Contemporary Chinese Art Research Articles

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

Spectral aesthetics: cultivating a viral ecology

ABSTRACT Situated at the intersection of visual art and the context of the Anthropocene, this article offers an eco-philosophical reading of the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic regarding the ecological entanglements between humans, viruses, and the environment. Deploying the trope of the spectrality as a ‘heuristic device’, it argues that confronting the spectral aspects of human-virus encounter provides a helpful way to properly understand the ecological implications of the present pandemic. Bringing contemporary Chinese artist Xu Bing's Air Memorial (2003) and Jia Zhangke's short film Visit (2020) into conversation with the theory of spectrality, I analyze what I call the ‘spectral aesthetics’ shared by both works. Specifically, it looks at how Xu's artwork elicits the spectral (im)materiality of viruses that is associated with the memory of the SARS epidemic, the materialisation of air, and the way that the spectre of air can keep haunting us across time and space. Then, it delves into the cinematic representation of a spectral atmosphere permeating the minuteness of human contact, arguing that the coronavirus opens up possibilities of perceiving, thinking, and living as spectres, evoking the sense of co-existence that entails the symbiotic relations among humans, viruses, and the environment.

Understanding and Thinking of Contemporary Chinese Folk Art

Objectives: The development of computer technology has changed the way of traditional folk culture, which provides a positive impetus for the restoration of the whole folk culture. In order to protect and restore the folk fine arts culture in our country, the author analyzes the present situation of the development of folk art culture in our country, and then the author verifies the superiority of the Folk art culture restoration of computer technology, and the result shows that The construction of Folk art cultural works of computer technology can be more easily accepted by students. Therefore, computer technology can improve our national understanding of folk art and thinking. Research aimed to provide reference for the restoration of traditional culture in China.

쩡판즈(曾梵志) 작품에서 보이는 동서양 혼종성 연구

Chinese contemporary art works show Western colors and geometric compositions, while Chinese social satire and critical aspects are reproduced in the subjective part. With the influx of European paintings during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), perspective was introduced in Chinese paintings, and music began to accept the concept of polyphony. In the 19th and 20th centuries, it was divided into presentists and traditionalists and eventually followed the concept of pure Yachen (1866-1925), spreading to society a trend to imitate and conform to unknown Western knowledge and culture. In other words, the concept of “Let’s use Western knowledge as a basis for China’s knowledge” changed to a mixed sexual era. Nevertheless, Chinese old customs and ideas remained in art, but as the cultural revolution passed, Western art concepts and philosophy directly influenced the works of art, artists who worked in the 80s and 90s became interested in the international art market. In this paper, we are discussing artists whose Western art and Chinese materials have been mixed and fused since the Cultural Revolution, and among them, Zheng Fanzhi is studying the hybridity that appeared in Chinese modern art. The first and second chapter focuses on the historical background when it was mixed with Western art, and compares and analyzes the hybrid characteristics of Wang Guamgyi, Ai Weiwei, and Yue Minjun and the hybridity of Zeng Fanzhi. In the last chapter, we will analyze the meaning of mask in Francis Bacon and Max Beckmann’s works and Zeng Fanzhi’s mask in his works.

Vectors of Liu Shikun’s Creative Activity in the Context of China Piano Art of the Second Half of the XX — Beginning of the XXI Century

