A current of ugliness flows behind the stage-managed beauty of China's Olympic spectacle. It's as inevitable as tears after laughter. Brightness creates shadows, and even the natural optimist struggles with the dark dreams of his subconscious. The work of artists like Li Xiaoqi, therefore, are a necessary counterpoint, especially for those who appreciate a dark comedy more readily than a Disney feature or a blockbuster sequel.

Dead rats, middle fingers, bloody wolves: if the subject matter seems pubescent, it's because at that stage of life we feel the conflict between our internal and external realities most painfully. That conflict informs Li Xiaoqi's work, leading to canvases that forsake conventional notions of aesthetic pleasure for much darker territory. Li is content to dismay the punter ("Who on earth would hang that stuff in their living rooms?"). Those who dig the black humor and symbolic double-entendres, however, are welcome at his table. It's a table full of cynics, to be sure, but then a cynic is only a wounded idealist. The realm between bright ideals and dark instinct is vast and gray, a realm Li Xiaoqi maps courageously.