This thesis, written in 2013, focuses on the relationship between the Chinese government and the country's contemporary artists' attempts to organize in the postmodern period.
How Art Works: Week 1 The ‘unruly discipline’ DeborahJ
This lecture will:
introduce ways to think about art and its history and help you to understand how art historians go about their practice
look at some of the issues and debates that make up the disciple of Art History
offer some reconsiderations of art history
consider the importance of the gallery and museum
How Art Works: Week 5 The Rise of the ismsDeborahJ
This lecture will:
Examine how artists sought to find a language that would adequately express the changes and disruptions associated with modern life
Attempt to capture the dialectical relationship between each movement and its predecessors
Make connections between historical events and art genres
Encouraged you to think of styles as useful tools for exploration and analysis, rather than as hard and fast academic definitions, and to relate to the art itself rather than to a merely conceptual idea
The Evolution of HK Art Of Nature International Feminist Art Research SocietyVincentKwunLeungLee
From my proposal of establishing the Research Society in 2011 to a joint exhibition in 2015
PART 1: The Role of Hong Kong Female Artists in the New Era of Global Culture and Consciousness
PART 2: Cissy Cheung promotes the Chinese-ink masterpieces created by Mrs. Anson Chan's mother
PART 3: Infinite Love – 1st Hong Kong International Female Contemporary Art Exhibition
History of art(west and middle east)- contemporary art ,art ,contemporary art ,art-history of art ,iranian art ,iranian contemporary art ,middle east art ,european art
The Rise of Installation Art - written by Prof. David ClarkeVincentKwunLeungLee
Prof. Frank Vigneron's Contemporary Art course at CUHK Fine Arts - An individual presentation on a piece of academic essay written by Prof. David Clarke, Former Chair Professor at HKU Department of Fine Arts
How Art Works: Week 1 The ‘unruly discipline’ DeborahJ
This lecture will:
introduce ways to think about art and its history and help you to understand how art historians go about their practice
look at some of the issues and debates that make up the disciple of Art History
offer some reconsiderations of art history
consider the importance of the gallery and museum
How Art Works: Week 5 The Rise of the ismsDeborahJ
This lecture will:
Examine how artists sought to find a language that would adequately express the changes and disruptions associated with modern life
Attempt to capture the dialectical relationship between each movement and its predecessors
Make connections between historical events and art genres
Encouraged you to think of styles as useful tools for exploration and analysis, rather than as hard and fast academic definitions, and to relate to the art itself rather than to a merely conceptual idea
The Evolution of HK Art Of Nature International Feminist Art Research SocietyVincentKwunLeungLee
From my proposal of establishing the Research Society in 2011 to a joint exhibition in 2015
PART 1: The Role of Hong Kong Female Artists in the New Era of Global Culture and Consciousness
PART 2: Cissy Cheung promotes the Chinese-ink masterpieces created by Mrs. Anson Chan's mother
PART 3: Infinite Love – 1st Hong Kong International Female Contemporary Art Exhibition
History of art(west and middle east)- contemporary art ,art ,contemporary art ,art-history of art ,iranian art ,iranian contemporary art ,middle east art ,european art
The Rise of Installation Art - written by Prof. David ClarkeVincentKwunLeungLee
Prof. Frank Vigneron's Contemporary Art course at CUHK Fine Arts - An individual presentation on a piece of academic essay written by Prof. David Clarke, Former Chair Professor at HKU Department of Fine Arts
The global image. from consumer culture to the digital revolution DeborahJ
The Global Image: From Consumer Culture to the Digital Revolution is focused on the way we engage with images in the post-Internet era, when they can be shared, reproduced, altered, and distributed more easily than ever before in human history.
The soft power of the artmarket - a new East European fresh look at the art s...Oana Nasui
”The Soft Power of the Art Market” is a new East European fresh look at the systems that are now in charge of producing contemporary art in a globalized world. It reveals the challenges of the contemporary art as a soft power, defined by its geopolitical strategies and defined as an extension of the powerful global markets. The contemporary art between media and power is changing the equilibrium between the cultural capital and economic capital.
The idea of the New Folklore is introduced in terms of the new aesthetics for the XXI century. The new aesthetics of production and consumption (under the sign of the paradigms launched by Duchamp and Warhol) is nowadays generating a very large amount of cultural artistic products lost, in a very accelerated manner. This speed and this amount lead to an unexpectedly anonymity, thus generating not individual specific creation but general, collective types of artistic work – actually a new type of folklore.
Xu Beihong - Painting as a nationalistic propaganda of enforcing China for po...VincentKwunLeungLee
A 9000-word research as a final-year project of "Master of Social Science in Contemporary China Studies" at HKBU, with Prof. Ricardo Mak King-sang as Supervisor
The global image. from consumer culture to the digital revolution DeborahJ
The Global Image: From Consumer Culture to the Digital Revolution is focused on the way we engage with images in the post-Internet era, when they can be shared, reproduced, altered, and distributed more easily than ever before in human history.
The soft power of the artmarket - a new East European fresh look at the art s...Oana Nasui
”The Soft Power of the Art Market” is a new East European fresh look at the systems that are now in charge of producing contemporary art in a globalized world. It reveals the challenges of the contemporary art as a soft power, defined by its geopolitical strategies and defined as an extension of the powerful global markets. The contemporary art between media and power is changing the equilibrium between the cultural capital and economic capital.
