wang-official art in contemporary china.pdf
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CONFRONTATION AND COMPLICITY: RETHINKING OFFICIAL ARTIN CONTEMPORARY CHINA
BY
MEIQIN WANG
BA, Fujian Teachers University, 1998
MA, China Academy of Arts, 2002
DISSERTATION
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements forthe degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Art History
in the Graduate School of
Binghamton University
State University of New York
2007
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UMI Number: 3273581
3273581
2007
Copyright 2007 by
Wang, Meiqin
UMI Microform
Copyright
All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against
unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.
ProQuest Information and Learning Company300 North Zeeb Road
P.O. Box 1346
Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346
All rights reserved.
by ProQuest Information and Learning Company.
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Copyright by Meiqin Wang 2007
All rights reserved
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Accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
The degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Art History
In the Graduate School of
Binghamton University
State University of New York
2007
June 5, 2007
Nancy UmDepartment of Art HistoryBinghamton University
Aruna DSouza, Department of Art History, Binghamton University
Pamela Smart, Anthropology Department, Binghamton University
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Abstract
Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Chinese state has evidently changed
its stance towards contemporary art within a society that is marked by rapid
marketization and the resulting extensive social transformations. The government has put
considerable effort, both human and financial resources, into supporting and promoting
Chinese contemporary art, which historically was unofficial and underground. At the
same time it has invested greatly into presenting contemporary Chinese official art by
introducing new art institutions, widely practiced in the international art world, including
the international biennial and individual curatorship. This dissertation endeavors to
articulate the above mentioned changes in relation to changing unofficial art, changing
Chinese society, and changing Chinese politics. I argue that the new direction that
Chinese official art has taken since the beginning of the twenty-first century has, to a
great extent, epitomized the Chinese governments newly conceived cultural policies and
multiple administrative approaches towards art and its modified vision of the function of
art in Chinese society as it actively responds to the ongoing transnational and external
processes in the age of globalization.
In this study, I utilize a few important official art exhibitions as a framing mechanism
through which I examine the shifting institutional context and representation of Chinese
official art since the late 1990s. In particular, I investigate two important exhibitions in
2003: the first Chinese Pavilion of the Venice Biennale (Chinese Pavilion) and the First
Beijing International Art Biennale (Beijing Biennale) respectively authorized by the
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Ministry of Culture and the Chinese Artists Association. Both exhibitions endeavored to
present authentic contemporary Chinese art and Chinese values, but did so in almost
opposite ways, in terms of the curatorial methods, the theme, content, and the types of
works exhibited. Through highlighting different roles played by governmental,
institutional, and individual agencies in the staging of these exhibitions, the dissertation
explores the recently emerged internal divisions within the scope of Chinese official art
and the intricate collaborative relations between official and unofficial art.
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For my mother Xie Suying and my husband Zeng Naifang
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Acknowledgements
My principal thanks and appreciation to Nancy Um for persevering with me as my
advisor throughout the time it took me to complete this dissertation. During the course,
she provided invaluable guidance and advice in shaping my critical perspective,
encouraged me to develop independent thinking and analytical skills, and greatly assisted
me with critical writing. Without her constant supervision, this dissertation would not be
possible. Not only was she readily available for me, as she so generously is for all of her
students, but she always read and responded to the drafts of each chapter of my
dissertation more quickly than I could have hoped. The members of my dissertation
committee, Professor Aruna DSouza in art history, and Professor Pamela Smart in
Anthropology, have generously given their time and individual expertise to better my
work. Their role in critiquing at different stages of my writing provided invaluable
criticism for enriching this dissertation and for my future projects. I thank them for their
contribution and their good-natured support. Professor Nicholas Kaldis, who specializes
in Chinese language and literature, was a keen outside reader and critic of this
dissertation. I am grateful to his incisive and detailed comments and important
grammatical corrections in the last stage of revising my dissertation. My landlady and
friend Mary Helen Chapman, a music teacher, deserves special thanks for being the first
reader of all my rough writings and for her voluntary help with proofreading and editing
of every single page of my dissertation. Of course, despite all the assistance provided by
Professor Nancy Um and others, I alone remain responsible for the content of my writing,
including any errors or omissions which may unwittingly remain.
