In its underlying critical negation of propositions of recent art history embraced uncritically by the preceding generation of Chinese contemporary artists, Jia’s work, in its conceptual features, often treats ideas originally developed in Western culture such as text-based conceptual art; and the transposition of the readymade to photography as it derives from the Düsseldorf School. But in its formal aspect, the work most often reinterprets Chinese paradigms, such as compositional patterns in Chinese calligraphy, and projection systems of the traditional Chinese landscape. This general tension of cultures between the work’s formal and conceptual elements serves a more specific critique of conditions in both China and the West. Most often, the artist chooses for the work an outwardly “pretty” aspect in order to address an atrocious reality.

Read more about Jia: a conversation with the art critic and professor Paul Gladston