Plot Summary

ART IN SMOG offers an intimate, philosophical glimpse of contemporary China, experienced through the work and lives of four artists and a curator. Footage from 1991 and 2016 documents a changing world. SU XINPING and XIA XIAOWAN were young graduates of the Central Academy of Fine Arts who dreamed of modernity in 1991. As intellectuals, they probed human nature and self-knowledge. Now, a deep unease pervades their visual images. MUSHI, a self-taught artist enamored of modern art, could not survive in Beijing and returned to his hometown, Chongqing. How has he made a living, then? CHEN HUI, a talented art student, fell in love with Xia Xiaowan. Twenty years later, she wants her own identity and career. CUI CANCAN, a quick-witted rural child, has seized the day to become a fast-talking international curator. The film is a visual record of China in the throes of transition.