In a series of oil paintings on canvas that Si Xinning has been working on since 2000, an idealized energetic Mao is seen in the company of Hollywood stars, artists and political figures. But these works do not present retrogressive arguments. Instead they tell fictitious or, as he calls them, utopian stories. He often uses newspaper images as the basis for his paintings. In keeping with the visual qualities of these media images, he employs barely visible brushwork and a washed out, muted palate. Shi Xinning then develops his narratives, substitut­ing objects or people in the original with his own selections, adding elements that were not there in the original, and adjusts the lighting of the scenes. If Shi Xinning's art is utopian, this is not because it illus­trates a desire for the reconciliation of antagonistic value systems. On the contrary, the artist's ideals are acted out on a purely aesthetic level in nonexistent moments of history.