Hong Kong–born, London-educated collector-dealer-art adviser-curator-publisher Pearl Lam "I celebrate and exaggerate differences," she pronounces. "I'm against unity." .. she established Contrasts gallery, which invites designers and artists to blur boundaries between disciplines and cultures, past and present.

She hopes young Chinese artists and designers can learn from her juxtapositions, too. "Many of them think that just by following Western ideology, they can be successful, not understanding that the West has a different history," Lam explains. As China develops at a breathless pace and the West takes ever more interest, she adds,

"Strong Chinese art should be about the reinvention of tradition—merging Western media, for example, with Chinese art and philosophy, to create something entirely new."

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