A Great Leap Forward for Modern Chinese Art History? Recent Publications in China and the United States—A Review Article

Abstract

In the 1990s modern Chinese art history has become a respectable academic field, both inside and outside China. This quite recent development has been made possible in China by the depoliticization of artistic and most other cultural discourses. In the West, it has been stimulated by freer access to art and artists, as well as the growing popularity of cultural studies. Another factor, relevant for both Chinese and Western scholars, may be the burgeoning market for modern and contemporary Chinese art. The almost simultaneous occurrence of two major events in the study of modern Chinese art history-one in the United States, one in China-would seem to justify a review article that tries to situate two very different books in a still emerging discourse. The fact that this art, and the discourse about it, is so closely connected to politics, social change, and the once again burning issue of Chinese cultural identity makes the subject of interest to more than just art historians-or at least it should.