Reinventing exhibition spaces in China

Abstract

As a consequence of socio‐economic transformation, new types of exhibition spaces have appeared in China’s cultural landscape. Wu Hung explores the social basis of these changes and reviews the rapidly evolving system which has led to a great variety of possibilities for presenting experimental art. As he examines the issues behind each type of exhibition space, we witness the interplay of complex social and artistic relationships and its role in expanding the influence of experimental art in a changing society that is China today. Distinguished professor of Chinese Art History at the Department of Fine Arts, University of Chicago since 1994, Wu Hung holds an M.A. in Art History from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing (1980) and a Ph.D. in Art History and Anthropology from Harvard University (1987). Among his books covering the pre‐modern period are: Monumentality in Early Chinese Art and Architecture, which was nominated as one of the ‘the Best Books of the 1990s’ in Artforum, and selected by Choices as ‘Outstanding Academic Publication’ in 1996; Three Thousand Years of Chinese Paintings of which he was the co‐author and for which he received the Haskin Award in 1998 from the Association of American Publishers. His publications on modern and contemporary art issues include: Remaking Beijing: Tiananmen Square and the Creation of Political Space (London, Reaction Books), and, as editor, A New Beginning: Chinese Art of 2000 (Beijing, Chinese‐art.com). As chief curator, he is working on the forthcoming Chinese Art of the 90s: A Retrospective (The First Guangshou Documenta Exhibition, Guangzhou Provincial Museum – November 2002), and, as co‐curator, on Art of Mu Xin: Landscape Paintings and Prison Notes, also a forthcoming exhibition at the Yale University Art Museum and Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago.