Ai Weiwei here reinterprets a set of water spouts that once decorated a fountain water-clock in Beijing’s lavish Yuanmingyuan (Old Summer Palace). The water spouts, which were designed by Jesuit missionaries in the eighteenth century, told time by spouting water in shi, a traditional Chinese unit of time representing one twelfth of a day, equivalent to two hours. They depicted the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac, each of which is assigned to years, months, weeks, days, and one shi.

Yuanmingyuan was plundered and destroyed in 1860 by French and British forces during the Second Opium War. When three of the fountainheads resurfaced at an auction in 2000, they became a national symbol of cultural heritage that had been lost to Western imperialism. Their recent, highly politicized status fuels their value in the art market and fervent calls for repatriation.

© Ai Weiwei, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA

Li Qing’s Neighbor’s Window series is framed by discarded wooden windows that the artist found in the Chinese countryside. Using a large mirror as his ground, Li depicts examples of colonial and other Western art and architecture found throughout Asia. Here, he features the Tokyo garden of esteemed writer Mishima Yukio, a lover of classical Greek sculpture. In a visual paradox, the viewer is simultaneously positioned as an outside observer and, through their reflection in the unpainted parts of the mirror, as part of the image itself. Li’s work thereby combines the multiple gazes of China towards Japan, Japan towards Europe, and here, Los Angeles towards China.

© Li Qing

In this print, Liu Wei recreates a work from Vincent van Gogh’s series of paintings and sketches of the postman Joseph Roulin, a repeated subject of the famed Dutch painter. A mirror image of the original work and printing block, it features backwards calligraphy that reads “Vincent van Gogh’s painting” incorporated into the body of the figure. In his recent series 180 Faces (2017–18), Liu further explored the human condition through portraiture, this time including a painting based on a self-portrait by Van Gogh.

© Liu Wei

Joseph Beuys’ Dead Hare is modeled directly after the most prominent image of a performance piece by Joseph Beuys, entitled How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare (1965). Wang recreated this photo in his characteristic bold, bright colors, a distinct departure from the original black-and-white photograph of Beuys.

© Wang Guangyi, photo by Arnold Lee, Dijon Yellow Imaging

Qiu Anxiong’s The Doubter replaces the subject of Jacques-Louis David’s The Death of Marat (1793) with a synthetic chimpanzee, which lies limp in a bathroom-cage with a (fake) gun on the tile floor. Qiu uses this chimpanzee as a stand-in for humankind, reflecting upon the cost of revolution, through reference to the Age of Enlightenment and the death toll of the French Revolution. The two books in front of the chimpanzee are a Chinese copy of the bible and an English copy of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.

© Shi Guorui

Yue Minjun’s self-portrait—an uncanny, pink figure who is always shown to be laughing—was inspired by the student demonstrations and massacre at Tiananmen Square in 1989, and has pervaded much of Yue’s career since the 1990s. His recreations of historical paintings present a sardonic take on the Western art canon. Dubbed “Cynical Realism” by art critic Li Xianting, Yue’s work parodies the Socialist Realism style promoted by the Chinese Communist Party from the 1940s to the end of the Cultural Revolution.

© Yue Minjun, Photo courtesy Pace Gallery.

Zhou Tiehai has turned Joe Camel (the former mascot of Camel cigarettes) into his own signature character by recreating historical works of art and replacing the central figures with the advertising icon Joe Camel, sometimes read as a stand-in for Zhou himself (their names are homonyms of each other). These works engage with themes of fame within the fine art world, the Western art canon, and international brand culture. These pieces recall the idolization of political leaders during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), which aligned with the first decade of Zhou’s life.

© Zhou Tiehai, photo courtesy of the artist

At a mobile book stand in the 798 Art District of Beijing, Chen Ke stumbled upon an album of photographs documenting Mexican painter Frida Kahlo and her family, which she purchased immediately. She was inspired to paint recreations of the photos themselves, as well as scenes from her own life and pregnancy at the time. These drawings, sculptures, and video form a mixed-media “album” of Chen’s understanding of womanhood, from early pregnancy into her daughter’s infancy.

© Chen Ke, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA

These oversized tea bowls appear at first to bear the motifs of historical Chinese porcelains; however, these designs are actually drawn from ceramics of the British East India Company, an exploitative trading company—and opium trafficker—that colonized parts of South, East, and Southeast Asia from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. Though they emulate traditional Chinese styles, the motifs on the bowls depict the flags of a number of European colonial powers, as well as storehouses that held European and American imports during the British occupation of Hong Kong (1842–1997). Imported Western food items fill the tea bowls, each product marked with an expiration date of July 1, 1997—the very day that sovereignty of Hong Kong was transferred back to China.

© Huang Yong Ping, photo courtesy of the artist

Ren Jian’s Stamp Collection series relies upon a visual code recognized around the world. An assembly of flags from Africa, Asia, Europe and South America are depicted on individual canvases, marked with hand-painted prints and barcodes to indicate the international transmission of information. Together, the collected flag stamps represent Ren’s vision of harmony across nations.

© Ren Jian, photo © Museum Associates/ LACMA

Wang Guangyi’s Visa series grew out of his experiences in the 1990s, during which Chinese artists were increasingly invited to international exhibitions, but faced difficulty acquiring travel visas from foreign nations. Basic data such as name, sex, and place of birth are noted in the paintings to reference the dehumanizing process of applying for foreign travel visas, which simplify individuals into a series of traits to be granted or denied movement.

© Wang Guangyi, photo: Wang Guangyi Studio

Using a custom-built pinhole camera and the ancient technique of camera obscura, Shi Guorui captures a ghostly image of Beijing National Stadium—also known as the Bird’s Nest—and its surrounding landscape. Designed by artist Ai Weiwei, the stadium was built to house the main events of the 2008 Olympics and was a shining symbol of the new, modernized China. However, controversy clouded the construction of the new stadium, including the displacement of thousands of residents to make way for the structure.

© Shi Guorui

Like the Great Pyramids in Giza or the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, Rome’s Pantheon was not intended for ordinary people. In a series of oil paintings, Shi Zhiying compares the architectures of sacred sites she has visited around the globe, often highlighting repeated forms found within each monument. Though created for different deities, spanning distant cultures and time periods, these spaces each demonstrate a desire to connect with a greater force through architecture.

© Shi Zhiying