ITALIAN SCULPTOR EYES CHINA'S CHANGES

Cimarelli is confident on benefits of the Belt and Road Initiative

When Italian sculptor Dionisio Cimarelli arrived in Beijing via the trans-Siberian train at the age of 21, he might have been one of the first foreign artists to visit China after it was opened to the outside world in the mid-1970s.

"That was a very incredible trip, and I spent four months traveling and gathering information for my college thesis in China," said Cimarelli in his studio at the Art Students League of New York, where he teaches sculpture.