A first encounter with the paintings of Wei Dong includes a few double takes. You feel an odd displacement, as if you've stumbled into an art-history dream where time- traveling European masters, eager to shuck off age-old propriety, are checking out the erotic possibilities of 21st-century China. Half-naked Asian women with rock-star attitudes slip on the heroic mantle of Delacroix or Rubens, stuffed animals comically hide crotches in a Botticelli tableau, the earthy joy of socialist realism rubs (bare) shoulders with girlish, Balthus–like displays of private urges. The heady mixes aren't so much acts of experimentation as they are reflections of everything Wei, 39, has absorbed during a single-minded journey—from Inner Mongolia to Hoboken, from army brat to rising art star, from the cult of Mao to the ... More >>>