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I must acknowledge as well many people on the faculty and staff of the Art History
Department at Binghamton who assisted and encouraged me in various ways during my
doctoral study. I am especially grateful to Professor John Tagg, Barbara Abou-EL-Haj,
and Tom McDonough for their continuous support in my getting department funding and
a Dissertation Years Award, which enabled me to study at this university and to complete
my dissertation. I am also thankful to a former professor Abidin Kusno, from whom I
have learned so much in critical thinking as an independent and open-minded scholar at
the beginning of my study in Binghamton. I would like to acknowledge Meng-Shi Chen,
Ann Chu, Jeremy Culler, Deniz Karakas, Kivanc Kilinc, Raed Altal, Selen Ugur, Shriya
Sridharan, Victoria Scott as well the many other friends, colleagues, and librarians who
assisted, advised, and supported my study and my life over the years. I especially thank
Hong Kal, a former art history graduate student from Binghamton for sharing
conversations and ideas that greatly inspired me in choosing my research topic. Christine
Bianco, another former colleague, deserves special thanks for helping me with my
English writing and for her friendship. I-Fang Wu, a librarian working in the university,
guided and helped me in settling down at Binghamton and enriched my entire life here. I
thank her for all her warmth and kindness. I also want to thank Yang Weishuai, a current
doctoral student in computer science. He and I began graduate school in the same year at
Binghamton and he became a best friend who has been helping me with all my computer
problems for these years.
My thanks must also go to the many Chinese scholars and artists who have helped me
building up a close contact with the Chinese art world. I would like to make special
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mention of Professor Wang Yong, my former advisor when I was a masters student in the
China Academy of Arts and one of the curators of the Beijing Biennale and the first
Chinese Pavilion. With his encouragement and support, I was able to set my heart for
pursuing a higher degree in the United States. He has continued giving me advice and
support for all these years, both mentally and practically. He generously provided me
with a copy of the exhibition catalogue of the Beijing Biennale and many other important
texts and allowed me to conduct several interviews with him during the past couple of
years. He also provided contact information and recommendations so that I could conduct
interviews with many people who were involved in the Beijing Biennale and the Chinese
Pavilion. With his recommendation, I visited the Beijing International Art Biennale
Office and with the kindness of the office director Tao Qin and a staff member Feng yan,
I obtained a copy of precious official documents and other materials related to the Beijing
Biennale.
I also need to express my gratitude and deep appreciation to Professor Gao Minglu who
kindly invited me to work with him as a curator associate in 2005 for his large exhibition
The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art, which provided me with a great
opportunity to build up many first-hand experiences and to contact many artists that were
important in my dissertation. In addition, he and his wife Sun Jin also are also very
warm-hearted people who made me feel so welcomed in their home both in the United
States and in China. I also have to thank an expatriate artist Zhu Wei who resides in New
York City for his generosity and warm support in providing me with contact information
for many active art professionals in China. He and his family gave me the best welcome
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with nice food and accommodations whenever I visited New York City. For the same
reason, I am grateful to art critic Jia Fangzhou, who not only tried his best to introduce
me to as many critics, curators, and cultural officials in China as he could, which
facilitated me greatly in conducting my research, but also generously presented me with a
valuable set of books edited by him in Chinese art criticism. I appreciate his
extraordinary kindness and enthusiasm in nurturing my expertise on the structure of the
Chinese art world. I am also thankful to curator and critic Feng Boyi for his enthusiastic
help in connecting me with many Chinese contemporary artists and his generosity in
giving me a copy of privately published and circulated books on Chinese contemporary
art.
I must also thank many Chinese artists, scholars, and friends for their support and help in
various ways during my research in China. In particular I thank Chen Qiulin, Guo
Xiaoyan, Huang Du, Lin Hao, Liu Jinyi, Shui Tianzhong, Sun HongJian, Sun Weimin,
Wang Duanting, Wang Huangsheng, Wang Nanming, Xu Bing, Yang Fudong, Yin Kun,
Yu Jiantao, Zhan Wang, Zhao Quanli, Zheng Pin, and Zhuo Fan for their support and
patience in allowing me to conduct interviews or conversation with them. I especially
thank artists Liu Jianhua and Lu Zhengzhong for their generosity of not only spending
time with me in interviews but for allowing me to download and use their personal
diaries.