Problem statement and its relevance. One of the pioneers of Chinese contemporary piano art, whose creative activity certainly contributed to its formation, further rapid rise and recognition of creative achievements on the world art horizon, is a prominent pianist — Liu Shikun, who today has received complete recognition as a brilliant performer, composer and teacher thus marked the beginning of the so­called piano boom in China, and with it — the gradual formation and confident rise of the Chinese piano school. If various aspects of contemporary Chinese performing arts have repeatedly been subjected to musicological discourse in the scientific community, the direct and comprehensive coverage of Liu Shikun’s leading role in the process of forming the foundations of Chinese piano performing arts, as well as careful analysis and representation of his creative achievements and pedagogical fields are still relevant for basic musicological research.
 The purpose of this article is to highlight and analyze the main vectors of creative activity of the famous Chinese musician Liu Shikun in the context of the development of piano art in China in the second half of the XX — early XXI centuries.
 The methodology of the work focuses on the principles of historicism and source studies, which provides coverage of Liu Shikun’s musical work in a single context with cultural, historical and artistic phenomena and their interaction. In addition, methods of retrospective, structural­system analysis, interpretation of facts, argumentation and generalization are involved.
 The results obtained during the achievement of the goal of this work focus on the representation and characterization of Liu Shikun’s creative achievements in the field of concert performance, teaching and composition and the artist’s contribution to the development of Chinese piano culture.
 The topicality of the article lies in the first attempt in Ukrainian musicology to comprehensively cover the main directions of creative activity of the famous Chinese pianist Liu Shikun in the projection of his influence on the formation of the current state of Chinese piano art.
 The practical significance of the facts and analysis of the main vectors of Liu Shikun’s creative activity carried out in this work is the possibility of using this material in courses on the history and theory of modern piano art, in particular in sections on the Chinese piano school, as well as for further more thorough research of Liu Shikun’s musical creativity, systematization of scientific information on his contribution to the development of musical art of this country.
 Conclusions. Summarizing the above given material, it should be noted that the fruitful and multifaceted work of this artist directly influenced the development and professionalization of piano performance in China at that time. This influence was due to the comprehensive recognition of the artist’s creative achievements by the world music community, in particular through numerous concert performances in leading countries (especially in partnership with leading orchestras and outstanding musicians); creation of original samples of concert repertoire on the basis and with specificity of the Chinese traditional melody; organization of a dense network of author’s music schools (art centers) and formation of the foundations of the Chinese national piano pedagogy.

Foreign (In)Direct Investment in Chinese Contemporary Art Game: The Case Studies of Uli Sigg, Guy Ullens and beyond, 1989-2013

The boom in Chinese contemporary art is the result of China’s opening to foreign investment and private entrepreneurship in 1978, and the significant contribution by the transnational art enterprises of long-term patron-investor-collectors, such as Uli Sigg and Guy Ullens, between approximately 1989 and 2013. Through the opportunity offered by the gap between the private market mechanism and national heritage process for the “art game”, these investors used a variation of the controversial “Saatchi model” to generate high ROI. A further effect has been to bring CCA onto the global stage and complete the ecosystem of the art industry, building a foundation for the art economy of post-Mao China.

Folk culture China in the China Pavilion, Venice Biennale: repositioning ‘Chineseness’ in contemporary art discourse

ABSTRACT In this article, I explore how Qiu Zhijie’s curation of the exhibition Continuum – Generation by Generation at the China Pavilion of the 57th Venice Biennale offers a new understanding of ‘China’ and ‘Chineseness’. It is neither a reproduction of literati arts nor a critical use of symbols of socialist China, but an appropriation of Chinese folk culture to re-envision the central role of China in the global art scene. This new form of Chineseness is what I call ‘folk culture China’. Although the curator attempts to challenge the existing interpretation of contemporary Chinese art widely circulated in the art market, the curatorial strategy deployed in this exhibition inherits a culturalist view of Chinese culture by re-nationalizing folk culture as the essence of Chinese culture that sustains Chinese civilization. Folk culture China also highlights the importance of collaboration between folk and contemporary artists in which the former can remind the latter of the collective spirit embodied in craftsmanship, which is the core of the Chinese mode of art-making. More importantly, folk culture China is an anti-nation-statist discourse that paradoxically repositions China from an object of the Euro-American-centric contemporary art system to the center of the world.

Yugong Yishan: Myth, Utopia, and Community in Modern and Contemporary Chinese Art

This paper examines the way in which the fable The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains (Yugong yishan 愚公移山) has informed the creative output of a range of major Chinese artists (Xu Beihong, Zhang Lin, Zhang Huan, and He Yunchang) over a period spanning the 1940s to the present. Drawing on the field of art history, it examines a variety of works that, despite responding to different or even antithetical positionings, demonstrate a utopian belief in the potentiality of the community or the collective, where perseverance and audacity are able to transform what seems impossible. These seemingly absurd artworks evince the audacity of these artists, as well as their determination to participate in communal projects aimed at changing society through symbolic interventions.

