LET OTHERS talk about the lure of art from China. James Elaine did something about it. He moved there.
"China is here to stay," says Elaine, an artist and curator who has organized edgy exhibitions and introduced emerging figures at the UCLA Hammer Museum for the last decade. "The culture, the art world, it's not a fad of the West that's going to fade away. China is a power."
With the help of a grant from the Asian Cultural Council -- and the windfall of the 2008 Ordway Prize, a $100,000 award for mid-career artists, curators and art writers -- he has traded his Hammer "curator" title for "adjunct curator" and taken himself to China, where he plans to stay at least two years.
The goal is to learn more about art being made throughout the vast country and explore possibilities of exhibitions and exchange programs for the museum and the university. He spends about half his time working for the Hammer, the rest pursuing independent projects. "I want to be a bridge," he says. "I think there are a lot of opportunities to collaborate and partner for a long time ahead."
His adventure is a bold move, for him and the university, and reflects an escalating interest in Chinese contemporary art that goes well beyond Beijing Olympics fever. Chinese art seems to be everywhere this season.
At the moment, Elaine is back in Los Angeles for the opening of his first Chinese show, an ambitious installation by Sun Xun that's part of the Hammer Projects series and runs through Oct 12. Inspired by a 1914 bilingual book, "The New China," Sun -- a 28-year-old artist who lives in Hangzhou and founded an animation studio there in 2006 -- has explored perpetually changing notions of China's evolution in wall paintings and an animated film.
In Paris, the big summer show at the Musée Maillol, featuring works by 35 artists, has an Olympics theme, "China Gold," an exception that proves the rule. This fall's attraction at the Asia Society in New York is "Art and China's Revolution." In London, the Saatchi Gallery is touting its Chinese collection with a profusely illustrated book, "The Revolution Continues: New Art From China," recently published by Rizzoli.
