(cityweekend.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-06-05 10:23

For all of May, a titanic pair of fiberglass breasts sprouting from a tiny girl greeted visitors to 798-a cheap thrill that requires little explanation but begs the question: Purposeful vacuity or lazy artmaking?

Beyond Cartoon is a good introduction to lowbrow Asian art outside Japan inspired by cartoons and comics. Being such, it inevitably exposes the weaknesses in the trend. Like most lowbrow, the work is primarily illustrative and revels in juxtapositions, largely cute with a creepy or sexy edge. Successful artists like Mark Ryden and Aya Takano have parlayed this into flawlessly painted fantasy worlds with tight visual languages. Few of these artists have reached that level of conceptual and technical finesse: Ayn Arista Murti's piece looks like a poor man's Camille Rose Garcia and Xiong Yu's emaciated women don't hold interest long enough to create the atmosphere they could.

One might argue the slacker effort parodies mindless fist-to-mouth consumption, but I'd like to give the artists more credit. After all, they come from countries that manufacture McDonalds toys and produce a hefty chunk of the world's cell animation. Who better understands the importance of shiny, perfectly-formed plastic?

When it's good, it's really good. Definitely catch Ma Chungfu's brilliant video work, especially a piece blending CGI and panned-over drawings. Dongi Lee's Mickey Mouse bastardizations are so convincing one can overlook the similarities to Takashi Murakami's DOB series. Meanwhile, Han Yajuan's bathing beauties are adorable as ever.

The red dots peppering the gallery prove that Chinese lowbrow is hot property. At the same time, the market is in danger of becoming oversaturated and predictable. It only takes so many ridiculously-racked Tinkerbells to transform shock value into the visual equivalent of a Sex-on-the-Beach hangover. Here's hoping these talented artists can outlast their growing pains and give us some eye candy worth drooling over.