Finaly my most grateful thanks go to my family. I thank my parents, Qingshui and
Suying, for their faith in me and allowing me to be as ambitious as I wanted to pursue an
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academic career. My mom was a constant source of support and her voice over phone
often made me feel happy and encouraged. I'm grateful to my sister for her understanding
of my academic pursuit and for her taking care of my mom in these years. I'm especially
thankful to my husband and best friend, Naifang, for his endless support, encouragement,
quiet patience and steadfast love. His tolerance of my occasional unstable moods is a
testament in itself his untiring devotion and love.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract iv
Acknowledgements vii
List of Figures xiv
I INTRODUCTION 1
1. The Starting Point 6
2. Main Objectives and the Methodology 17
3. Literature Review 25
4. The Shape of the Dissertation 35
II OPERATING TRADITIONAL OFFICIAL ART 39
1. Introduction 39
2. CAA: The Nationalized Art Institution 41
3. A Case Study: the Ninth National Art Work Exhibition 534. Conclusion 69
III THE ART WORLD OF POST-DENG CHINA 72
1. Introduction 72
2. Marketization, Culture Industry, and Art 76
3. Globalization, Exhibitions, and Transnational Art 89
4. Cultural Nationalism and Pulling Back Chinese Contemporary Art 99
5. Conclusion 113
IV MAKING INTERNATIONAL APPEAL 117
1. Introduction 117
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2. A Brief Historical Review 119
3. The First Chinese Pavilion 132
4. The Officialization of Contemporary Art 146
5. The New Cultural Arena 158
6. Conclusion 172
V FORMING CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS 177
1. Introduction 177
2. The Show and the Award Winners 180
3. The Nationalistic Proposal 192
5. The Reality of Chinese Characteristics 2136. Conclusion 226
VI CONCLUSION: CONFRONTATION AND COMPLICITY 233
1. Multiple Official Art(s) 236
2. Flexible Individuals and Flexible Administration 242
3. Opportunistic Spaces 250
4. Final Remarks 255
GLOSSARY 256
FIGURES 264
BIBLIOGRAPHY 299
I. Primary Sources 300
II. Secondary sources 332
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List of Figures
Figure 1: Zheng Li,Intellectual Family, 1999, Chinese painting, 170 x 248 cm.(Source: http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm)
265
Figure 2: Yu Changjiang, Chen Rong, Qian Zongfei, & Wu Taoyi,
The Epic of the Militia, 1999, Chinese painting, 246 x 243 cm.
(Source: http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm)
265
Figure 3: Han Shuo,Hot-blooded, 1999, Chinese painting, 189 x 211 cm.
(Source: http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm)
266
Figure 4: Leng Jun, Pentagram, 1999, oil on canvas 130 x 130 cm.
(Source: http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm)
266
Figure 5: Wang Hongjian, Yang Guan San Die, 1998-1999, oil on canvas,
190 x 179 cm. (Source: http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm)
267
Figure 6: Qin Wenqing, Soldiers, 1997, oil on canvas, 152x204 cm.
(Source: http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm)
267
Figure 7: Zheng Feng,Immortals, 1999, oil on canvas, 160 x 160 cm.(Source: http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm)
268
Figure 8: Yuan Wu,Memorial of the 1998, 1998, Chinese painting, 283 x 156 cm.(Source: http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm)
268
Figure 9: Shao Yachuan,Inspecting the dyke, 1998, oil on canvas, 267x232 cm.
(Source: http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm)
269
Figure 10: Qiu Ruimin, Ma Hongdao, & Shi Qiren,Looking into the Future,
1999, oil on canvas, 168x252 cm. (Source:
http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm)
269
Figure 11: Ai Minyou & Zhang Qingtao,Inspection, 1996, oil on canvas, 359 x
227 cm. (Source: http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm)
270
Figure 12: Wang Pi, The Old Song-I Dedicate Oil to My Motherland, 1999, oil on
canvas, 168x168 cm.
(Source:http://www.dlgallery.com.cn/dalian/exhibit/ninth/ninth.chnyh.htm)
270
Figure 13: Yang Jinxing,Date, 1999, Chinese painting, 201 x 130 cm. 271
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(Source: http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm)
Figure 14: Zhang Zhenggang, Space, 1999, oil on canvas, 113 x 145 cm.
(Source: http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm)
271
Figure 15: Zheng Yi,Blazing Heart, 1999, oil on canvas, 176 x 162 cm.(Source: http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm) 272
Figure 16: Lin Sen, Feast, 1999, oil on canvas, 170 x 110 cm.(Source: http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm)
272
Figure 17: He Yunchang,Making An Appointment-Golden Sunshine, 1998, oil oncanvas, 225x174 cm. (Source:
http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm)
273
Figure 18: Cao Jigang,Mountain As Ocean, 1999, oil on canvas, 225x177cm.
