It is always a mistake to miss out on a show of contemporary Chinese photography, which forms today’s avant-garde in that medium—overflowing with experimentation, intellectual depth and cutting wit. Wu Qi, Jian Jiang and Qiu Zhen exceed expectations in this genial exhibit, with Zhen taking honors for his series of street performance shots, in which he escorts his life-size, faceless, pure-white mannequin bride from a filthy junkyard to a parking lot where they are surrounded by a sea of bicycles. Wherever the couple goes, Zhen stands in the same rigid military pose and sports the same doleful and irritated expression, as though it has just dawned on him that he has made the worst mistake of his life. Never known for existential angst and sardonic irony, the Chinese have leaped head first into the convoluted cauldron of deep postmodernist play. (Michael Weinstein)
Through June 13 at Schneider Gallery, 230 W. Superior.
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