Charlene K. Lau’s far-ranging profile of artist Karen Tam chronicles Tam’s influences, from her family’s restaurant in Montreal to her scholarly writing on shanzhai. Lau examines how Tam’s work reconfigures the Chinese diasporic experience and disrupts the familiar.

The article focuses on lists and rankings of contemporary art shows, galleries and artists as evidence of art criticism in crisis. The article discusses the relationship between contemporary art and commerce, the way in which lists dictate trends instead of providing analysis or evaluation of art and the way in which successful artists operate as brands. The article goes on to discuss specific lists and rankings from art periodicals such as Artforum, ArtReview and ARTnews.

The article reviews “Altermodern: Tate Triennial 2009″ in London, featuring Franz Ackermann, Darren Almond, Charles Avery, Walead Beshty Spartacus Chetwynd, Marcus Coast, Peter Coffin, Matthew Darbyshire, Shezad Dawood, Tacita Dean, Ruth Ewan, Loris Greaud, Subodh Gupta, Rachel Harrison, Joachim Koester, Nathaniel Mellors, Gustav Metzger, Mike Nelson, David Noonan, Katie Paterson, Olivia Plender, Seth Price, Navin Rawanchaikul, Lindsay Seers, Bob and Roberta Smith, Simon Starling, Pascale Marthine Tayou and Tris Vonna-Michell.