Chinese New Year is almost over and galleries are open again. Although White Box Museum of Art is a new comer to the 798 art scene, their exhibitions are a definite hit or a miss. Their current exhibition is somewhere in between. It features Weng Fen also known as Weng Peijun, whose photographs have been collected by the infamous Uli Sigg.

Weng Fen’s gigantic installation critiques China’s rapid development. He uses thousands of chicken, duck and quail eggs to create this 10 by 4 meter model of a city. From a bird’s eye view the audience can see that the model city is actually growing out of a giant 100 dollar bill, one side is USD and the other side is RMB.

The phrase sitting on egg shells mirrors China’s fragile economic state. Although China’s economy is growing by over 8% a year, how long will this last? Will China’s rapid economic growth overwhelm the US?

Although I am a personal fan of the artist and his works, I think that the blue under water theme was a bit tacky. The true beauty behind the installation is the different colors of egg shells that are used. His photographs looked washed out in the blue hue.

White Box Museum of Art
Uli Sigg Majong Collection at Berkley
Weng Fen Photographs
Global Times: China’s GDP growth in 2009