GALLERIES:Wang's work: symbolic, surreal

But here it is: Chinese art is exploding in the world market because the art world has been flooded with imitations of Western styles. Collectors hungry for the "contemporary" without the "weird" or abstract snatch up nostalgic landscapes or romantic portraits executed with immaculate technique and virtually no originality.

Wang, it seems to me, has put all his women in this position. She — Wang's archetypal woman — always seems to me to be like Chinese art itself, which can no longer look back on its past, but rather than forging a new future for itself, puts on the lurid clothes of American capitalism and sells herself like hotcakes.

In "In Quiet Blue," the past and the future stand next to each other.

The motif of water seems to be a signal to the viewer that the painting has entered into the unreal and should be carefully considered. "Ukiyoe Dining Table" features a girl in a string bikini and long black gloves sitting with her back to us. She's turned her head over her shoulder, and the look on her face is as if she has heard her name, but does not recognize the voice.

"Ukiyo-e" means "pictures of the floating world" and is a name for Edo period Japanese woodcuts (painted on the tabletop, in this case).

Wang clearly has no fear drawing on Japanese motifs, which I find more than a little mocking, implying the insulting way Westerners use the word "oriental" to lump together the immense diversity of cultures in the East. So we take his "floating" as a double entendre, a joke.

But the girl's perfect surface, her air brushed finish, her immaculate skin tone and fleshly appeal all provoke us into desire — the stripper gloves seem almost too much, but at the same time leave little room for denial. You are dared to want her. And what does that make you? Would you like to buy this woman?

No other canvas in the show says this more than "Urban Desire" (43 x 70). Its perspective is up and toward a fish-eye distortion of a smooth woman's bottom in a white garter belt and stockings.

She has a white lace teddy on, but her provocative bend does not allow us to see her face.

The most disturbing thing about her is that she's in the middle of a city block, and so distorted is our view of her that she appears taller than the buildings.