I thought it was lonely being an abstract painter until I discovered what it meant to be a Mets fan in Manhattan during last month's world series. Eyes and minds are geared to spot any kind of clutch performance during this peak season. It's easy to lose sight of what's really at stake.
Artists seem to prefer pummeling viewers senseless with strong-arm tactics on the showroom floor.
All of us know that big moves count in the end because they're often the only thing that's remembered once the game is finished. Diao pairs images of Lee with photographs of himself or images of Jackson Pollock painting to raise complicated questions of ethnicity and the conventions of modernism. Twin Dragons ,a triptych, mixes an emblematic image of Lee in a martial arts move with one of Pollock in the midst of his painterly dance. Only an artist zealously dedicated to an idea could commit this kind of violence to his own work. In any case, Diao's new paintings, with their wry humor and disarming beauty, are more generous.