(Source: http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm)
273
Figure 19: Wu Jingchu,The Unyielding Character of Plum Blossoms, 1999,Chinese painting, 230 x 158 cm. (Source:
http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm)
274
Figure 20: the billboard on the road to Song Zhuang that is entitled Welcome to
[Song Village] Chinese Contemporary Artist Community. (Source:
photographed by Yu Jiantao (an independent artist resides in SongZhuang))
275
Figure 21: Xu Bing, Tobacco project: shanghai, 2004, installation. (Source:photographed by the author) 276
Figure 22: Wang Guangyi, Great Castigation Series: Coca-Cola, 1992, oil on
canvas, 200 x 200 cm. (Source: Doran, Valerie C., ed. China's New art,
Post-1989. 1993)
277
Figure 23: Yu Youhan, The Waving Mao, 1990, acrylic on canvas, 145 x 130 cm.
(Source: Doran, Valerie C., ed. China's New art, Post-1989. 1993)
277
Figure 24: Fang Lijun, Series II, No. 2, 1992, oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm.
(Source: Gao, Minglu, ed. Inside/Out: New Chinese Art.SanFrancisco: San Francisco Museum of ModernArt.1998)
278
Figure 25: Liu Wei, The Revolutionary Family: Dad in front of A Poster of Zhu
De, 1990, oil on canvas, 100 x 100 cm. (Source: Doran, Valerie C., ed.China's New art, Post-1989. 1993)
278
Figure 26: Cai Guoqiang,Rent Collection Courtyard, 1999, installation. 279
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(Source: http://www.caiguoqiang.com/project_detail.php?id=33&iid=0)
Figure 27: Ye Yushan with a team of sculptors from the Sichuan Academy of Fine
Arts. Detail of the Rend Collection Courtyard, 1965, clay in life-size.
(Source:http://www.morningsun.org/stages/rent_courtyard_intro.html)
279
Figure 28: Sun Weimin,Nuanyang[warm sunlight], 1996, 180x190 cm, oil on
canvas. (Source:Ershi Shiji Zhongguo you hua [Chinese Oil Painting
of the Twentieth Century], eds. Art Department of the Culture Ministryof the PRC & Chinese Oil Painting Society. 2001)
280
Figure 29: Liu Xiaodong, Weigui[get out of line], 1996, 180x230 cm, oil oncanvas. (Source:Ershi Shiji Zhongguo you hua [Chinese Oil Painting
of the Twentieth Century], eds. Art Department of the Culture Ministry
of the PRC & Chinese Oil Painting Society. 2001)
280
Figure 30: Shen Ling,Life's companion, 1996, oil on canvas. (Source:Ershi ShijiZhongguo you hua [Chinese Oil Painting of the Twentieth Century],
eds. Art Department of the Culture Ministry of the PRC & Chinese OilPainting Society. 2001)
281
Figure 31: Chen Yifei, Father and Son, Tibet, 1995, oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm.(Source: http://www.marlboroughfineart.com/artists/view.asp?id=29)
281
Figure 32: Wang Shu,Between Dismantle and Construct, 2003, installation.(Source: http://cn.cl2000.com/subject/wnssnz/chzp/zp.shtml)
282
Figure 33: Zhan Wang, Urban Landscape, 2003, installation.(Source: http://cn.cl2000.com/subject/wnssnz/chzp/zp.shtml) 282
Figure 34: Yang Fudong, three stills fromHeaven Heaven, Jasmine Jasmine,
2002, video. (Source:
http://cn.cl2000.com/subject/wnssnz/chzp/zp.shtml)
283
Figure 35: Lu Shengzhong,Landscape Study, 2003, installation.
(Source: from the artist)
283
Figure 36: Liu Jianhua,Daily-Fragile, 2003, installation.
(Source: http://cn.cl2000.com/subject/wnssnz/chzp/zp.shtml)
284
Figure 37: Lu Shengzhong, PropitiousOmen Descending, installation.
(Source: http://arts.tom.com/zhanlan/lsztw/index.php)
284
Figure 38: Wang Yingsheng, Strolling II, 2001, Chinese painting, 200 x 270 cm.
(Source: The Album of the First Beijing International Art Biennale
[exhibition catalogue], ed., the Chinese Artists Association, 2003)
285
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Figure 39: Zhang Chenchu,Brothers and Sisters, 2001-2002, oil painting, 200 x
475 cm. (Source: The Album of the First Beijing International Art
Biennale [exhibition catalogue], ed., the Chinese Artists Association,
2003)
285
Figure 40: Guo Zhenyu and his twenty-eight handicapped students from theSpecial Education Vocational School at Shandong province, The
Chinese Roots, 1999-2003, sculpture, 400 x 2000 x 150 cm. (Source:The Album of the First Beijing International Art Biennale [exhibitioncatalogue], ed., the Chinese Artists Association, 2003)
286
Figure 41: Zheng Li,Intellectual Family-2, 2002, Chinese painting, 170 x 248cm. (Source: The Album of the First Beijing International Art Biennale
[exhibition catalogue], ed., the Chinese Artists Association, 2003)
286
Figure 42: Leng Jun, Century Scenery-4, 1996, oil on canvas, 105 x 200 cm.
