Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art Quarterly

Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art is a new quarterly published in Taiwan and Canada by the anonymously named Art and Collection Group Ltd., which turns out to be an ambitious group of editors, writers, curators and artists in several countries in the East and the West, with a focus on “theoretical writing on Chinese contemporary art in an intellectual context.” The first issue contains much of interest: a long section of “Views on Contemporary Chinese Art” by ten scholars and artists, articles on “subversive cosmopolitanism” in the art of Lee Mingwei, history’s challenge to reality in the life and art of Cai Guoqiang, and (my favourite title) “Qian Zhongshu and the Late, Late Modern.” A long article on the movie Shadow Magic (2001), about Raymond Wallace, an English filmmaker who arrived in Beijing in 1902, casts much light on the history of cinema in China. Yishu is handsomely laid out in a tall, narrow format that suggests an easy transfer to the Web, although none of its pages are yet displayed at www.yishujournal.com.