The photography auction market in mainland china

The photography auction market in China has experienced the early stage from the 1990s to 2005, the development stage from 2006 to 2018, and the current stages from 2019 to the present. In the domestic auction market at the early stage, the auction of photography was not rare, but the special session of photography auction had not yet been formed. Photographs were auctioned in the session of Ancient Books, Stamps, Chinese Painting and Calligraphy, as well as Oil Paintings. In 2006, Chinese contemporary art rose rapidly: Sotheby’s held a special auction of contemporary Asian art on March 31 during the Asia Week New York in the spring of this year, the first large-scale Asian art special session in North America. In September of the same year, the photography work of Wang Qingsong, titled “Follow Me,” was sold at Sotheby’s in New York for 310,000 US dollars, which offers further drive to China’s photography market. Against the backdrop of the development of the markets both home and abroad, Beijing Huachen Auctions hosted the first photography session in China in November 2006, with a total of 365 lots auctioned for a total turnover of 350,857 US dollars. At this point, the photography auction market in China was officially established and entered the era of special session auctions. While Chinese contemporary photography works enjoy huge popularity in overseas markets, the domestic photography auction session shows its uniqueness from the beginning. According to the statistics of the highest-priced auction lots in the first three photography auction sessions of Huachen Auctions, the domestic secondary photography market favors historical old photos and documentary photographs more.

Animal figures inspirations in contemporary Chinese art

Animal figures inspirations in 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.

The past at the edge of the future: Landscape painting and contemporary places

In this article, I offer an ethnographic account of Wutong Shan, and engage landscape painting as an interpretative device. Wutong Shan represents a unique phenomenon of urban transformation in that its residents cultivate a life harkening back to a rural past in an attempt to build a utopia unfettered by the deafening noise of modernity, which can easily be found down the road in Shenzhen, China’s newest city. Similar to what landscape painters throughout history have created through image, Wutong residents create a world of retreat, escape and natural beauty in a space at the edge of the urban. Both a landscape painting and this ethnographic place are built through a set of creative acts, a sense of self-cultivation, and a desire for escape. In Wutong Shan, the other side of the creative process is a livable environment rather than an art object. One of the ways I read landscape painting to understand Wutong Shan is by thinking with contemporary Chinese art works that, through illusion, revisit the landscape in light of industrial urbanization. I bring together three strains of thinking: (1) my contemporary ethnographic research on Wutong Art Village, (2) understandings of Chinese landscape paintings and their associated conceptions of nature and utopia and (3) contemporary art that renegotiates the landscape form, analysed through the emergent field of eco-art history.

The Exhibition as Hypothesis

The history of contemporary Chinese art is once again considered through exhibition history. The title is strangely reminiscent of the first avant-garde Chinese art exhibition held outside of China: Art chinois 1990 Chine demain pour hier [Chinese Art 1990, China Tomorrow for Yesterday], curated by Fei Dawei, who only considers history in relation to its future. Biljana Ciric, an independent curator and researcher, has developed a research platform which brought together the St Paul St Galler...

The Evolution of a Consolidated Market for Neo-Traditional Chinese Contemporary Art

