enlarge Courtesy Bates College Museum of Art

"Untitled (no. 7)" by Gu Zheng from his "Shanghai" series.

enlarge Courtesy Bates College Museum of Art

Gu Zheng’s "Untitled (no. 8)" from his "Shanghai" series.

enlarge Courtesy Bates College Museum of Art

"Untitled (no. 3)" by Liang Weiping.

enlarge Courtesy Bates College Museum of Art

"Stairway to Heaven: From Chinese Streets to Monuments and Skyscrapers" is up at the Bates College Museum of Art in Lewiston. The show features the work of 17 contemporary Chinese artists, including “On the Wall, Haikou 6,” by Weng Fen.

LEWISTON — For five days in summer 2006, Mark Bessire immersed himself in the studio zone of Shanghai.

His mission: To see as much contemporary Chinese art as possible.

The result of his efforts is on display at the Bates College Museum of Art. The new exhibition examines the changing Chinese nation, mostly through photography, and how its artists are responding to economic reform, the acquisition of wealth and rapid industrialization.

"Stairway to Heaven: From Chinese Streets to Monuments and Skyscrapers" includes the work of 17 Chinese artists – some superstars of the Asian art world, others unknown.

Using the motif of skyscrapers and the shifting meaning of historic monuments, the show explores China's transformation over the past three decades from a closed, mysterious society to a global power.

China will be under more focus than usual this year as it hosts the Summer Olympics. Bessire, director of the Bates museum, hopes the photography show will provide an alternative voice of China to complement the sanctioned one that many people will see via TV and the Web during the Olympics.

"We want to offer people the opportunity to hear from artists in China today: What are they thinking, what are they doing, how are they expressing themselves?" said Bessire, who has a history of showing Chinese art at Bates. "With the Olympics coming, I knew it would be a big opportunity for a Chinese art show. I wanted to take advantage of people's interest in China."

AN AMERICAN DREAM

Bessire saw and acquired much of the art for this show while visiting China two years ago. He went with a colleague from Maine – Gan Xu, a professor of art history at Maine College of Art, who lives in Portland and Shanghai.

Gan showed Bessire around, introduced him to artists and took him to warehouses full of working studios.

Gan spends about half the year in China and said it's critically important for American audiences to pay attention to what's happening in the nation, culturally and otherwise. The country, he said, is undergoing an economic transformation that is rebalancing world power.

"Following the example of the American dream, 1.4 billion Chinese want their own cars, apartments, etc., worsening the shortage of natural resources, especially the oil and gas," Gan wrote in an e-mail from Shanghai.

EXPLOSIVE ARTISTIC GROWTH

Bessire describes the Chinese art scene as "exploding with activity" as artists try to figure out their roles in a new and emerging society.

The art world is paying attention. This spring, a contemporary Chinese painting sold for a record $9.7 million through Christie's auction house, and Bessire is merely one among many American curators who have mounted Chinese shows.

"Stairway to Heaven" is different from many of the others, because it explores contemporary China mostly through photography – and largely through the eyes of emerging artists. There are established artists in the show, Ai Weiwei and Ma Liuming among them. But the bulk of this work is street-level and urban, reflecting China today.

The tension in the show lies in artists trying to reconcile China's past with its future. Neighborhoods are being displaced for skyscrapers. Capitalism and materialism are replacing Communist doctrines and social traditions.

At the same time, the government seems to be encouraging artists to express themselves, or at least is allowing them to do so. Because of a history of distrust toward the government, artists are wary of their new-found freedoms.

EMOTION AND TURMOIL

Bessire, who had visited China in 2004, said the visit in 2006 opened his eyes. He saw hundreds of working artists overflowing with ideas and energy.

He found it to be an intense experience, full of emotion and turmoil, as artists pushed the limits of what the government...