Art: The Arcadians of Huhsien County

For Chinese painters, socialism equals Ovid plus electricity

Despite political openings between China and America, despite the brief flowering of Maoist chic along Fifth Avenue in the early '70s, the art of the People's Republic of China has never been properly exhibited in an American museum. Doubtless there is some ideological reluctance. Though the cold war is formally over, not too many U.S. museum directors are ready to confront their more conservative trustees with large comic-strip gouaches bearing titles like Occupying the Ideological-Cultural Field in the Countryside and Workers Condemn the "Gang of...

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