The Sights of Summer

The West's image of itself, paradoxically, is one of the subtler themes of "Made in China" (through Aug. 5), a show of Chinese contemporary art at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art outside Copenhagen. On display are a hundred works from the Estella Collection, one of the world's biggest collections of modern Chinese art. In the past two decades, Chinese artists have absorbed Western media like photography, video and conceptual drawing. But rather than simply assimilate these Western traditions, says the show's curator, Anders Kold, Chinese artists are reimagining them, using them as a starting point for their own innovations. "Looking at contemporary Chinese art is also a way of looking at Western art," he says. "We can see how we ourselves stand in a new, globalized world. We think that Western art will remain the vanishing point of any perspective. We're wrong. There are so many other focal points. That's the point of globalization." The woman in Wei Dong's "En Soldats Dans" from 2001, for instance, has the eerie qualities of a figure by the American John Currin, but also suggests a psychedelic take on Chinese revolutionary posters.

The Venice Biennale has never shied away from overtly political messages. Back in 1974, the contemporary art show was dedicated to Chile, in opposition to Augusto Pinochet's coup the year before. This year's show (through Nov. 21) features debuts by emerging countries like Azerbaijan and Tajikistan, as well as "Most Serene Republics," giant panels by the Native American conceptual artist Edgar Heap of Birds that examine encounters between Europe and native popul—tions-from the Crusades to the Native Americans who came to Europe on Wild West shows in the 1880s.

The Biennale will also feature a special exhibition devoted to Africa, a region this year's curator, the American Robert Storr, concedes has been "too long overlooked in the international exhibition circuit." No longer: this year's Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement is to be awarded, for the first time, to an African, Malick Sidibé, a 72-year-old photographer from Mali. Working out of a small studio on a crowded thoroughfare in downtown Bamako, Mali's capital, Sidibé has chronicled the city's vibrant youth and music culture. In the 1960s and '70s, he began shooting Mali's young people in portraits: a group of freshly circumcised boys gravely regard Sidibé's camera. Bell-bottomed hipsters assume extravagant poses with their beloved records or motorbikes. At the Biennale, he'll be exhibiting work on a project called "Africans Sing Against AIDS," with shots of musicians from Mali who wrote and performed songs on the disease for a countrywide competition.

There are, of course, big summer exhibitions offering shade from the glare of current events. In London, the Tate Britain offers "Hockney on Turner Watercolours" (through Feb. 3), with 150 of the 19th-century artist's luminous renderings of landscapes from the Thames to Rome. The contemporary British artist David Hockney guest-curates part of the show, picking his favorites, including "Harlech Castle." Tate Modern, its sister museum, is staging a multimedia show on "Dalí & Film" (through Sept. 9). While Salvador Dali's work with Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel is famous, the artist's collaborations with filmmakers Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock will surprise. But those really eager for total escape should head down the Thames to London's County Hall, where "Star Wars: The Exhibition" promises that projected landscapes from the famous films will allow fans to be "immersed into the Star Wars universe." It may not be art, but it's a passport to simpler, less uncertain times.

© 2007