(Source: The Album of the First Beijing International Art Biennale[exhibition catalogue], ed., the Chinese Artists Association, 2003)
287
Figure 43: Georg Baselitz,Attacking II, 1986, oil on canvas, 250 x 200 cm.
(Source: The Album of the First Beijing International Art Biennale
[exhibition catalogue], ed., the Chinese Artists Association, 2003)
287
Figure 44: Sam Francis, right: 23, oil on canvas, 1967, 58x82.5cm; left: 29, 1979,
oil on canvas, 91 x 61.5 cm. (Source: The Album of the First Beijing
International Art Biennale [exhibition catalogue], ed., the Chinese
Artists Association, 2003)
288
Figure 45: Omer Galliani,New Anatomy, 2003, 300 x 200 cm each. (Source: The
Album of the First Beijing International Art Biennale [exhibitioncatalogue], ed., the Chinese Artists Association, 2003)
288
Figure 46: Nosratollah Moslemian, Series of Untitled, 2002-2003, acrylic, left:
189 x 259 cm; right: 155 x 245 cm. (Source: The Album of the First
Beijing International Art Biennale [exhibition catalogue], ed., the
Chinese Artists Association, 2003)
289
Figure 47: Matti Kujasalo, Untitled, acrylics on canvas, 2002, 200 x 200 cm each.
(Source: The Album of the First Beijing International Art Biennale[exhibition catalogue], ed., the Chinese Artists Association, 2003)
289
Figure 48: Yuri Kalyuta,Melissa, 1997, oil on canvas, 120 x 100 cm. (Source:
The Album of the First Beijing International Art Biennale [exhibitioncatalogue], ed., the Chinese Artists Association, 2003)
290
Figure 49: Fernandez Arman,Discus Thrower, 2002, bronze sculpture, H: 180 290
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cm. (Source: The Album of the First Beijing International Art Biennale
[exhibition catalogue], ed., the Chinese Artists Association, 2003)
Figure 50: Kurt Schwager, Transzendenz, 2002, marble sculpture, 140 x 130 x 40
cm.(Source: The Album of the First Beijing International Art Biennale
[exhibition catalogue], ed., the Chinese Artists Association, 2003)
291
Figure 51: The logo of the first Beijing Biennale (Source: The Album of the FirstBeijing International Art Biennale [exhibition catalogue], ed., theChinese Artists Association, 2003)
291
Figure 52: Liu Liyun,Landscape scroll, 2004, sculpture/installation, 90x510x4cm. (Source:
http://www.bjbiennale.com.cn/artists/ArtistS_detail-e.asp?ArtistID=77
8)
292
Figure 53: Hu Mingzhe,Natural Traces, 2005, sculpture/installation,200x400x1.5x30 cm. (Source:
http://cn.cl2000.com/subject/2005BIAB/images/005.jpg)
292
Figure 54: The entrance of the Artist Group Reception Center of Song Zhuang.
(Source: http://www.chinasongzhuang.cn/html/2006-08/152.htm)
293
Figure 55: The archway with Song Zhuang China over the street in Xiaopu
Village of Song Zhuang.(Source: http://www.chinasongzhuang.cn/html/2006-09/226.htm)
293
Figure 56: Poster of the Fist Song Zhuang Culture and Art Festival. The bigChinese character in yellow that dominates the scene is a variation on
the character Song of Song Zhuang.(Source:
http://www.ionly.com.cn/pro/news/info3/20051024/012441.html)
294
Figure 57: Poster of the Second Song Zhaung Culture and Art Festival.(Source: http://ent.sina.com.cn/y/2006-09-08/16121237662.html)
294
Figure 58: The exterior view of the Beijing Song Zhuang TS1 Art Center.(Source:
http://club.qingdaonews.com/cachedir/41/30/52/3052861_1.htm)
295
Figure 59: The inaugural show of the Beijing Song Zhuang TS1 Art Center, with
sculptural works by Fang Lijun in front.