The idea of the New Folklore is introduced in terms of the new aesthetics for the XXI century. The new aesthetics of production and consumption (under the sign of the paradigms launched by Duchamp and Warhol) is nowadays generating a very large amount of cultural artistic products lost, in a very accelerated manner. This speed and this amount lead to an unexpectedly anonymity, thus generating not individual specific creation but general, collective types of artistic work – actually a new type of folklore.
Xu Beihong - Painting as a nationalistic propaganda of enforcing China for po...VincentKwunLeungLee
A 9000-word research as a final-year project of "Master of Social Science in Contemporary China Studies" at HKBU, with Prof. Ricardo Mak King-sang as Supervisor
Introduction Needs to be 2-3 pages max. It would help if anyon.docxjesssueann
Introduction:
Needs to be 2-3 pages max. It would help if anyone went to the exhibit in the museum please help thanksss need a good grade on this
From the Guggenheim Website on the exhibition:
“Art and China after 1989 presents work by 71 key artists and groups active across China and worldwide whose critical provocations aim to forge reality free from ideology, to establish the individual apart from the collective, and to define contemporary Chinese experience in universal terms. Bracketed by the end of the Cold War in 1989 and the Beijing Olympics in 2008, it surveys the culture of artistic experimentation during a time characterized by the onset of globalization and the rise of a newly powerful China on the world stage. The exhibition’s subtitle, Theater of the World, comes from an installation by the Xiamen-born, Paris-based artist Huang Yong Ping: a cage-like structure housing live reptiles and insects that coexist in a natural cycle of life, an apt spectacle of globalization’s symbiosis and raw contest.
For art and China, the year 1989 was both an end and a beginning. The June Fourth Tiananmen Incident signaled the end of a decade of relatively open political, intellectual, and artistic exploration. It also marked the start of reforms that would launch a new era of accelerated development, international connectedness, and individual possibility, albeit under authoritarian conditions. Artists were at once catalysts and skeptics of the massive changes unfolding around them. Using the critical stance and open-ended forms of international Conceptual art, they created performances, paintings, photography, installations, and video art, and initiated activist projects to engage directly with society. Their emergence during the 1990s and early 2000s coincided with the moment the Western art world began to look beyond its traditional centers, as the phenomenon of global contemporary art started to take shape. Chinese artists were crucial agents in this evolution.
Art and China after 1989 is organized in six chronological, thematic sections throughout the rotunda and on Tower Levels 5 and 7. For all the diversity the exhibition encompasses, the artists here have all sought to think beyond China’s political fray and simple East-West dogmas. This freedom of a “third space” has allowed for a vital distance, and a particular insight, as they contend with the legacies of Chinese history, international modernism, and global neoliberalism of the 1990s. Their rambunctious creativity can expand our ever-widening view of contemporary art and inspire new thinking at a moment when the questions they have faced—of identity, equality, ideology, and control—have pressing relevance.”
Main Issue and Question:
This show traces the social and political history of China from 1989 until 2008 and Chinese artists’ engagement with issues of globalization, identity, equality, ideology and state control. More specifically, and most troubling, is the co ...
For senior high school Visual Arts students - an examination of the work of Chinese contemporary artist Xu Zhen and his 'MadeIn' art production company
Introduction to Art Chapter 31 Postmodernity and Global CultTatianaMajor22
Introduction to Art Chapter 31: Postmodernity and Global Cultures 448
Chapter 31: Postmodernity and Global
Cultures
“Getting” Contemporary Art
It’s ironic that many people say they don’t “get” contemporary art because, unlike Egyptian tomb
painting or Greek sculpture, art made since 1960 reflects our own recent past. It speaks to the
dramatic social, political and technological changes of the last 50 years, and it questions many of
society’s values and assumptions—a tendency of postmodernism, a concept sometimes used to
describe contemporary art. What makes today’s art especially challenging is that, like the world
around us, it has become more diverse and cannot be easily defined through a list of visual
characteristics, artistic themes or cultural concerns.
Minimalism and Pop Art paved the way for later artists to explore questions about the conceptual
nature of art, its form, its production, and its ability to communicate in different ways. In the late
1960s and 1970s, these ideas led to a “dematerialization of art,” when artists turned away from
painting and sculpture to experiment with new formats including photography, film and video,
performance art, large-scale installations and earth works. Although some critics of the time
foretold “the death of painting,” art today encompasses a broad range of traditional and
experimental media, including works that rely on Internet technology and other scientific
innovations.
John Baldessari, I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art, 1971, lithograph, 22-7/16 x 30-1/16″ (The Museum of Modern
Art). Copyright John Baldessari, courtesy of the artist.
Introduction to Art Chapter 31: Postmodernity and Global Cultures 449
Contemporary artists continue to use a varied vocabulary of abstract and representational forms
to convey their ideas. It is important to remember that the art of our time did not develop in a
vacuum; rather, it reflects the social and political concerns of its cultural context. For example,
artists like Judy Chicago, who were inspired by the feminist movement of the early 1970s,
embraced imagery and art forms that had historical connections to women.
In the 1980s, artists appropriated the style and methods of mass media advertising to investigate
issues of cultural authority and identity politics. More recently, artists like Maya Lin, who
designed the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Wall in Washington D.C., and Richard Serra, who was
loosely associated with Minimalism in the 1960s, have adapted characteristics of Minimalist art
to create new abstract sculptures that encourage more personal interaction and emotional
response among viewers.
