The state of contemporary art in China: tradition and postmodernism

This article is dedicated to examination of the phenomenon of contemporary Chinese art, its essential specificity within the framework of tradition and in the conditions of globalization. For achieving the set goal, the author applies the method of historical-cultural analysis in combination with the elements of structural-semiotic analysis of contemporary art in China of the late XX century. For historical and social reasons, contemporary art became a substantial part of the works of Chinese artists only after the “Reform and Opening-Up” in the 1980s. China was able to preserve tremendous artistic heritage, thus the contemporary art resembles a fusion of the tradition and postmodernism. The scientific novelty of this work consists in shifting away from art discourse in studying artistic material and concentrating on philosophical perspective. The conclusion is drawn that since the 1980s until the present China undergoes a drastic period of transformation of art from traditional to contemporary. The works of that time reflect such themes as the alienation of a modern person from tradition, change in experience of world perception, conflict between modern politics and society.

Biennialization-as-banalization, promotion, and resistance

Above Sea ◽

10.7228/manchester/9781526132604.003.0004 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 96-116

Author(s):

Jenny Lin

Keyword(s):

Contemporary Art ◽

Communist Party ◽

Chinese Communist Party ◽

First Century ◽

Chinese Art ◽

Global Expansion ◽

Global Positioning ◽

Current Concerns ◽

Chapter Three investigates the turn of the twenty-first century global expansion of Shanghai’s contemporary art vis-à-vis the first international iteration of China’s premier contemporary art event, the Chinese Communist Party-sponsored 2000 Shanghai. The chapter theorizes biennialization-as-banalization vis-à-vis contemporary exhibition practices and the promotion of contemporary Chinese art. The chapter argues that Shanghai Biennial’s curators’ hopes of harnessing the spirit of Shanghai were ultimately supplanted by a generic brand of global contemporary art that neglected the city’s unique historical features and current concerns. This chapter then examines critical responses to the 2000 Shanghai Biennial and critiques of the global positioning of Shanghai’s contemporary art as seen in Ai Weiwei and Feng Boyi’s counter-exhibition “Fuck Off,” and in two related works by artists Zhou Tiehai and Yang Fudong.

Translation, transformation and refiguration: The significance of Jingdezhen and the materiality of porcelain in the work of two contemporary Chinese artists1

Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art ◽

10.1386/jcca_00004_1 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 6 (2) ◽

pp. 207-223

Author(s):

Luise Guest

Keyword(s):

Contemporary Art ◽

First Century ◽

Chinese Art ◽

Structured Interviews ◽

Research Project ◽

The Everyday ◽

Historical Discourses ◽

Post Cultural Revolution ◽

Further Development ◽

Abstract In December 2016 a group of researchers led by Professor Jiang Jiehong travelled to Jingdezhen as fieldwork for the Everyday Legend research project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Representing the White Rabbit Collection of Contemporary Chinese Art, Australia, I was invited to participate. This article developed from reflections on the fieldwork component of the research project, as well as the formal and informal discussions that took place, at the time and subsequently, in Shanghai, Birmingham, Groningen and London. In 2018, as a further development of this process of reflection, I conducted semi-structured interviews with two artists of different generations: the article examines how Liu Jianhua and Geng Xue approach the use of porcelain as a contemporary art material. Each has spent extensive periods of time in Jingdezhen and each is immersed in this particularly Chinese tradition. At the same time, each is identified (and identifies themselves) as practising in a global contemporary art context and participates in exhibitions and exchanges internationally. Considered in the context of current and historical discourses around global contemporaneity2 and its manifestations in twenty-first-century China, their work illuminates the key question that the Everyday Legend project was designed to examine: how can contemporary art and traditional Chinese craft practices intersect, informing and enriching each other? As representatives, respectively, of the generation who emerged into the first years of the post-Cultural Revolution Reform and Opening period, and of a younger generation educated partly outside China, they reveal how Chinese artists strategically negotiate local and global in positioning their work as contemporary reinventions of traditional forms and materiality.

Contemporary Chinese art: Mao's legacy and Danto's definition

SAJ - Serbian Architectural Journal ◽

10.5937/saj1502191b ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 7 (2) ◽

pp. 191-200

Author(s):

Wiseman Bittner

Keyword(s):

Contemporary Art ◽

Recent History ◽

Chinese Art ◽

Western Art ◽

Social Nature ◽

History Of ◽

Definition Of ◽

Contemporary Chinese ◽

The Way

In this paper I am going to do three things: First, identify several themes in contemporary Chinese art that show its essentially social nature and its robust materialism. Second, suggest a way that contemporary art in China is post-modern in the way that Western art is and claim, moreover, that as different as the themes and recent history of this art are from contemporary Western art, the works satisfy a definition of art constructed by Arthur Danto. Finally, in a coda, I present the work of a woman artist that is unlike most recent Chinese and Western art. It positions itself at the far reaches of what art in China is and what Danto's definition allows at the same time that it suggests both the interiority of the practice of art and one way of being a woman.

Thirty Years of Reform

Creativity Class ◽

10.23943/princeton/9780691164977.003.0002 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Lily Chumley

Keyword(s):

Social Context ◽

Oral History ◽

Fine Arts ◽

Institutional History ◽

Art Exhibitions ◽

Thirtieth Anniversary ◽

History Of ◽

Reform And Opening Up ◽

Contemporary Chinese ◽

This chapter begins with an oral history of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, describing how the school changed over the course of gaigekaifang. Gaigekaifang is often referred to in English as “reform” (gaige), putting the stress on the structural adjustments that fomented change, while kaifang roughly means “opening up.” This institutional history is given a broader social context through interpretations of three art exhibitions commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of reform and opening up in 2008. These exhibitions offer perspectives on the legacies of socialism and the novelties of reform that are variously aligned with or critical of official state narratives, showing how contemporary Chinese dreamworlds contest with one another.

Continuum Generation by Generation: The representation of Chinese traditions at the China Pavilion of the 57th Venice Biennale

Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art ◽

10.1386/jcca_00011_1 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 6 (2) ◽

pp. 343-366

Author(s):

Ornella De Nigris

Keyword(s):

Contemporary Art ◽

Chinese Art ◽

Chinese Tradition ◽

Continuum Generation ◽

History Of ◽

The Relationship ◽

Contemporary Chinese ◽

Venice Biennale

Abstract This article focuses on the China pavilion of the 57th Venice Biennale as a case study. The theme of the pavilion, Continuum ‐ Generation by Generation, revolved around the long history of Chinese tradition and offered a visual re-elaboration of it by means of contemporary art and folk art. The works exhibited drew on Chinese mythology, masterpieces of Chinese art history, philosophical concepts and handcraft traditions, hence presenting a variegated image of (contemporary) Chinese art. This exhibition offers opportunities for a critical reading of the relationship between contemporary art and tradition implied by the theme Continuum, and I will explore the narrative and curatorial discourse it presented to the audience.

Three-fold Thinking on the Sinicization of Christianity

Evangelische Theologie ◽

10.14315/evth-2015-0508 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 75 (5) ◽

pp. 385-394

Author(s):

Zhang Zhigang

Keyword(s):

Social Practice ◽

Chinese Culture ◽

Religious Faith ◽

Interreligious Dialogue ◽

Chinese Society ◽

New Developments ◽

Christianity In China ◽

Reform And Opening Up ◽

Contemporary Chinese ◽

Abstract This essay investigates the concept of »Sinicization of Christianity« from an »academic« standpoint, the goal being to discuss more objectively and rationally how Christianity may be able to meld into Chinese culture, the Chinese nation, and in particular, contemporary Chinese society. The investigation is presented in three parts: a comparison between the histories of Christianity in China and Korea, a study of the ecological situation of religions in contemporary China, and new developments in international research on interreligious dialogue. The article concludes that social practice should be the main criterion for testing religious faith, and that, based on China’s current conditions, the best course for the Sinicization of Christianity is to make positive and important contributions to continued reform and opening-up of Chinese society and to its development and progress.

The “Peasant Problem” and Time in Contemporary Chinese Art

Representations ◽

10.1525/rep.2016.136.1.54 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 136 (1) ◽

pp. 54-76

Author(s):

Gu Yi

Keyword(s):

Contemporary Art ◽

Chinese Art ◽

This article examines the time-based artworks involving peasants as participants, coworkers, and fellow artists that were created by Chinese artists during the first decade of the millennium. These works bring into relief China’s postsocialist reality and socialist legacy, offering a unique perspective on the politics of time in global contemporary art.

