This year has been a turning point for Chinese contemporary art — no longer an emerging phenomenon, Chinese art now sets the world's agenda. Foreshadowing events to come, the Tate Liverpool opened The Real Thing: Contemporary Art from China in March, in which the collaborative Yangjiang Group staged a mock fireworks battle over Liverpool. Ai Weiwei further enlivened the UK's oldest Chinese community by installing a gigantic, glittering chandelier in the Albert Dock, modeled after Vladimir Tatlin's Monument to the Third International .

The year's other major museum show, China Power Station: Part II at the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo, gave relative unknowns a chance to shine. Shanghai photo collective Birdhead exhibited alongside Guangzhou conceptual artist Chu Yun. Elsewhere, shows such as China — Facing Reality at Vienna's Museum Moderner Kunst, China Welcomes You... at Kunsthaus Graz, and Made in China at the Israel Museum kept the PRC theme in heavy international rotation.

Chinese artists also starred in the year's major fairs and biennials. Ai Weiwei wowed crowds at documenta by bringing his own contingent of 1,001 Chinese citizens who responded to an invitation posted on his blog. Yang Fudong's five-part film cycle, Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest, paced the Venice Biennale's centerpiece exhibition at the Arsenale, with individual viewing booths for each part of the work. At the Biennale's Chinese Pavilion, San Francisco-based curator Hou Hanru installed site-specific works by four female artists, including Shen Yuan's giant baby bottles and pacifiers. Hou resurfaced to direct the Istanbul Biennial with another Venice participant, Cao Fei, who also brought the Chinese art explosion into the virtual realm of Second Life with her China Tracy and RMB City projects.

This year also witnessed a plethora of solo exhibitions by Chinese artists, including historically important shows such as Kunsthalle Wien's retrospective of late installation artist Chen Zhen, kestnergesellschaft's survey of cheeky sculptor Wang Du, the Asia Society's retrospective of avant-gardist Zhang Huan, and the Queens Museum of Art's show for Yue Minjun. Huang Yong Ping's memorable House of Oracles exhibition, organized by Walker Art Center curator Philippe Vergne, toured to the Vancouver Art Gallery, where animal-rights activists demanded the removal of Theater of the World , a gigantic case of live predatory arachnids, insects, and reptiles.

In the commercial sphere, Korean powerhouse gallery Arario opened its New York branch in late November with Absolute Images II, a large group show that includes iconic works by dinosaur sculptor Sui Jianguo and a giant toilet-paper roll from Zeng Hao. Beijing art rocker Yan Lei drew praise for his Sparkling series of pop paintings at New York's Robert Miller Gallery, and a series of Cai Guo-Qiang's gunpowder drawings sold for a cool $9.5 million at Christie's in Hong Kong.

But the most significant developments in Chinese art took place in China itself. The inaugural ShContemporary art fair brought 100 top galleries from around the world to Shanghai, and the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art opened in Beijing. Although UCCA's premiere show went retro with the theme '85 New Wave , there's no looking back as the country steamrolls ahead to the 2008 Olympics and an ever-brighter global spotlight.

-AM