These shifting strategies to engage the viewer show how contemporary art’s significance exists
beyond the object itself. Its meaning develops from cultural discourse, interpretation and a range
of individual understandings, in addition to the formal and conceptual problems that first
motivated the artist ...
Surname. 1
Student’s Name
Instructor’s Name
Course Title
18th August 2014
Definition of art
There has always been a rather human-like impulse to create; one that is seen to be universal. Art is seen by many as a means of communicating varying beliefs and expression of ideas regarding various human experiences. This is a practice that has been in existence since time immemorial, being passed down through the civilization stages and in every existing region across the globe (Kapferer, P.34, 2008). Art has also been seen to have an important role of providing insight into past and existing cultures; through which man can understand how other lives have been lived and what they could have valued.
One issue that has continuously been of much controversy is that of art’s definition. In fact, whether art can even be defined at all has been a matter considered to be significantly controversial in its own sense; others debating on the usefulness of its definition from a philosophical point of view. However, art is seen to have a conventionally accepted definition; one that tends to entail a conglomeration of ideas as espoused in the explanation given earlier. This paper seeks to discuss the opinion that art’s definition has shifted and changed over time and across cultures. In support of this view point, this paper gains insight on various other aspects that are directly in issue with the topic of discussion. .
When it comes to contemporary definition of art, there are two mainly used sorts. One of them is distinctively modern and conventionalist sort; which emphasizes its focus of art’s definition on its institutional features, and the manner in which art transforms or changes with time. This is the one that shows just how traditional arts seem to have been broken by modern works as well as the relational properties between different artworks which have a dependency on past art history and art genres. On the other hand, there is the contemporary definition which is less conventionalist and makes a much broader use of traditional aesthetic concepts and other traditional properties. These include the more art related properties and focuses on art’s trans-historical and pan-cultural attributes.
Throughout history, people of different cultures have been brought together by political ambitions, material desires and economic needs. Such cultural interrelations may at times be across great distances or communities of deep variation. Regardless of the fact that these endeavors may be cooperative or clash-related, the convergences brought about exchange of numerous knowledge and ideas (Grafton, P. 78, 2010). Taking the case of visual art for instance, it led to the rise of creative juxtapositions, innovative forms and hybrid styles; eventually having an impact on the interpretation of traditional symbols and signs. It is a rather apparent fact that art’s definition has had to change as time passes by. This is not only due to the fact that such time bring ...
Womans Art Inc.Cultural Collisions Identity and History .docxambersalomon88660
Woman's Art Inc.
Cultural Collisions: Identity and History in the Work of Hung Liu
Author(s): Allison Arieff
Source: Woman's Art Journal, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Spring - Summer, 1996), pp. 35-40
Published by: Woman's Art Inc.
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CULTURAL COLLISIONS
Identity and History in the Work of Hung Liu
By Allison Arieff
D eceptively simple, Hung Liu's recent paintings address
such diverse and complex issues as footbinding and
Western art-historical tradition. The tension inherent in
her conflicted personal identity as a Chinese-born woman artist
living in the West informs her art. Liu's images of women form a
cultural critique, simultaneously referring to and challenging
artistic and social traditions of East and West. In basing her sub-
ject matter on Western-influenced photographs of turn-of-the-
century Chinese prostitutes, Liu further objectifies representa-
tions of women as a basis for criticizing both the way "we" (West-
erners) view Chinese culture and the way that Chinese culture
has looked at women. She assumes the difficult task of critiquing
China's oppressive patriarchal system, alerting her audience to
past transgressions in the hope that knowledge and awareness
may serve as an impetus for change.
Political content notwithstanding, the artist's work, as Lisa Cor-
rin points out, "cannot be reduced to the cliche of an artist longing
for democracy."' Liu's painting style both reflects and subverts her
traditional art training. Her canvases are deliberately flattened and
distorted, simulating the photographic images she appropriates
while at the same time rebelling against stringent academic ren-
dering. Forced to paint in a Socialist Realist style in China, she
now eagerly embraces the techniques of collage, installation, and
assemblage. Liu also mocks traditional Western portrayals of
women by referencing the iconography and using the titles of
canonical artwork.
Model Attribute Check Company Auto PropertyCeline George
In Odoo, the multi-company feature allows you to manage multiple companies within a single Odoo database instance. Each company can have its own configurations while still sharing common resources such as products, customers, and suppliers.
2024.06.01 Introducing a competency framework for languag learning materials ...Sandy Millin
http://sandymillin.wordpress.com/iateflwebinar2024
Published classroom materials form the basis of syllabuses, drive teacher professional development, and have a potentially huge influence on learners, teachers and education systems. All teachers also create their own materials, whether a few sentences on a blackboard, a highly-structured fully-realised online course, or anything in between. Despite this, the knowledge and skills needed to create effective language learning materials are rarely part of teacher training, and are mostly learnt by trial and error.
Knowledge and skills frameworks, generally called competency frameworks, for ELT teachers, trainers and managers have existed for a few years now. However, until I created one for my MA dissertation, there wasn’t one drawing together what we need to know and do to be able to effectively produce language learning materials.
This webinar will introduce you to my framework, highlighting the key competencies I identified from my research. It will also show how anybody involved in language teaching (any language, not just English!), teacher training, managing schools or developing language learning materials can benefit from using the framework.