Research on Nie Weigu's Art Education Thought and Creative Practice

Review of Educational Theory ◽

10.30564/ret.v4i4.3495 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 4 (4) ◽

pp. 21

Author(s):

Qiang Hao

Keyword(s):

Art Education ◽

Holy Spirit ◽

Chinese Art ◽

The West ◽

Second Nature ◽

The Holy Spirit ◽

History Of ◽

Contemporary Chinese ◽

Nie Weigu is a great master with great attainments in higher art education and painting practice. He is familiar with the psychology of art education and the principles of education and teaching, and has a strong interest in exploring a new way of integration between China and the West. He embraces both Chinese and Western heuristic teaching, focuses on shaping students' sound personality, and carefully cultivates students' noble quality. Facing nature and reality, he took the lead in setting an example and kept writing. He widely absorbed nutrition from other categories and foreign art, expressed his true feelings, made personalized creation, pointed to Western architecture with a Chinese brush, talked with the incarnation of the Holy Spirit, and displayed the second nature - Architecture created by mankind in an unprecedented artistic way, Creatively opening up the art category of "freehand painting" is of milestone significance in the history of contemporary Chinese art.

The Wasteland of Creative Production: A Case Study of Contemporary Chinese Art

The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies ◽

10.22439/cjas.v29i1.4019 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 29 (1) ◽

pp. 17-38 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Michael Alexander Ulfstjerne

Keyword(s):

Economic Development ◽

Contemporary Art ◽

Driving Force ◽

Chinese Art ◽

Paradigmatic Shift ◽

Avant Garde ◽

Cultural Sphere ◽

With the new magnitude for the relatively unhindered production and circulation of artworks, galleries and contemporary art museums are burgeoning across the larger cities of China. This article provides an empirical example of how contemporary and avant-garde art is produced and valuated in the art communities that thrive on the recent international recognition of Chinese artworks. It addresses some of the effects that occur when art production becomes mediated by cultural entrepreneurs and propelled by resourceful investors. Challenging notions of autonomy and independence in the sphere of aesthetics and contemporary art, the article addresses some of the ways in which art becomes co-opted, not only by commercial agents, but also by official ambitions. The commercialization of the cultural sphere reveals a paradigmatic shift, giving a stronger emphasis to the intangible notion of creativity as a new driving force for economic development in China.

Berkshire Dictionary of Chinese Biography (Volume 4)

10.1093/acref/9780190638429.001.0001 ◽

2016 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Keyword(s):

Mainland China ◽

First Century ◽

Chinese History ◽

Government Officials ◽

Film Directors ◽

Fourth Volume ◽

Key Events ◽

Reform And Opening Up ◽

Contemporary Chinese ◽

Over 100 entriesThe fourth volume of the Berkshire Dictionary of Chinese Biography covers the years 1979-2015, providing a riveting new way to understand twenty-first-century China and a personal look at the changes that have taken place since the Reform and Opening Up era started in 1979. One hundred key individuals from this period were selected by an international group of experts, and the stories were written by more than 70 authors in 14 countries. The authors map the paths taken by these individuals-some rocky, some meandering, some fateful-and in telling their stories give contemporary Chinese history a human face. The editors have included – with the advice of myriad experts around the world – not only the life stories of politicians and government officials, who play a crucial role in the development of the country, but the stories of cultural figures including film directors, activists, writers, and entrepreneurs from the mainland China, Hong Kong, and also from Taiwan.The "Greater China" that comes through in this volume has diverse ideas and identities. It is often contradictory, sometimes fractious, and always full of creative human complexity. Some of the lives rendered here are heroic. Some are tragic, and many are inspirational. Some figures come in for trenchant criticism, and others are celebrated with a sense of wonder and awe. Like previous volumes of the Berkshire Dictionary of Chinese Biography, this volume includes a range of appendices, including a pronunciation guide, a bibliography, and a timeline of key events.The work features a range of appendices, including a timeline of key events, a pronunciation guide, a bibliography, lists of rulers and other prominent people, and other supplemental materials for students of Chinese history and culture.