(Source:http://club.qingdaonews.com/cachedir/41/30/52/3052861_1.htm)
295
Figure 60: Exterior view of the Song Zhuang Art Museum. (Source: 296
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http://blog.artron.net/attachments/2006/06/15/2006615_d940ff118077f
df275b1f64855f1a414.jpg)
Figure 61: The architectural piece with the name of Shangshang Art Museum, in
Li Xiantings calligraphic script.
(Source:http://arts.tom.com/uimg/2006/11/29/peigang/pgszzz01_62421.jpg)
296
Figure 62: The exterior view of Beijing East Zone Art Center.(Source: http://www.yahqq.com/article/view.asp?id=1105)
297
Figure 63: Exterior view of Song Zhuang Private Art Museum.(Source: http://www.chinasongzhuang.cn/html/2006-08/150.htm)
297
Figure 64: The main street of the Xiaopu Village where the commercial plaza islocated. The view of artists setting up their exhibits, October 6, 2006.
(Source: http://www.chinasongzhuang.cn/html/2006-10/402.htm)
298
Figure 65: A view of a show on the main street of the Xiaopu Village where thecommercial plaza is located. The front figure was a peasant who
probably came to see the show, October 6, 2006. (Source:
http://www.chinasongzhuang.cn/html/2006-10/402.htm)
298
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1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Accompanying the tremendous attention that the rapid economic growth of China has
gained at a global level since the 1980s and particularly the 1990s, Chinese art has also
emerged as a category of great interest in the international art world. Since the late 1990s,
a large number of exhibitions have been dedicated to art from China by major museums
and art galleries in Euro-American countries;1 reports and reviews on the recent
development of Chinese art have constantly appeared in western media such as Art in
1 For example, Splendors of Imperial China by Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) in 1996,
Reckoning with the Past, Contemporary Chinese Painting by Fruitmarket Gallery (Edinburgh) in
1996, China Now by Kulturprojekte ( Basel) in 1997, China: 5000 Years by Solomon
Gugenheim Museum (New York and Bilbao) in 1998, Inside Out: New Chinese Art by Asia
Society and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center (New York) in 1998, Urban Yearnings: Portraits of
Contemporary China by San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco) in 1999, China:
Fifty Years Inside the Peoples Republic by Asia Society (New York) in 1999, Living in Time by
Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum fr Gegenwart (Berlin) in 2001, Paris Pekin by Espace Pierre
Cardin (Paris) in 2002, Text & Subtext by Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Centre
(Copenhagen) in 2002, Alors, la Chine? by Pompidou Center (Paris) in 2003, China: Dawn of a
Golden Age, 200-750 by Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) in 2004, All under Heaven:
China Now! by Museum of Contemporary Art (Antwerp) and Royal Museum of Fine Arts of
Antwerp (Antwerp) in 2004, Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China
by Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago) and Smart Museum of Art (Chicago) in 2004,Dreaming of the Dragon's Nation: Contemporary Art from China by Irish Museum of Modern
Art (Dublin) in 2004, Between Past and Future by Victoria and Albert Museum (London) in 2005,
Mahjong: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection by Kunstmuseum Bern (Bern) in
2005, On the Edge: Contemporary Chinese Artists Encounter the West by Davis Museum and
Cultural Center at Wellesley College (Massachusetts) in 2006, Chinese Painting on the Eve of the
Communist Revolution by Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University (California) in 2006, andInside Out Year of the Pig 2007 by London Trocadero Centre (London) in 2007. This list is far
from complete; a few more exhibitions on Chinese art are scheduled to open this year.
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America, Art Journal, Art News, Flash Art, and The New York Times; the demand and
prices for Chinese art in the international art market have also seen spectacular increases,
particularly in recent years;2
the number of students and scholars in the West who have
taken up Chinese art as their academic research topic is swelling as well.3 In the trend to
understand China from the aspect of art, among many other disciplines and perspectives,
a good proportion of energy has been devoted to Chinese unofficial art, including
avant-garde art in the 1980s and underground/contemporary art in the 1990s, which only
started to make its presence felt in the international art world in the early 1990s.
Unofficial art, a general term coined to describe art produced without sponsorship from
state-funded institutions and, by extension, without merely echoing official ideology, has
become an entry point for many scholars in the West to seek an understanding of the new
cultural scene in China. It allows them to compare the differences between cultural
production under Maoist Communist ideology and under socialist market ideology, or
even capitalism as some would prefer to call the latter, promoted by Chinas second
2 For recent report on the record breaking sale prices of Chinese art at the international art market,
see Carol Vogel, Sothebys Bets on a Windfall for Todays Chinese Art, The New York Times,
Mar 29, 2006; David Ebony, Chinese Contemporary Art Prices Skyrocket, Art in America, vol.