Acetabularia Information For Class 9 .docxvaibhavrinwa19
Acetabularia acetabulum is a single-celled green alga that in its vegetative state is morphologically differentiated into a basal rhizoid and an axially elongated stalk, which bears whorls of branching hairs. The single diploid nucleus resides in the rhizoid.
Introduction to AI for Nonprofits with Tapp NetworkTechSoup
Dive into the world of AI! Experts Jon Hill and Tareq Monaur will guide you through AI's role in enhancing nonprofit websites and basic marketing strategies, making it easy to understand and apply.
Welcome to TechSoup New Member Orientation and Q&A (May 2024).pdfTechSoup
In this webinar you will learn how your organization can access TechSoup's wide variety of product discount and donation programs. From hardware to software, we'll give you a tour of the tools available to help your nonprofit with productivity, collaboration, financial management, donor tracking, security, and more.
Biological screening of herbal drugs: Introduction and Need for
Phyto-Pharmacological Screening, New Strategies for evaluating
Natural Products, In vitro evaluation techniques for Antioxidants, Antimicrobial and Anticancer drugs. In vivo evaluation techniques
for Anti-inflammatory, Antiulcer, Anticancer, Wound healing, Antidiabetic, Hepatoprotective, Cardio protective, Diuretics and
Antifertility, Toxicity studies as per OECD guidelines
How to Make a Field invisible in Odoo 17Celine George
It is possible to hide or invisible some fields in odoo. Commonly using “invisible” attribute in the field definition to invisible the fields. This slide will show how to make a field invisible in odoo 17.
Instructions for Submissions thorugh G- Classroom.pptxJheel Barad
This presentation provides a briefing on how to upload submissions and documents in Google Classroom. It was prepared as part of an orientation for new Sainik School in-service teacher trainees. As a training officer, my goal is to ensure that you are comfortable and proficient with this essential tool for managing assignments and fostering student engagement.
The French Revolution, which began in 1789, was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France. It marked the decline of absolute monarchies, the rise of secular and democratic republics, and the eventual rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. This revolutionary period is crucial in understanding the transition from feudalism to modernity in Europe.
For more information, visit-www.vavaclasses.com
1. Gigi Ackerman
13 December 2013
Dr. Porras, Places of Art
Early Contemporary Art in China
Historically, the landscape of Chinese culture has been consistently shaped by the
pursuit of power. After the Cultural Revolution, in an effort to maintain power and exert
control over contemporary art production in China, the ruling Communist Party
suppressed rapid surges of creativity enabled by the global art market, resulting in
constant cycles of reevaluation, reinvention, and reintroduction. Two of the most
important events in the early history of contemporary Chinese art are the 1979 Stars Art
Exhibition and the China/Avant-Garde exhibition of 1989 in Beijing. Both are products
of rapid rise in artistic thought and were followed by severe governmental action. These
cycles have taken a serious toll on the establishment of identity and have become
characteristic of the development of contemporary Chinese art.
In 1942, Mao Zedong (1893-1976), the future Chairman of the Central Committee
of the Communist Party of China, gave his Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and
Art. Speaking to a Communist audience, he delineated guidelines for the production of art
that would be adopted as state policy in all of Mainland China after 1949.1 Mao stressed
the need for art and literature to reach a wider audience, stating that it should serve the
proletariat;art could be no more than a servant helping to shape the consciousness of the
masses. The issue of aesthetic quality was addressed, but political concerns were deemed
more important. He said, “Popular works are simpler and plainer, and therefore more
1John Clark, Modernities of Chinese Art (Leiden: Brill, 2010), pg. 47.
1
2. readily accepted by the broad masses of the people today. Works of a higher quality,
being more polished, are more difficult to produce and in general do not circulate so
easily and quickly among the masses at present.”2
After the founding of the People‟s Republic in China (PRC) in 1949, adoption of
the Soviet-style Socialist Realism was mandatory in all art production, a trend that
reached its peak during the Cultural Revolution. The mandatory new rules required artists
to give up any form of individual self-expression, since every creative action was to be
analyzedby the hard-liners of Communist Party.3
The Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution(1966-1976) considered exhibitions and
discussions of ancient and Western art non-existent. One of the largest campaigns
organized by the government, The Attack on the Four Olds, was a movement to destroy
old culture, old customs, old ideas, and old habits throughout China. Examples of
Chinese architecture were destroyed, classical literature and Chinese paintings were torn
apart, and Chinese temples were desecrated.4The severe ideological and governmental
control of artistic production ensured the complete politicization of art.5
After Mao‟s death and the end of the Cultural Revolution, party leaders including
Deng Xiaoping, the Chairman of the Central Advisory Commission of the Communist
2Mao
Zedong, "Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art," Talks at the Yenan Forum on
Literature and Art, 2004, section goes here, accessed November 22, 2013,
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-3/mswv3_08.htm.
3Francesco
Dal Lago, "The Avant-Garde Has Its Moment of Glory," editorial,TIME, September 27,
1999, World sec., September 27, 1999, accessed November 28, 2013,
http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2054554,00.html.
4Xing
Lu, Rhetoric of the Chinese Cultural Revolution: The Impact on Chinese Thought, Culture, and
Communication (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2004).
5Hung
Wu and Peggy Wang, Contemporary Chinese Art: Primary Documents(New York: Museum of
Modern Art, 2010), pg. 5-6.
