Woo Jin Joo’s studio is full of magic. Ceramic green goblin feet line the windowsill, disembodied furry legs jut out of one white wall and, on the table behind where the Korean-Chinese artist sits drinking tea, a headless being dressed in a black coat squats, arms aloft in warning. There are also neat racks of colourful thread next to a freehand embroidery machine, the source of this supernatural hoard. This is where Joo creates much of her art – surface embroideries and sculptural 3D creatures inspired by Korean myth, philosophy…
Tag: Art
Nostalgia Is Bringing Gen Z Together Globally
new video loaded: Nostalgia Is Bringing Gen Z Together Globally <img src="https://www.chinastrategy.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/nostalgia-is-bringing-gen-z-together-globally.png" data-testid="betamax-poster" sizes="(width Lily Kuo and Callie Holtermann, two New York Times reporters, came across similar nostalgia trends on opposite sides of the world. They discuss how these trends developed independently, what makes each unique and what’s driving them. By Lily Kuo, Callie Holtermann, Gabriel Blanco and James Surdam August 9, 2026 NYT
Beth McKillop obituary
Long before Korean film, television and music achieved global prominence, the curator and scholar Beth McKillop, who has died of metastatic breast cancer aged 72, was arguing that Korean artistic traditions deserved attention in their own right, rather than as a footnote to the histories of China or Japan. Through her work at the Victoria & Albert Museum and at the British Library, McKillop helped transform how Korean art was understood, introducing visitors, students and researchers to the country’s ceramics, books and design, and helping establish a field that is…
The Guardian view on culture in China: artist Gao Zhen is paying again for the country’s painful history | Editorial
Sixty years ago, Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution – a decade of fanaticism that consumed China. Perhaps 2 million people, from top leaders to impoverished farmers, were killed or driven to suicide for political “crimes” or their family background. Tens of millions more, including the father of China’s leader, Xi Jinping, were hounded. The party, and most of those who lived through the movement, prefer to forget it. But the years of chaos, violence, zealotry and stagnation, which ended only with Mao’s death, have left deep scars. Among the many victims…
The Painting Movements Everyone Should Know
How to Be Cultured Menu Art More in Art American Land Art Essential Museum Works Is It Surreal? Masks Innovations in Painting Postwar Art Conceptual Art Explained Essential Pottery Intangible Art What Is Performance Art? Notorious Controversies See the rest of the issueNYT
Gao Zhen, Detained Chinese Artist, Keeps Creating From Prison
NYT
Venice’s Lion of St Mark’s Square was at least part made in China, study suggests
The great bronze statue of a winged lion perched atop one of two granite columns in Venice’s St Mark’s Square has watched over the city for centuries. But Italian scientists have now found evidence to suggest the iconic statue was at least in part made in China, and possibly ended up in Venice via the Silk Road after being brought back by the father and uncle of the merchant and explorer Marco Polo. In research due to be published in the journal Antiquity, scientists from the University of Padua found…
‘The eighth wonder of the world’: China’s terracotta warriors to march on Australia for blockbuster show
Two thousand years ago, in a bid to conquer death itself, China’s first emperor Qin Shi Huang commissioned a city of the dead: a 49 sq km mausoleum guarded by an army of clay warriors, built to defend his tomb for eternity. When farmers near Xi’an unearthed the first clay head in 1974, they cracked open one of humanity’s greatest archaeological mysteries, with more than 8,000 Terracotta Warriors discovered over the last 50 years. Now, fragments of that dream of immortality rise again – this time in Perth, where the…
A Queer Chinese Artist Finds Liberation Through Folk Art
In the years he hid his sexuality from his children and village neighbors, Xiyadie would take short-bladed scissors to rice paper and give shape to unfulfilled dreams. At first glance, his creations conform to traditional cutout designs of animals and auspicious symbols adorning doorways and windows in China. But a closer look at the shapes — birds, butterflies and blossoms perched on twisty vines — reveals bodies conjoined in the throes of intimacy or separated by brick walls. The artist, 60, who goes by the pseudonym Xiyadie, was born in…
Hong Kong artists flee as city grapples with status as arts hub amid rising repression
From a rocky perch a larger-than-life rendition of a female protester, clad in a hard hat and a gas mask, gazes over a city in turmoil. Known as Lady Liberty Hong Kong, the statue was hauled to the top of Lion Rock during the 2019 pro-democracy protests. It was meant to be her final resting place. But now all that remains of that intention is photographs. The statue was destroyed by unknown assailants the day after it was hauled up the peak, a landmark said to represent the resilient spirit…