Work by three Chinese independent artists was presented in a silent auction as part of an evening that honored young New York philanthropists.

Artists Fu Wenjun, Liu Shuishi and Yue Peng took part in the Tuesday night auction at the New York Observer’s second annual Young Philanthropy Event held at the W Hotel in Union Square. Paintings by New York artist John Ransom Phillips also were part of the auction.

The event honored 20 young philanthropists who have helped people in need, according to the Observer, a weekly newspaper. Among the honorees was Rosario Dawson, who raised more than $7 million in support of low-income New Yorkers living with AIDS.

"The questions that I always had was how’s China changing the world in terms of art and culture,"Georges Berges, president of Berges Creative Group LLC, one of the sponsors of the event, told China Daily. He said the works by the three Chinese artists "are not just pretty objects to create, but also challenge the locals’ perceptions of what China is and the institutions they live with".

Fu, from southwest China’s Chongqing municipality, presented six photographs, which he called The Clouds of Hometown and took in Kenya from 2008 to 2011.

"When you are in Kenya, you can realize local residents’ contradictory attitude toward urbanization and original civilization,"he said. "Compared with rural life, city life is noisy. I think that same understanding can be found both in China and the US."

Liu, who is based in Beijing, said: "American artists have a unique taste about modern and contemporary art, so that’s why my works were chosen to join this event. One of my works was invited by the French national artists’ association, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts (SNBA), to be part of an exhibition at the Louvre in 2009."

Phillips said that he has been to China several times and has seen rapid changes in the country’s cities.

"Most of the paintings by Chinese that have been sent over to the US represent something more about art than about China,"he said. "It’s art about art, about marketing. I think the art I’ve seen in China is about people with intensive feelings that happened to be Chinese.’’

From left: Chinese artists Yue Peng, Fu Wenjun and Liu Shuishi attend a charitable evening event held by New York Observer on May 6 at the W Hotel in New York’s Union Square. [LIU ZHENG/ China Daily]