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

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.

Reshaping posthuman subjectivity: Lu Yang’s representation of virtual bodies in the COVID-19 pandemic

With the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, much of the world has been experiencing isolation and quarantine. Digital technology, especially the internet, has become the essential method of communication when social distancing measures constrain physical contact. The global health crisis leads to a dynamically increasing reliance on digital equipment contributing to a posthuman world. The article will take Shanghai-based multimedia artist Lu Yang (1984–) as a representative example to explore an alternative posthumanism subjectivity in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Built theoretically on Kathrine Hayles and Rosi Braidotti’s posthumanism concepts of virtual bodies, this article will examine how Lu Yang’s work articulates the interactive relationships between humans and the material world to go beyond the conservative corporeality and contribute to a renewal of posthuman subjectivity. In Lu Yang’s recent projects created during the pandemic, such as Doku × The 1975 ‘Playing on My Mind’ (2020) and the live-streamed piece Delusional World (2020), the artist experiments with different strategies to break down social-cultural constraints and transcend established dualisms of gender binaries, life and death, human and non-human. With a close investigation of Lu Yang’s multidisciplinary artistic practices, this article intends to argue how a new subjectivity emerges in contemporary Chinese art and its roles in the current COVID-19 pandemic world.

The Discourse of Independent Animation in the Contemporary Chinese Context

Independent animation is a marginal media form in China, and studies describe how both Chinese artists and scholars of film studies have only started to practice or construct this genre and popular cinema since the 1990s, especially after the Shanke (Chinese Flash animators, 閃客) phenomenon. In this article, the existing discourse of independent animation in contemporary China is critically analyzed by studying mainly what is said and written by the local practitioners and scholars in China. The author’s analysis is based on the assumption that animation should be taken ‘as an art form’, which should be able to express itself freely without any external constraints or intervention by others. Hence, the focus should be placed on the ultimate purpose and meaning of art along with the form. Among the various types of discourses constructed by practitioners, the author argues that the discourse constructed by the contemporary Chinese art scene should be encouraged to keep the nature of independent works so as to give voice to true, personal and inner values, and expressions that are outside the institutionalized and dominating discourse or framework.

ZHONG BIAO AND FANG LIJUN'S IMPORTANT APPROACHES IN CONTEXT OF WORK ANALYSIS: CULTURAL CODES AND POLITICAL REFERENCES

The aim of the research is to reveal the prominent cultural codes and political references in the works of Zhong Biao and Fang Lijun. In addition, it is to investigate what are the reasons that push the artists to deconstruction and tragicomic approaches in their works. It is also to understand how the developmental lines of Contemporary Chinese art have developed. Contemporary Chinese art works; Artists such as Yue Minjun, Guo Jian, Wang Guangyi, Fang Lijun and Zhong Biao form the scope and limitations of the research. Include other artists besides Zhong Biao and Fang Lijun; It is to know why contemporary Chinese art produces political and critical works. The problems of the research are as follows: What are the prominent approaches in contemporary Chinese art? What are the reasons for artists to paint political, psychological, tragicomic and critical paintings? How can the prominent cultural codes and political references in the works of Zhong Biao and Fang Lijun be explained? What is the main theme of the Cynical Realism movement? With the answers to all these questions, it will be known how Contemporary Chinese art progresses, and it will be seen what kind of works the artists of this country produced in the face of events. Keywords: Contemporary Chinese Art, Zhong Biao, Fang Lijun, Cynical Realism

APPLICATION OF NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN CONTEMPORARY CHINESE ART

Новое медиаискусство - это новый художественный стиль, разработанный путем интеграции современных передовых достижений науки и техники и искусства. В этой статье обсуждаются уникальные «языковые характеристики» искусства новых медиа в современном китайском искусстве и исследуется роль этой новой эстетической формы в содействии развитию современного китайского искусства. New media art is a new art style developed by integrating modern advanced achievements of science and technology and art. This article discusses the unique “linguistic characteristics” of new media art in contemporary Chinese art and explores the role of this new aesthetic form in promoting the development of contemporary Chinese art.

Canton Express: Urbanization and contemporary Chinese art

Canton Express was a project situated within the larger exhibition Zone of Urgency in the Venice Biennale in 2003. It was the first comprehensive exhibition focusing on the relationship of urbanization and cultural landscape in the Pearl River Delta and presented on an international platform. Since the open-door policy in 1979, the Pearl River Delta played a pioneering role in China’s economic reform and urbanization throughout the 1980s and 1990s. This was resulted with unprecedent transformation of the cityscape and inhabitants’ lifestyle. More importantly, it defined the artistic context and character of the southern region uniquely from other parts of China, providing an opportunity for an alternative narrative in the discourse of contemporary Chinese art. Taking Canton Express as a case to reflect the uncanny observations and immediate responses among the fourteen participating artists and collectives on the new reality brought by urbanization and economic development which may, however, conflicted with the socialist-communist political ideology. And such tension nevertheless triggered a collective consciousness in the artistic community and their traits of flexibility, openness and self-autonomy to seek for an artistic identity independent from the existing narrative of contemporary Chinese art legitimized by the officials for biennales held inside and outside China. On this note, the essay will point out Canton Express proposed an interdisciplinary curatorial methodology for positioning ‘urbanism’ in the discourse. It will also provide examples of how it was instituted into the official system, expanding the multiplicity of contemporary Chinese art other than the market and political symbols, and shifted attention to art productions from a local perspective with global resonance. Through Canton Express and curatorial projects held afterwards, this essay attempts to prompt future research and discussion on qualities and conditions for artistic production and circulation of Chinese art in a world emerging from the COVID-19.

An unfinished task: Viewing the legitimization of contemporary Chinese art from the Third Shanghai Biennale

The Shanghai Biennale, initiated in 1996, was launched by the Shanghai Art Museum under the background of the proliferation and expansion of the biennial/triennial exhibition system outside Europe and the United States in the last decade of the twentieth century. Based on the investigations of the themes and tasks of the First and Second Shanghai Biennales, this article focuses on the Third Shanghai Biennale opened in 2000, which has made remarkable breakthroughs in its curatorial strategy. By including international curators and artists in the exhibition, the Shanghai municipal government and the Shanghai Art Museum were committed to establishing an international profile of the Shanghai Biennale and further making it an integral part of its namesake city’s cultural branding in the era of globalization. Soon after the opening of the Shanghai Biennale, it was prevalently regarded as a significant landmark of legitimization in many discourses, which was hard fought for by Chinese practitioners after 1989. By analysing the background, curatorial concepts and impacts of the Third Shanghai Biennale and Fuck Off, this research deciphers the connotation of legitimization advocated by contemporary Chinese art circle, as well as the complex relationship with both conflict and cooperation between the official and unofficial arts. Did the task of legitimizing contemporary Chinese art fully accomplished? In this process, what sort of effects did China’s governmental manipulation have on the legitimization of contemporary Chinese art at home and its value output on the international arena? The above lines of inquiry offer a new perspective on contemporary Chinese art, especially with regard to further media experimentations, curatorial practice and value assessment in art practice after 2000.