The Next Cultural Revolution

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Eddie Yip | entrepreneur The founder of adFunture, an edgy vinyl toy line, Eddie Yip is also a partner in Da>Space, a Shanghai gallery that showcases China’s emerging street culture.

Lin Jing | furniture and ceramics maker Lin Jing’s live-work loft in Beijing’s 798 gallery district contains everything from curvaceous wooden stools to porcelain flashlight/lamps that would make Claes Oldenburg proud. (She’s draped over her aluminum “Long Island” chaise.) Lin, 33, studied art in Beijing and Belgium, and her organically shaped teapots have won coveted shelf space at 10 Corso Como, the Milanese fashion emporium.

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Dodd, who's at work on everything from an electronic-arts biennial in Shanghai to an animation festival in Beijing, isn't just talking about Haier washing machines at Best Buy or Chinese herbal remedies at Whole Foods. He means culture, too. He points to a contemporary rendition of the ancient tale of The Monkey King, directed by a Chinese theater impresario--and set to a score by Blur frontman Damon Albarn--that will headline the inaugural Manchester International Festival in England this month. And Dodd could have gone on: Not long ago, Cao Qiang, a young Chinese fashion designer, won the grand prize at an international competition--sponsored in part by the lofty French body that designates haute couture. From Germany to Japan, Chinese industrial-design students are also starting to rack up awards. Guest-edited by two Chinese artists, the latest issue of the global-culture quarterly Colors pays homage to the country's emerging creative gusto. And products by young designers like Lin Jing and Eddie Yip are making the cut at choosy retailers such as Milanese style mecca 10 Corso Como and "urban vinyl" phenomenon Kidrobot in the United States.

On a more monumental scale, three Beijing architects erupted onto the international stage last year when they clinched the competition to design a condo high-rise outside Toronto. Their winning scheme, set to begin construction this year with an estimated $114 million price tag, is a dramatic 56-story tower that spirals and undulates like a giant ergonomic barbell. And the units were such a hit that these young architects--who call their firm MAD Design--have since been asked to build a second tower next to the first, while other commissions have been flooding in from Denmark to Inner Mongolia. China, known as the playground for the world's most adventurous architects, is now exporting some flash-forward designs of its own.

"The young generation in China is unbelievably strong," says Stefano Boeri, who, as editor of the Italian design bible Domus (he's now at Abitare), oversaw the launch of the magazine's Chinese edition last year. Boeri is referring to China's emerging architects, but his words resonate more broadly: "They still need to metabolize," he continues, "but in a few years, they'll produce something new. Of this I'm absolutely sure."

Meanwhile, don't overlook that other Chinese characteristic: determination. "Recently," says Ou, the Get It Louder founder, "there was a series of television documentaries explaining the rise of empires. Everyone here watched it very closely." They were, he says, looking for pointers.

To get a sense of how Chinese creativity might evolve, just look across the East China Sea. "The Chinese see Japan as a role model, because it was able to modernize without losing its visceral culture," says Amy Gendler, who runs the AIGA's Chinese outpost--the design organization's only presence outside of the United States. Indeed, those who once dismissed Japan as a backwater of the imagination eventually ate those words as the nation became a global force in fashion, design, architecture, and pop culture--not to mention cars and consumer electronics.

Likewise, "there's a strong desire in China to become internationally relevant while maintaining a Chineseness," says Gendler, who also teaches graphic design at Beijing's top-notch Central Academy of Fine Arts. She's not talking about dragons and phoenixes. She's talking about people like Li Weiran. A soft-spoken 31-year-old, Li graduated from the prestigious Beijing Film Academy and went on to make TV commercials in China for the likes of Nike, Pepsi, and Google. With a keen cinematic eye and brilliant wit, Li's ads spoof hackneyed scenes from Chinese life: a generations-old family feud, complete with a flying chicken (don't ask), that's finally resolved over a bottle of Master Kong green tea. Or an unwitting utility worker, perched high on a telephone pole, turned into a human basketball hoop by a group of teens slam-dunking his workman's bag. (It was part of a series for Nike called "Anytime.")