94 iss. 5 (May 2006): 45; Simon Elegant, The Great China Sale,Time Magazine, Nov 19, 2006;
Carol Vogel, China Celebrates the Year of the Art Market, The New York Times, Dec 24, 2006;
David Barboza, In Chinas New Revolution, Arts Greets Capitalism,The New York Times, Jan 4,2007; and Jonathan Napack, An Art Market with Chinese Characteristics, Yishu=Journal of
Contemporary Chinese Art, Spring Issue (Mar 2007): 16-18; and Katya Kazakina, Zhang
Xiaogang and Yue Minjun Lead Sotheby's Asian Art Sale, Bloomberg News, Mar 22, 2007.
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leader Deng Xiaoping and continued by his successors.
For quite a while, Chinese unofficial art has been at the center of newly obtained interest
in Chinese art from reporters, critics, and scholars outside of China; Chinese official art,
on the other hand, has been largely neglected as if there were nothing new worthy of
discussion. When it is actually mentioned, it has been described as conservative, static,
and not responding to contemporary life and has usually been associated with cultural
authorities and the Chinese Communist Party, against which the energetic, dissident and
rebellious unofficial art positions itself.4 I would not argue that this interpretation of the
relationship between Chinese official art and unofficial art has no historical basis at all.
On the contrary, it carries certain validity in analyzing the Chinese art world in the 1980s.
However, things have changed in China since the 1990s and this politically charged
binary formula between official art and unofficial art, which constitutes the foundation
upon which most interpretation about contemporary art from China evolves outside of
4 For examples, see Andrew Solomon, Their Irony, Humor (and art) Can Save China, The New
York Times Magazine, Dec 19, 1993 and Lynn MacRitchie, Report from Beijing: Precarious Paths
on the Mainland,Art in America(Mar 1994): 51-57. Also, as late as 1999, the senior Chinese art
historian John Clark, in his 1999 catalogue essay for the exhibition Beyond Exile, applied
self-enclosed to describe Chinese official art world and commented: Official art concerned itself
with the aesthetics of the well-made, a performative, academic and ultimately vacuous definition ofartistic achievement devoid of the contemporary contestation or at least engagement with the
frictions of the modernizing lived world of Chinese which would give it meaning. He then
presented his great appreciation of art made by a few unofficial Chinese artists (he called them
modern artists) that showed a very serious concern for art and its critical relation to social life.
John Clark, Beyond Exile, inModern Chinese Art Foundation Catalogue(Provincie Bestuur van
Oost-Vlaanderen, Belgium, 1999). John Clark, however, was soon going to publish an in-depth and
updated essay on the Chinese art world that shed light on the changing nature of Chinese unofficial
art; see note 10.
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China, has greatly lost its applicability. Hou Hanru, an art critic and curator who
originates from China, has pointed out that in the West there is not only a lack of
knowledge and understanding of contemporary art of China, but that current studies
about it had not been able to avoid the Western clich that modern Chinese art is tainted
by ideological preoccupations and that in China the official establishment maintains a
monolithic approach in art production.5 His critique certainly was directed at the kind of
reviews on contemporary Chinese art in which official art was often formulated as an
integrated entity whose modality and appearance were clearly defined and determined by
the political authorities while unofficial art was described as a dissident art or avant-garde
art that embodied a different political agenda and free creative inspiration.6
In the past couple of years, however, there has been a much deeper and revised
understanding of Chinese unofficial art in the West, as the further opening of China and the
convenience of global communication and transnational travel enable much closer
observations. Some critics and reporters have started to question the outwardly anti-official
political nature of Chinese unofficial art and to explore its hidden intentions;7some have
5 Hou Hanru, Entropy, Chinese Artists, Western Art Institutions: A New Internationalism, in
Global Visions: Towards a New Internationalism in the Visual Arts, Jean Fisher (ed.)(London: Kala Press, 1994), 79-88.
6 In his seminal study of the avant-garde, Ralph Croizier discussed this western preoccupied
fascination of Chinese avant-garde art in the early 1990s. See Ralph Croizier, The Avant-garde
and the Democracy Movement: Reflections on Late Communism in the USSR and China,
Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 51 no. 3 (1999): 483-513.
