It's a cliche that art reflects society. But when that society mirrors contemporary China, it's a glimpse into the intricate relationships between art, history and the international stage. "Shu: Reinventing Books in Contemporary Art," which runs through Aug. 31 at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, examines life after the Cultural Revolution and focuses on the book — its historical influence on intellectual life and the complex relationships that these artists, many of whom grew up without books, face in that wake.

Organized by noted historian Wu Hung, the head of art history at the University of Chicago, the traveling show includes more than 30 works divided into three sections: Reimagining Tradition, Negotiating History, and Memory and Displaying Books. "Shu" showcases books, paintings, drawings, installations and sculpture (some represented by photograph) by 23 artists — including part of "Book From the Sky," the iconic work by Xu Bing.

Xu was born into a family of intellectuals but worked in a farm camp during the Cultural Revolution. For his renowned piece, he invented his own language by hand-carving 4,000 woodblock characters (that resemble moveable type). He then created large hanging scrolls and books based on that false language. The work simultaneously reveals distrust of information and — with the beauty of the draping scrolls and hand-carved blocks — a reverence for words as objects and symbols. The "Shu" exhibit includes a set of the blocks and tools used to create the work and also several of the books from the large installation piece.

"A lot of the artists who are represented in this exhibition, when they grew up, they mostly had access to only one book, which was 'The Little Red Book' of Chairman Mao's quotations," says Shawn Eichman, Asian art curator at the academy. "So when Chinese literature and world literature started to become available to them, it often created very complex reactions and complex relationships for them. For many of them, it's been a consistent theme for the artwork that they've explored."

Adding another dimension to the exhibit, the academy will include work from its own collection. Hong Lei's "Three Compendia of Songs, 2006" plays on memory and the reverence of the book. He works with traditional thread binding and the folk embroidery of his native Jiangnan region. For this work, he used a 17th-century embroidered book as his inspiration. The academy will show an early edition of the book, which comes from its collection, alongside Hong's work.

"It's remarkable when you look at Chinese artists who are working today, for how many of them the book is an important art form," says Eichman. "At the same time that it's very radical and innovative and new, it's also coming out of this ancient tradition of the written word as the key foundation of culture in China."

As China has grown in power in recent decades, so has the work of its artists. Earlier this year, The New York Times reported on the sizzling market for contemporary Chinese art, which featured an image of Yue Minjun mimicking his famous sculptures. Record prices set at recent auctions puts the work of Zhang Xiaogang in the same stratospheric realm as Damian Hirst and Jeff Koons.

While some artists no longer live in China, their work (at least some of it) will remain intricately tied to the country. Cai Guo-Qiang is noted for being the first contemporary Chinese artist given a solo show at the Guggenheim, for winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale and for using gunpowder in his work. He's also an expat who has lived in New York since the mid-1990s. This year, Cai was named a director of visual and special effects for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympic games. How many artists can lay claim that kind of fame?

"It has been a remarkable thing to watch how a number of Chinese artists have come from very humble beginnings," Eichman says. "And now they are not just looked at as Chinese artists, or leaders of the Chinese art world, they are really looked at as leaders of the international art scene now ... A lot of these artists have become important cultural icons for the country."

Sue Kiyabu is a freelance writer living in Honolulu./i>