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether there is an incipient market in China strong enough to replace the global market for Chinese contemporary art. The (informal) market I have identified supports traditional methods of transaction and practice. It charts a course twixt slavish emulation of the past and unqualified acceptance of the present. To demonstrate the contemporary application of this trend, I introduce three case studies, which examine the attitude and behaviour of three Chinese artists active between 2005 and 2015. This period marks the transformation of China from an aspirant economic power to a self-confident advocate of Chinese values. The premise of this paper is that the China market today is moving towards a harmonious ideal rooted in Chinese thought. In the nineteenth-century art movement known as the Shanghai School, I have found a precedent for the evolutionary transformation of Chinese art from the traditional to the modern. This study will reveal how the Shanghai School market might be an exemplar for today’s Chinese contemporary art market. I will refer to this historical model to show how conventional methods of creation, distribution and consumption can effectively be modernised. Another effort to culturally transform China was attempted a generation later in the southern city of Guangzhou. The movement, known as the Lingnan School, attempted to fuse Western-style realism with Chinese techniques and media. I argue that these two early attempts to amalgamate the traditional with the modern failed to metamorphose into a consolidated Chinese contemporary art market model. They have, instead, resulted in the co-existence of two corrupted models; the one, a diffident fusion of the past and the modern world, and the other a concerted alliance of nationalism and globalism.

Materialising Markets: The Agency of Auctions in Emergent Art Genres in the Global South

For the last two decades, the international auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s have been at the forefront of global art market expansion. Their world-wide footprints have enabled auction house specialists to engage with emerging artists and aspiring collectors, most notably in the developing economies of the Global South. By establishing their sales infrastructure in new locales ahead of the traditional mechanisms of primary market commercial galleries, the international auction houses have played a foundational role in the notional construction of new genres of art. However, branding alone is not sufficient to establish these new markets; the auction houses require a network of willing supporters to facilitate and drive marketplace supply and demand, be that trans-locational art market intermediaries, local governments, and/or regional auction businesses. This paper examines emerging art auction markets in three Global South case studies. It elucidates the strategic mechanisms and networks of international and regional art auction houses in the development of specific genres of contemporary art: Hong Kong and ‘Chinese contemporary art’, Singapore and ‘Southeast Asian art’, and Australia and ‘Aboriginal art’. Through examination and comparison of these three markets, this paper draws on research conducted over the past decade to reveal an integral role played by art auctions in the expansion of broader contemporary art world infrastructure in the Global South.

Writing from the other side: Critical reflections on the calligraphy of Zhang Qiang

This article presents the specific case of a contemporary practitioner of Chinese calligraphy, Zhang Qiang, who is a notable figure within the current Avant-Garde movement. After outlining aspects of his practice, which has been controversial along gender grounds, the article turns to his specific project of ‘bi-directional’ calligraphy. It is argued this work opens up a more rewarding way into his work as an enquiry into writing, which bears connections with Derrida’s deconstructionist account of writing and trace. However, in a brief exchange at Tate Modern, Zhang offers a form of ‘writing lesson’, which both helps takes us towards the decontructionist account of general writing, yet equally reveals a reliance upon the cultural category of ‘Chinese calligraphy’, which takes us away again – arguably symptomatic of a wider struggle for Chinese contemporary art to gain recognition in the West.

About Nature: Discourses on the Boundaries of East and West in Curtis Carter’s Concern over Contemporary Chinese Art

American aesthetician Curtis Carter demonstrates genuine concern for the subject of nature in contemporary Chinese art and its representations. He correctly points out that the Chinese tradition of featuring nature in the arts represents an imaginary paradise grounded in an idealized nature. Carter’s concern regarding China’s entry into a state of globalization is the impact of Westernizing globalization on the place of nature in Chinese art. Before discussing his concern, this article provides a review of the meaning of nature in traditional Chinese art and revisits ink painter Shitao’s notion of nature in his most representative painting notes, Hua-pu. Curtis also mentions the Chinese garden, stating that gardens in urban settings are supposed to maintain the presence of nature, and exemplifying them as symbolic presentations of nature. In addressing Carter’s concern, a review of the aesthetic experience of visiting a Chinese garden is provided for background. Carter also suggests examining the practices of contemporary Chinese experimental art versus the practices of traditional art to determine whether nature will retain a significant place in today’s Chinese art practices under the strong influences of globalization. This article examines the contemporary ink landscape scene and suggests that new Chinese art involves the invention of new paradigms in art creation, the resources of which are now available globally, and that representations of nature and reality are transforming. Article received: April 30, 2020; Article accepted: June 25, 2020; Published online: September 15, 2020; Review article

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.