*Chinese art historian Liu Xiangdong (Huaqiao University) has sued colleague Gao Minglu (University of Pittsburgh) for plagiarism of a contemporary art theory.

*Shares in China’s first art portfolio have been listed on the Shenzhen Culture Assets and Equity Exchange.

*At New York’s autumn 2010 Asia Week, one of the sale highlights will be the Joe Grimberg Collection of Chinese Snuff Bottles at Sotheby’s.

*As contemporary Chinese artists continue to add flair to luxury brands, Lacoste launched its porcelain polo shirts by Li Xiaofeng and Shanghai Tang launched its Autumn/Winter 2010 line.

*Evan Osnos wrote on detained artist Wu Yuren, who has become known as “Little Ai” for his Ai Weiwei-like activisim.

*Zhang Huan’s Hope Tunnel opens this weekend at Beijing’s Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA).

*Contemporary ink painting artists believe their traditionally based form must evolve with the times.

New Resources

*Qianlong’s Battle Prints in Image Resources

*My panel was accepted at AAS! “Picturing the Foreign: Images of East and West in Visual and Literary Culture from 1400 to Present” will run on Sunday 28 March from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m.

*Souren Melikian’s analysis of last week’s art auction successes chalks everything up to new Chinese buyers who aren’t bothered by the usual aesthetic concerns and period stigmas.

*chinaSMACK posted about the coiffures designed to celebrate National Day (国庆节) on October 1. The Great Hall of the People never looked so good.

*Sinosplice caught sight of a brilliant bit of signage.

*An unprecedented double whammy: Beijing has loaned artifacts to Taiwan for the first time since 1949, and Emperor Yongzheng (r. 1723-1735)  will finally get a decent dedicated exhibition.

Yongzheng is rather an enigma: his is overshadowed as a ruler by both his father and his son, reigned amid suspicion and fear, and died in mysterious circumstances. But he loved art, and certainly laid the foundation for his heir’s art patronage. From the portrait below, you can also see he had an eccentric sense of humor and didn’t take himself too seriously in private. This quirkiness seen in his art, which so blatantly contradicts his persona as a ruler, is what keeps me awake at night. And another book idea is born…

*It was a great week to buy and sell Chinese art in New York! Sotheby’s sold $15.5m, but Christie’s topped that with total Chinese sales of $23.9m. The most surprising result was the eighteenth-century imperial desk set estimated at $30,000 that sold for more than $1.4m. But despite all the good news, the Wall Street Journal still called the sales “pared-down.”

*Danwei reported on an illustrated article in fashion magazine 1626 that mix text and image to simultaneously mock and clarify Chinese mispronunciations of global fashion brands.