2
3. Party, introduced reform programs that rehabilitated many artists who had been purged
over the past twenty years during the Cultural Revolution. The countrywide economic
reform and social shift was carried out in the development of “socialism with Chinese
characteristics.”6Art academies and colleges were reestablished and began to admit all
levels of students in 1979. These changes resulted in the return of academic art, which
was immediately eager to distance itself from monolithic, propagandistic model of art.
Following decades of governmentally authorized movements, contemporary
Chinese artistic progress had been almost completely eroded, which encouraged artists to
reinvent a new aesthetic culture. Many drew from Western models and worked to create
an alternate contemporary art history. Between 1979 and 1990, the Stars Group and the
New Wave radically shifted Chinese art from Socialist Realism to abstract and
experimental practice. These artists, especially those of the New Wave, were based in
collectivism and began the development of internationalization in Chinese art.
The term “experimental art” (shiyan meishu), popularized by prominent Chinese
art critic Wu Hung, “can be about almost anything related to art and can be something
major or something minor.”7 Experimental art has a deliberately nebulous definition and
is not connected with any particular subject matter, political alignment, or artistic
technique. Terms used by other critics, such as “unofficial art” and “avant-garde art” do
not fully encompass the goals and characterization of experimental art to the point of
being misleading. “Unofficial art” amplifies and over-exaggerates the political
6Ming-lu
Gao and Norman Bryson, Inside/out: New Chinese Art (San Francisco: San Francisco Museum
of Modern Art, 1998).
7Hung Wu, Exhibiting Experimental Art in China (Chicago: David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, the
University of Chicago, 2000), pg. 11.
3
4. inclination, while “avant-garde art” implies a level of artistic radicalism that is not shared
by all contemporary Chinese artists.
Lacking a concrete definition, experimental art can be identified by its
relationship with the five major traditions of contemporary Chinese art. The first, a highly
politicized official art based in social realism, is produced directly under the sponsorship
of the Chinese Communist Party. The second tradition is an art based in academia that
emphasizes higher aesthetic standards, but struggles to separate itself from political
indoctrination. The third is art that utilizes fashionable images from Hong Kong, Taiwan,
and the West and reflects their metropolitan visual cultures. The fourth facet is a
commercial, internationalized art that caters to the global art market, although it was
often originally part of experimental art. The fifth and final tradition of contemporary
Chinese art is the vanguard of experimental art that deliberately tries to connect itself
with various forms of Western modernist and postmodernist art.8
None of these traditions are overtly anti-Communist, nor do they constitute a
general hostility between experimental art and the ongoing sociopolitical system in
China. Boundaries between aspects are markedly unstable; the definition and content of
all five elements are in a constant state of flux. Wu explains that,
“An art experiment in China is always motivated by the desire to break away from
the visual modes and vocabulary of these four traditions, though the focus of
experimentation may be an art medium or style, new ways of presenting art to the
audience, or even the identity and social function of the artist him/herself.”9
In the 30 years since its materialization, the substance of Chinese experimental art
has been under constant transformation as its relationship with these other art traditions
8Ibid
pg. 15.
Hung Wu, Transience: Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the Twentieth Century (Chicago, IL:
David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, 1999).
9
4
5. changes. Despite the vagueness of the term, there are several stable characteristics. In
general, experimental art aims to reinvent the systems of artistic expression, it embraces
new materials and forms, and encourages a self-imposed distance between the artist and
official or academic art.
While the obscure meaning of experimental art is successful in encompassing the
goals and characteristics of contemporary Chinese art, the absence of a clear definition is
used as a tool of suppression by the government to control the production and exhibition
of art in China.
Many young artists, who later became members of the Stars (Xingxing) group,
moved into cities from the countryside were part of the energetic democracy movement
that surfaced in 1979.10 These artists were mostly amateurs who had neither received any
formal artistic training nor were affiliated with any art institution. In the spirit of the
democracy movement, they organized the Stars Art Exhibition (Xingxing meizhan) on the
street outside of the National Art Gallery in Beijing. The exhibition included 163 works
from 23 artists, including sculpture, prints, and oil painting. One of the Stars group‟s
most well-know members, Wang Keping, showed a 1978 wooden sculpture, entitled
Silence (figure 1), which was shocking for its political candor. The piece, carved of birch,
takes the form of a human head whose mouth is literally silenced by a large wooden
stopper. He explains,
“I do sculpture for no other reason than to express my pent-up feelings…I don‟t
hold that art must obey any objective laws, and as the forces of production
develop in a society, people will naturally search for new means of expression. I
10
Hung Wu and Peggy Wang, pg. 6
5
6. found a medium for myself that is not limited by any rules of outward form that
leaved me totally free to express my feelings.”11
The explicitly political work stunned spectators with an aggressive attack on
Maoist ideology and directly instigated a strong social backlash.12This public assertion of
their „outsider‟ location in the Chinese art world was shut down and canceled by the
police after showing for only two days. As other artists staged exhibitions without
approval from any institution or governmental society, the Party swiftly responded by
banning all unofficial organizations and activities. This revealed the limitations of Deng‟s
seemingly liberal reform movement and marks a trend in the development of
contemporary Chinese art. Every time artists or groups attempt to create and explore their
own aesthetic identity, the exertion of more governmental control over art production and
methods of exhibition rapidly terminates their efforts. After the Stars Art Exhibition,
protests and crackdowns were repetitive.13 The fluid definition of experimental,
contemporary art enabled the government to broaden their control over exhibitions and
ban all modes of expression that they deemed “un-Chinese.”14
From 1983 to early 1984, the Communist Party Propaganda Department
assembled the Anti-Spiritual Pollution campaign. Dialogues on formal abstraction of art
were officially forbidden, contemporary art exhibitions were terminated, and all
exhibitions of Western modern art were suspended. Not just an attack on art, in the words
Xianting Li, "About the Stars Art Exhibition (1980)," in Contemporary Chinese Art: Primary
Documents, ed. Hung Wu (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2010), pg. 11-13.
