Contemporary Chinese art is at crossroads, between past and future, between East and West. Against the backdrop of the world’s oldest civilization, artists in China today are at the forefront of what is also the world’s newest civilization. Their works grapple not only with issues of the global and the local, the past and the future, but more significantly, with issues of collective and individual identity. Bringing together images, essays, interviews, roundtable discussions, eyewitness accounts, artists’ biographies and projects, this book provides an invaluable and up-to-the-minute insight into the recent developments, debates and contradictory forces shaping art, exhibitions and criticism in China today, from both local and global perspectives.