Trailer for Chimeras.
Wang Guangyi, international art star and founding father of Chinese contemporary art, and Liu Gang, a promising young photographer, imagine a world shaped by Eastern thought and culture without Western influence. Liu Gang, the only child of rural parents, is thrust into Beijing’s art scene fresh out of school. His possibilities seem endless. Wang Guangyi, a multimillionaire pop artist at the peak of his career, is looking out for his legacy. As each man wrestles to realize his art in an era that many tout as the “Chinese century,” they’re both distracted by questions: Can communist ideology and Eastern philosophy co-exist with modern, capitalist social values? What’s the Eastern way of seeing the world? How do you separate Chinese and Western art history? Chimeras engages the audience in an engrossing contemplation of assimilation, epistemology, and perception, by focusing on two artists whose entire way of seeing and thinking is in flux.