11
12Xianting
Li, "Confessions of a China/Avant-Garde Curator (1989)," in Contemporary Chinese Art:
Primary Documents, ed. Hung Wu (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2010), pg. #117.
13Xuan
Wang, Gallery’s Role in Contemporary Chinese Art Market, The Ohio State University, The Ohio
State University, 2009, Historical Background of Contemporary Chinese Art Market, accessed
December 2, 2013.
14Cees
Hendrikse and Thomas J. Berghuis, Writing on the Wall: Chinese New Realism and Avant-garde
in the Eighties and Nineties ([Groningen]: Groninger Museum, 2008), pg. 79.
6
7. of Communist Party Propaganda Chief Deng Liqun, spiritual pollution includes,
"obscene, barbarous or reactionary materials, vulgar taste in artistic performances,
indulgence in individualism" and statements that "run counter to the country's social
system."15
When the Anti-Spiritual Pollution campaign ended because of economic issues
and unanticipated resistance, 16 a rapid influx of “decadent” Western art and culture
became available to all people in China. Reproductions of artworks, exhibitions, and
theoretical writings were translated and published in a very short span of time. The
visually and intellectually diverse content of the past century of modern art in the West
was presented simultaneously, without consideration of chronology or internal logic
The New Wave movement, which began in 1985, was a response to the flood of
Western modern art. It was also an effort to develop contemporary art into a unified
avant-garde “movement.” 17To promote contemporary experimental artists, a new
generation of art critics and institutional leaders established new publications. The three
most significant ones were Jiangsu Pictorial (Jiangsu huakan),18 The Trend of Art
Thought (Meishu sichao), and Fine Arts in China (Zhongguo meishu bao). Their editors
developed close ties with experimental artists and organized exhibitions and conferences
around the country.
15
Hung Wu and Peggy Wang, pg. 35.
16Christopher
S. Wren, Special To The New York Times, "China Is Said to End a Campaign to Stop
'Spiritual Pollution'" The New York Times, January 24, 1984, accessed December 3, 2013,
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/24/world/china-is-said-to-end-a-campaign-to-stop-spiritualpollution.html.
17
Hung Wu and Peggy Wang, pg. 99.
18Ibid,
pg. 35.
7
8. One of the most prominent New Wave artists was Wang Guangyi. In his PostClassical: Death of Marat (figure 2), Wang created his own version of the famous
neoclassical work by Jacques-Louis David, painted in 1793. He uses a historic Western
image, which itself is grounded in an actual incident: the assassination of the French
journalist and revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat, to comment on the radical climate of
Chinese art and society. Wang‟s “revision” of the original—a twin-planed abstraction,
emptied of color and details—reinterprets the traditional, canonic representation with a
contemporary attitude. His repetition of the empty scene adds an existential pop element,
which was common in New Wave works.
Wang‟s work, and that of other members of the New Wave, addressed questions
of modernity, internationalism, and identity. What did the influence of western culture
mean for new experimental art in China? Did modernity have to include influences from
the West? Did Chinese identity and traditions have to compete for significance, or was
artistic knowledge cultureless? The Northern Art Group, part of the New Wave, believed
that the tension between China and the West in terms of modernity could be reconciled.
From their point of view, modernity was an international conceit, eastern and western
cultures collapsed after confronting each other and were steadily being replaced by a new
“northern civilization,”19 a culture of logic and rationality.
The attempt to connect all contemporary experimental artists was not realized.
Most artists were in their twenties; a large number of them were still in art school or had
just graduated. They were not only dissatisfied with the restrictions of art education; they
were still fresh from experiences of the Cultural Revolution and fully aware of the power
19Cees
Hendrikse and Thomas J. Berghuis, pg. 81.
8
9. of culture. So many unofficial art groups emerged that, at one point, there were more than
eighty such groups across twenty-three provinces and major cities.20 No theoretical
principles or artistic styles united these groups. In general, experimental artists of the
1980s were very familiar with developments in Western modern and postmodern art.
They saw themselves as cultural critics, struggling to revolutionize Chinese art and
“reexamining the relationship between art and society, religion, and philosophy in all
possible ways.”21 In many ways, it was more of a movement of ideological liberation
within the confines of art theory than a creative effort to advance art itself.
This criticism of the New Wave, that it was not actually an art movement, has
grounds in the understanding of how art has evolved and for what reasons.The most
important element of art is the practice itself. The artist must incorporate his or her inner
vision with the exterior world at the instant of inspiration and to make a meaningful
contribution to the improvement of art.When art is simply used as a vehicle to express the
artist‟s sociological concepts, it loses its integrity.
