American idols

Chinese Pleasures (right)

Betty Woodman's Chinese Pleasures is a 8-m installation that blurs the line between painting and sculpture. It embodies three distinct moments in the history of Chinese art. With a painted canvas backdrop, it mounts ceramic elements and four red lacquered wooden shelves, each holding a ceramic vase. The right side has the delicacy and refinement of ceramic and bronze money trees from the Second Century AD. The left is a series of references to 8th-century Tang Dynasty ceramics. The floral images are the artist's reinterpretation of early 20th-century graphic art used on package labels for firecrackers. Clay is the medium that links so many cultural, physical, and symbolic lineages.

Tulips

Jeff Koons' Tulips is a gargantuan 7-ton stainless steel recreation of the flower that botanical history claims originated in a corridor stretching along the 40-degree latitude between Northern China and Southern Europe. The fantastical sculpture is extremely eye-catching in the embassy's lotus pond in the consular section.

Prayer banners

New York-based Anne Chu created, or rather recreated, these Buddhist prayer banners, which now add a sparkle of vibrant colors to the 8-story chancery building. Highly evocative, they recall a culture remote, mythical and meditative, yet with a burning passion in heart.

Fall/Leaf Swirl

"The fall tree is made up of red leaves from Chinese, European, and American botanical drawings, embroideries, and decorative motifs. The center is an early Renaissance cloud form, radiating out containing an infinite bright center. The leaves are swirling in the wind amidst the calm center," explains Emily Cheng, a New York-based artist who created Fall/Leaf Swirl. Cheng borrows images from the natural world to "orchestrate them in a way to express different internal states".

The Mighty Yangtze

Li Bai (Li Po in old spelling) marveled at it. A significant swath of China is nourished by it.

There are a million ways of seeing and capturing the biggest river in China. And Maya Lin has found her unique approach: She used geologic satellite technology and aerial perspectives, marked the contour of the river with 3,000 pins, emphasizing the linearity and horizontal flow and conveying water patterns with subtle environmental messages.