Introducing and practising ‘curating’ for contemporary Chinese art: The transnational trajectory of Lu Jie from London to China and the development of Long March: A Walking Visual Display

Abstract

Through a close reading of the curatorial project Long March: A Walking Visual Display (), this article considers that Long March was an experimental curatorial response to the conditions of contemporary Chinese art and contributes to introducing the discourse and practice of ‘curating’ to China. Tracing the main curator Lu Jie’s curatorial motivation, this research looks into what Lu has termed ‘the dilemma of contemporary Chinese art’ during the 1990s – the division of discourses from realities and artistic practices in the curating of contemporary Chinese art, which led to invalid transcultural communication in international exhibitions. This research paid special attention to Lu’s study in the ‘Creative Curating’ MA programme at Goldsmiths, University of London (1998–99), which encouraged Lu to experiment with alternative exhibition formats and review art in visual culture. These inspired Lu to relocate ‘contemporary Chinese art’ from the institutional context to its original realities in China along the historical route of the Long March. Analysing the development of Lu’s curatorial proposal Long March: A Walking Exhibition from 1999 to 2001, this research shows how the main elements of Lu’s curating shifted from objects to participants and argues the project’s curatorial intention to provoke participants was a process of localizing ‘curating’ in the Chinese context. Instead of assuming that ‘curating’ was imported into China from the West, this article views the introduction of ‘curating’ as a new discipline which helps local practitioners identify the artistic values and authorship in making art public.