The artists of the New Wave were more concerned with changing the climate of
the arts in China rather than making a contribution to the advancement of art itself. Critic
Jia Fangzhou traces the line between art and social reality, “An artist can never
completely sink into the predicament of humanity; he needs to maintain a certain
relationship to social reality while also maintaining a certain distance from it. Otherwise,
it would be too difficult for him to devote himself to art. This is because art does not have
20
Hung Wu and Peggy Wang, pg. 51.
21Ibid,
pg. 52.
9
10. the fundamental ability or responsibility to transform the fate of humanity.”22 He
compares Pablo Picasso‟s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and Guernica. The former
possesses greater artistic value because it represents the turning point from classical art
into the modern while the latter only extended the language, despite the importance of its
subject matter.23
New Wave artist‟s adoption of contemporary Western styles also calls into
question the intrinsic value of their aesthetic. The surge of modern art from the West
introduced Chinese artists to the century-long development of art all at once. China
fundamentally lacked the social and cultural context for modern art.24The internal
rationality and history of the evolution of modernity became less important than its visual
and academic content. Western modernism is based off of hundreds of years of
precedents. Chinese artists adopted “avant-garde” artistic models based upon styles and
theories that had long become obsolete to critics of western art.25 The value of these
“westernized” Chinese works was placed in the relocation of these styles to a different
time and place instead of in the original historical and social impact.Even the borrowed
term of “avant-garde” implies that the New Wave was more outward facing and resistant
towards individual, personal development.
Modernism as a concept is based in individuality. The collective spirit of the New
Wave resulted in an marked similarity in artistic language. Self-expression through art
Fangzhou Jia, "Returning to Art Itself (1988)," in Contemporary Chinese Art: Primary Documents, ed.
Hung Wu (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2010), pg. 100.
22
23Ibid,
pg. 101
Jiatun Li, "The Significance Is Not the Art (1986)," in Contemporary Chinese Art: Primary
Documents, ed. Hung Wu (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2010), pg. 62.
24
25Hung
Wu, Transience: Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the Twentieth Century (Chicago, IL:
David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, 1999).
10
11. was abandoned in favor of expressing the sentiments of an entire generation. These artists
were acting against the subordination of art to the governance of the Communist party
under Xu Beihong. With the extreme underdevelopment of academic thought in
China,artists were inspired not to further the language and strength of their art, but to
delve into philosophy and sociopolitical liberation. The New Wave did produce some of
the most influential modern Chinese artists, who today produce work all over the world.
Artists like Zhang Xiaogang, Ai Weiwei, Wenda Gu, Cai Guo-Qiang, and Xu Bing
moved aboard in the late 1980s and have enjoyed successful careers in the global art
industry.
The China/Avant-Gardeof 1989 exhibition represents both the climax and end of
the New Wave movement in China. Held at the National Art Gallery in Beijing, the
organizers dealt with setbacks and problems so regularly that the exhibition had to be
postponed from its original date of 1986 to 1989. Participating institutions included the
Chinese National Aesthetics Society, the editorial committee of Culture: China and the
World (Wenhua: Zhongguo yu shijie), the Beijing Arts Committee, and the publications
Cityscape in China (Zhongguo shi rongbao) and Free Forum of Literature (Wenxue ziyou
tan).26According to Zhou Yan, a member of the organizational committee, the objective
of the exhibition was to “reveal the value and significance of modern art to the
development of contemporary Chinese culture…[and] would act as a high-level activity
for the interaction and study of modern art while promoting the pluralistic development
Yan Zhou, "Background Material on the China/Avant-Garde Exhibition (1989)," in Contemporary
Chinese Art: Primary Documents, ed. Hung Wu (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2010), pg. 114.
26
11
12. of Chinese art.”27 In October 1988, the committee chosenearly 250 works from
approximately 100 artists from every region.
One of the main problems with China/Avant-Garde is that the preparatory
committee had to make compromises with the museum, most importantly over a
prohibition on sexual and performance art. Li Xianting, one of the principal curators of
the exhibition, knew that it would be impossible to realize an avant-garde approach with
the prohibition and instead “attempted to build a certain atmosphere with a sense
offreshness and provocation unlike that of any exhibition the general public had ever
seen.”28
Several artists challenged the preconditions of the exhibition and staged
performances. Two of which were Xiao Lu and Tang Song, in their work
entitledDialogue (figure 3). The work was an installation of a mirror bordered by two
phone booths. On the opening day of China/Avant-Garde, Xiao, a young female artist
from Shanghai, opened fire and shot her installation twice with a loaded gun, leading to
mass panic.29 The exhibition was temporarily suspended, the museum went under
lockdown, and armed riot police swarmed the area.
After three days of meeting between the Public Security Bureau and the
exhibition preparatory committee, China/Avant-Garde was reopened. The “gunshot
incident” was a media sensation and caused the second opening to draw huge crowds.
The unexpected wide public attention changed the state of the exhibition.The show
Yan Zhou, pg. 115.
Li, "Confessions of a China/Avant-Garde Curator (1989)," in Contemporary Chinese Art:
Primary Documents, ed. Hung Wu (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2010), pg. 117.
27
28Xianting
29
Hung Wu and Peggy Wang, pg. 113.
12
13. presented Chinese art to the rest of the world and the international market took notice.
