When was the last time you walked into a painting exhibition at a commercial gallery and saw something truly politically radical? The answer for many in the West is likely “rarely, if ever,” especially if we’re referring to West Chelsea or London’s Mayfair. “The Un-Officials | Art Before 85” highlights the practice of artists working in post-Reform China in what appear to be conservative, pastiche styles. These artists were active amidst the denouement of the prohibitive Cultural Revolution, as early as 1973, and through the period of détente between intellectuals and political officials through 1985, marked by a moderately less authoritarian Chinese government led by Deng Xiaoping after Chairman Mao’s death in 1976. “The Un-Officials” focuses on the efforts of two groups: the Wuming Painting Society (wuming means “no name,” or “anonymous”), founded in 1973, and the Xingxing (“Stars”) Group, founded in 1979. The self-taught artists comprising these two groups rejected state-sanctioned Socialist Realism, instead teaching themselves how to paint in banned western styles while attempting to dodge government surveillance; many of these groups’ members were jailed for insurrection or sent to the countryside for “reeducation.” The styles these artists painted in, often anachronistic, ranged from Action Painting to American Abstract …