Osage Kwun Tong until March 7

The explosion of interest in Chinese contemporary art in the past decade has paved the way for recent graduates of Mainland schools to legitimise their work under a comprehensive market umbrella. But with this commercial commotion comes the precarious position of expectation and the burden of producing socially cognisant and relevant works of quality. It is with this in mind that we are presented with Biography, a group show that combines a collection of Mainland artists working to express a uniquely youthful, inherently Chinese cohesive voice.

The development and the exploration of medium is a motif that occurs repeatedly. Traditional techniques are generally avoided, with each artist out of the five represented incorporating at least some element of performance, photography, installation or video. The majority of works combine elements of the boldness of youth (Zhao Zhao’s Insomnia) with a raw naivety and curiosity about the world (Tang Dixin’s Reed), while a brave innocence permeates throughout.

This virtuosity is particularly apparent in Li Mu’s Present. On randomly picking up a name card on the street, Mu endeavoured to send this stranger a gift and accompanying letter each month for 12 months. The handwritten notes act as telling insights into the life of a burgeoning artist. Each is filled with heartbreaking honesty and unconditional affection.

Perhaps the most archetypal expression of youth comes in Li Ming’s Afternoon Happiness. A video installation showing wrestling boys licking whipped cream from each other’s semi naked bodies in a dilapidated abandoned space combines equal measures of sexual experimentation and danger. The frenzy of action as each boy voraciously devours oozing unctions from another’s neck or torso is in stark contrast to the final shots that show the adolescent boys post-commotion, stooped and panting, avoiding eye contact, not yet comfortable in their awkward, newly acquired adult bodies. Mary Agnew