The squatty potty may be the bane of your average Western visitor to China, but Shaw Xu Zhifeng's installation of a Mona Lisa brand toilet on a Shanghai gallery wall invites a different sort of deliberation....

Part of artist Shaw Xu Zhifeng's installation at Shangai's OV Gallery appears to be a nod to Dada master Marcel Duchamp's revolutionary turn toward "readymade" art with "Fountain," but it's more than that... (Photo by David Perry)

Featured alongside some dozen other works  by a diverse mix of international and Chinese artists in OV Gallery's "Shifting Definitions" show, Shaw's "Mona Lisa Smileless" bemuses and befuddles as part of an exhibition intended to prompt thought about gender relations in China, especially the roles of women.

Connected to a small microphone and a speaker on the other side of the wall, the toilet may remind many of Dada provocateur Marcel Duchamp's groundbreaking found-object urinal Fountain and Leonardo-tweaking "readymade" L.H.O.O.Q., but its China-specific roots and the awkward (and, of course, funny) interplay with its namesake Renaissance masterpiece set all kinds of possible interpretations in motion (of course, Shaw's not the only Chinese artist paying homage to the Mona Lisa)....

Shanghai's gallery scene is as active as ever, and with recent moves by authorities to keep artists from pushing envelopes further than authorities would like, edgy art is actually edgy in a sense that seldom holds true in the West any more—just ask the guy who designed Beijing's big-deal "Bird's Nest" National Stadium. As a recent visitor from New York said, vis-a-vis the back & forth between censors and artists, "It's like the '60s in New York here!" So, all you art lovers and trend hounds out there, check it out. The French Concession alone boasts a good two or three day's worth of contemporary galleries to explore.

On display at OV Gallery in the French Concession (Shaoxing Lu between Ruijin Lu and Shaanxi Nan Lu) through December 18.

The walls have ears, among other things....