encountered a short text typewritten on a small piece of paper attached to a length of rebar. The elliptical words tell the story of a crew of workers who run into trouble constructing a bridge. The foreman, disguised as a beggar, asks nearby villagers for two sets of children’s clothes. The workers nail the clothes to a post and, suddenly, they are able to complete the bridge successfully. Soon, however, the children to whom the clothes belonged die.

This tale was among half a dozen stories printed on as many pieces

“A Chemical Love Story” was a visual and conceptual polyphony displaying the work of nine Chinese artists, all under forty, working in a wide variety of media, including video, installation, painting, photography, and performance, and drawing on international experiences and approaches thanks to education abroad and internationally oriented résumés. The show’s starting point was Alexander and Ann Shulgin’s book, PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story (1991), which focuses on psychoactive phenylethylamine chemical derivatives, notably those that act as psychedelics and are associated with euphoria. As