‘Chineseness’ in contemporary art discourse and practice: Negotiating multiple agencies, localities and vocalities

Abstract

Abstract This editorial contextualizes the theme of 'Chineseness' in contemporary art discourse and practice and explains how the eight (peer reviewed) scholarly articles, two artist contributions and one exhibition review respond to various constructions of ‘Chineseness’ explored in connection with competing, conflicting or supplementing agencies, localities and vocalities in the field of art. Methodologically, the pluralist approaches are motivated in light of the global turn in art history and related disciplines that have fostered a critical, epistemologically conscious transcultural approach in recent years. The issue’s insightful contributions present the result of selected and revised proceedings of the international symposium (In) direct speech. ‘Chineseness’ in contemporary art discourse and practice. Art market, curatorial practices and creative processes that took place at Lisbon University’s Faculty of Fine Arts in 2015 and discussed transculturality in connection with contemporary Chinese art. Taking together, the case studies address three overlapping aspects of ‘Chineseness’ as a) constituted in curatorial practices and institutional politics of display, b) created by individual artists and their invention or negotiation of Chinese (premodern) ‘traditions’, and c) a methodological challenge for art history given underlying, often invisible epistemological conditions and confinements.