China Times

Believe it or not, Denver has long been a center for the appreciation of art from China, and that has a lot to do with the Asian Art Coordinating Committee, headed up by Julie Segraves. Two decades ago, when no one was looking at contemporary art in China -- not...

By Michael Paglia

March 8, 2012

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Believe it or not, Denver has long been a center for the appreciation of art from China, and that has a lot to do with the Asian Art Coordinating Committee, headed up by Julie Segraves. Two decades ago, when no one was looking at contemporary art in China -- not even the Chinese -- Segraves began arranging exhibits here in Denver. Her latest effort is the video solo Wang Gongxin. "New media is one of the hottest things in Chinese art right now," says Segraves, "and Wang Gongxin is one of the earliest trailblazers of video art. He's self-taught, and when he started, there wasn't even widespread computer technology in China."

The show fills the entire set of exhibition spaces at RedLine with multi-channel video installations in the form of both projections and flat-screen views. "He takes on a wide variety of themes," Segraves explains, "not only what's going on China, but universal themes, too. But when you look at his work, you know instinctively that the artist is Chinese."

See Wang Gongxin at RedLine, 2350 Arapahoe Street. For more information, call 296-4448 or go to http://redlineart.org.
Tuesdays-Sundays. Starts: Jan. 28. Continues through March 11, 2012

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Michael Paglia is an art historian and writer whose columns have appeared in Westword since 1995; his essays on the visual arts have also been published in national periodicals including Art News, Architecture, Art Ltd., Modernism, Art & Auction and Sculpture Magazine. He taught art history at the University of Colorado Denver.

Contact: Michael Paglia