Qiu Zhijie, Railway From Lhasa to Kathmandu (2007). © the artist

Kay Carson goes in search the real thing with the first major retrospective of Chinese Art in the UK at Tate Liverpool.

They say faith can move mountains … and so, it seems, can artists. A magnificent selection of artwork from the New China is on display at Tate Liverpool until June 10 2007.

The Real Thing: Contemporary Art from China has a totally different feel to other, indigenous offerings: China has well and truly arrived on the modern scene and this, the first major exhibition of its kind in the UK, is a must-see, not only for its artistic qualities, but for its freshness and originality of approach.

There is a sense of Sino-Renaissance that has to be experienced to be believed. Don’t be mistaken, there are still strong, political undertones and overtones.

Zhuang Hui’s Factory Floor (2004), a remarkable, gargantuan, polystyrene reconstruction of plant machinery, is more of a wink than a nod to Mao - but gone are the statements, the stoicism, the dragons. Instead, what is revealed is the gifted work of a new generation of artists who are choosing to remain in China, unlike their predecessors.

Wang Gongxin, Our Sky Is Falling In! (2007). © the artist

Based mainly in Beijing and Shanghai, these artists produce works exuding a sparkle and confidence I found exciting - and also a little reassuring. Here, one could never, ever pose the question: “But is it art?”

An Unapologetic Act Of Sabotage (2007) by Geng Jianyi manipulates the concepts of face and face value. In a six-triptych cluster of video installations, the films display the daily events of a foot massage parlour.

On one screen is the actual footage, on the second of each group is a basic transcript of the proceedings and on the third, the accidental actors are asked to re-enact their own behaviour from the first screen, using the script from the second. Of course, even the most banal of events becomes self-conscious and stilted.

But without knowing the context, is the difference subtle enough to go unnoticed by the viewer? The artist feels that the exercise “undermines the sense of self constructed through habit, which is as funny as it is profoundly unsettling”. See for yourself.

Qiu Xiaofei’s Art Class (2006). © the artist

Performance artist Wang Peng’s work has prompted some contemporaries never to forgive him. His fearless questioning of the boundaries of art in Gate (2001) sparked an outcry.

The film shows a group of visitors, locked in an empty gallery, who discover that they are the ones being viewed. Polite suggestions (“A screwdriver can be helpful”) give way to panic, which in turn descends to violence - and it is only when the doors are broken down that the performance ends.

The balletic Our Sky Is Falling In! (2007) depicts a family, sitting round the table, who realise the ceiling above them is gradually crumbling. We feel their helplessness as they slowly let the fragments take control, echoing the global forces shaping the society and economy of the New China. The tide is turning, the people know it, but who are they to stop it?

Just as thought provoking in its passive-confrontational approach is Qiu Xiaofel’s Art Class (2006). Commissioned by Tate Liverpool, the installation is arresting: wooden easels with blank canvasses - but are they empty, unfinished or obliterated?

8848 Minus 1.86 (2005) by Xu Zhen. © the artist

Xiaofel’s reworked imagery feels real, as though we have stumbled, via a time-warp, upon an earlier era, where an art lesson has just been abandoned.

The air is still full of life, brimming with thwarted potential energy. It feels like the students have only just left the room. But Xiaofel’s personal sphere has turned political. He harks back to a sense of lost history, like blank or altered pages in a book.

The show hits its peak with 8848 Minus 1.86 (2005). Xu Zhen’s masterpiece chronicles the efforts of a Chinese expedition to refute the height of Mount Everest - calculated by the British back in 1856 as being 8,848 metres high - by cutting off the top (that’s where the 1.86 comes in).

A breathtakingly entertaining video installation marks the event, involving a naval-standard chainsaw, together with a colourful and jumbled array of the clothing and climbing gear used in the adventure.

The piece de resistance, though, is the huge glass case containing a model of the offending mountain summit. Xu Zhen reached the pinnacle - and brought it with him.