Over the ensuing decade, foreign collectors began to acquire contemporary Chinese art in
mass quantities, leading to a worldwide demand. With the support of the global art
market, many artists shifted from collectivism to individuality.30
Exactly three months after the China/Avant-Garde, on June 4, 1989, several
hundred civilians were been shot dead by the Chinese army in Beijing during a bloody
military operation to crush a democratic student protest in Tiananmen Square in.
Protesters, mainly students, had occupied the square for seven weeks, refusing to move
until their demands for democratic change were met. Many of the demonstrators were
members of the New Wave.
The exhibition presented Chinese art to the rest of the world and the international
market took notice. Over the ensuing decade, foreign collectors began to acquire
contemporary Chinese art in mass quantities, leading to a worldwide demand. With the
support of the global art market, many artists shifted from collectivism to individuality.
In December of 1990, the Chinese government held the Working Conference of
the National Artists‟ Association. The attendants were all members of the Communist
party and leaders of national art and literature institutions. The goal of this conference
was to discuss the future of art and literature in China, “seizing onto rectification with
one hand and prosperity with the other”31. In this case, “rectification” meant:
Daojian Pi and Li Pi, "Contemporary Chinese Art Media in the 1990s (1999)," inContemporary
Chinese Art: Primary Documents, ed. Hung Wu (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2010), pg. 312.
30
31Cees
Hendrikse and Thomas J. Berghuis, pg. 78.
13
14. “Purging the harmful influence of the intellectual trend towards bourgeois
liberalization in the domain of literature and art [sic] so as to stimulate everyone
into an awareness of the difference between right and wrong, to increase
understanding, to strengthen the feeling of social responsibility in order to make a
new contribution to the prospering of socialist literature and art. [sic]”32
The “purge” began earlier that year with the upheaval of all art institutions,
including the most prominent national art journal, Meishu. The Association carried out a
campaign to investigate all members and to register them with the Communist Party.
Everyone investigated was either recorded as cleared or “under suspicion or worthy of
punishment for involvement in proper activities (either actual involvement in the events
around June 4 or activities construable as seditious incitement thereof).”33 Essentially,
anyone who was associated with experimental art in 1989 was banned from the Artists‟
Association.
A member of the Association, Gua Yang, expressed that all modern art was
fundamentally “un-Chinese” and completely influenced by the West. During the
conference, he said,
“There are those who proclaim that literature and art needs to „express the self‟.
They deny the splendid tradition of our literature and art consider the literature
and art of the masses before them to be of a lower stratum, and that which no one
can understand they consider of a higher stratum. The works exhibited at the
February 1989 „modern Chinese art exhibition‟ at the china art gallery in Beijing
were absurd and bizarre and clearly were influenced by the new currents of
western art.”34
The strong reaction against China/Avant-Garde and the events at Tiananmen
Square spurred the Association to redefine art in the context of politics and Chinese
socialism. Wang Qi, the secretary of the Artists‟ Association, advocated for the
32Ibid,
pg. 81.
33Ibid,
pg. 85.
34Ibid,
pg. 82.
14
15. development of, “a new kind of art (a socialist art furnished with Chinese characteristics)
which is thus not the same as the art of capitalist countries, and also must be different to
the art of other socialist countries.”35 Like many others at the conference, he wanted
China to develop a national identity in the arts with a clear and unified style, dictated by
the party.
The consequences of these anti-modernist actions alienated all of the experimental
artists and critics in the early 1990s, who suddenly found themselves without the support
of any national institutions. There was no longer an intellectual or academic arena where
they could openly discuss and interpret new forms of art. Everyone involved had to make
the decision between accepting the styles dictated by the Communist Party, or ignore
both the Party and it‟s decrees against modern art. With the growing encouragement from
foreign collectors and institutions and the waning support from their own country, many
artists became independent. Several artists, including Wenda Gu, Zhang Xiaogang, and
Ai Weiwei, left China and moved abroadindefinitely.
Without the presence of many of the most influential New Wave artists, and with
the government crackdown on modernism, contemporary Chinese artists were once again
left to redefine the art of their time. They had to change in order to accommodate the
international art market that supported them and, in the process, developed a more
individual sense of modernism. During the 1990s, the Chinese government was still
opposed to experimental art, although as the global art community showed more interest
in contemporary Chinese art, the industry became much more economically
35Ibid,
pg. 79.
15
16. profitable.Once the Party realized that modern art could be used as a soft power strategy
to enhance China‟s global status, more exhibitions were approved.36
In the early period of contemporary Chinese art‟s development, neither artists nor
critics were able to create a consistent, cohesive artistic identity. The Chinese Communist
Party regularly exerted tight control over art production in the country. The government
has a long history of swiftly shutting down any attempts by experimental artists to define
themselves and their art. These tensions resulted in cycles of creativity and suppression
that galvanized the Chinese art world into a constant state of reinvention. The Stars
Group Exhibition of 1979 and the China/Avant-Garde Exhibition in 1989 in Beijing were
both the culmination of revolutionary expansion of artistic thought and marked the end of
their respective movements.
36
Richard Vine, New China, New Art = Zhongguo Dang Dai Yi Shu (Munich: Prestel, 2011), pg. 207.
16
19. Figure 3
Xiao Lu and Tang Song,
Dialogue. 1989.
Installation and performance.
Color photograph of performance, February 5, 1989, National Art Gallery, Beijing.
Installation 7‟10” x 8‟10” x 3‟ (240 x 270 x 90 cm).
Installation collection Taikang Life Insurance Company
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21