REWARDING PERSISTENCE

An award by two cultural institutions in Beijing gives artists who persevere a chance to showcase their talent, Lin Qi reports.

Meng Boshen's current one-man show at Beijing's Today Art Museum, which runs through Wednesday, features only two site-specific installations whose materials are entirely natural: One is a tree suspended in midair and the other is a pile of stones spread over the ground.

The two works at Observing Reality through Smears are Meng's latest productions that continue the 38-year-old Beijing-based artist's distinctive work approach - using black pencils to smudge all over the surface of the objects in his creation.