Author: Richard Kraus

Richard Kraus is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Oregon, where he taught courses about China, cultural politics, human rights, and United States foreign policy. He is the author of books including Brushes with Power: Modern Politics and the Chinese Art of Calligraphy (University of California Press, 1991) and The Party and the Arty: How Money Relaxes Political Control over China's Arts (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003).
Reviews

Four Young Chinese Artists, 25 Years On

Richard Kraus

Richard Kraus looks at two documentaries on Chinese art by Lydia Chen

In her spellbinding 1993 documentary Inner Visions, Lydia Chen interviewed three struggling, idealistic young Chinese artists. Twenty-five years later, the same profilees are back in Chen’s latest film, Art in Smog, to discuss their careers again – this time as mature artists who worked hard to find their places in China’s now prosperous arts scene. Chen’s long-term relationship with them is unique, and makes for two very special documentaries which anyone who cares about the evolution of Chinese art over the past quarter century should watch.