7 For example, in her review of the exhibition New Art in China, Post-1989, Susan Platt questioned:
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also discussed the relaxed governmental attitude towards contemporary art practice and the
resulting flourishing of the art scene;8 they have also discovered the market-driven nature
of much contemporary art produced by young Chinese artists who now have maneuvered
their art as one kind of business.9Nonetheless, not much energy has been invested in the
consideration of Chinese official art, a category that itself has undergone no less dramatic
and complex transformation than unofficial art from China.10
This dissertation is
dedicated to the study of official art in contemporary China, in relation to changing
unofficial art, changing Chinese society, and changing Chinese politics. I believe that the
new direction that Chinese official art has taken since the beginning of the twenty-first
century has, to a great extent, epitomized the Chinese governments newly conceived
cultural policies and multiple administrative approaches towards art and its modified
vision of the function of art in Chinese society in the age of globalization.
Is the work that has been exported for New Art in China, with the epithet Post-1989 actually a
protest against the government? Or is it nothing but a game, a game that the Chinese artists are
playing for a place in the international art worldthe same game that all artists play? See Susan
Platt, New Art in China, Post-1989,Art Papers, vol. 22 no. 2 (Mar/Apr 1998): 37.
8 A few examples here: Meg Maggio, Bullish In Beijing, China Review Magazine, iss. 26,
October, 2003. (Accessed May 8, 2005);, Craig Simons,
Amid Ghosts of the Red Guard, The Avant-garde Now Blooms, The New York Times, Sep 1, 2004;
Jonathan Napack. Young Beijing,Art in America,vol. 92 iss. 6 (Jun/Jul 2004): 142-145.
9 For this point, see Jonathan Napack: An Art Market with Chinese Characteristics,
Yishu=Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art,Spring Issue (Mar 2007): 16-18. Also see CharlotteHiggins, Is Chinese Art Kicking Butt or Kissing It?, The Guardian, Nov 9, 2004 and Simon
Elegant, The Great China Sale,Time Magazine, Nov 19, 2006.
10 A notable exception is John Clarks essay analyzing the transformation of the Chinese art system
in the 1990s and discussing the blurring tendency of the boundary between official art and
unofficial art. See John Clark, System and Style in the Practice of Chinese Contemporary Art: The
Disappearing Exterior?, Yishu=Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, vol. 1 no. 2 (Summer
2002): 13-31.
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1. The Starting Point
In order to understand the complex development/transformation of contemporary official
Chinese art in recent years, it is necessary to take a quick look at the basic structure and
main dynamics of the Chinese art world since the late 1970s, which consisted of the
dominant official art and the growing unofficial art. As it is well-known, during Mao
Zedongs reign from 1949 to 1976, there was scarcely any dissenting voice in the entire
Chinese art scene. The dominant ideological guideline for artistic creation was the social
realist doctrine formulated in Maos 1942 Yanan Talks on Literature and Arts and
elaborated by certain art administrators after 1949.11
However, different voices began to
be brought into the Chinese art scene when a relaxed social and political environment
precipitated as a result of Deng Xiaopings Reform and Open-door Policy in 1978.12
11 For the talk delivered by Mao Zedong, see Mao Zedong,Zai Yanan Wenyi Zuotanhui shang de
Jianghua [Talks on the Conference of Literature and Arts at Yanan] (Yanan: Liberation
Publishing House, 1943); a few scholars have done extensive analysis in their book-length study in
examining Mao Zedong art theory and its application in the Chinese art world, including Julia
Frances Andrews, Painters and Politics in the People's Republic of China, 1949-1979 (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1994); Arnold Chang, Painting in the People's Republic of China:
the Politics of Style(Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1980); Maria Galikowski,ArtandPoliticsin
China, 1949-1984(Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1998); and Ellen Johnston Laing, The
Winking Owl: Art in the People's Republic of China. Berkeley (University of California Press,
1988).
12 Reform and Open-door policy, Gaige Kaifang, was launched by Deng Xiaoping in 1978,
which aimed to reform Chinas economic system for higher productivity and to open Chinas door
to the entire world including Western capitalist countries. For more readings of the new
developments in the Chinese art and cultural world under Deng Xiaopings reform policy, seeHans Van Dijk, Painting in China after the Cultural Revolution: Style Developments and
Theoretical Debates, China Information, vol.VI, no.4 (Spring 1992):1-18; Gao Minglu, Shu Qun,
and others in their collaborated book, Zhongguo Dangdai Meishu Shi [The History of Chinese
Contemporary Art 1985-1986] (Shanghai: Shanghai Peoples Publishing House, 1991); Wang
Jing,High Culture Fever: Politics, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Deng's China (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1996), and Zhang Xudong, Chinese Modernism in the Era of
Reforms(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997).
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Various unofficial art groups emerged across the nation and they involved themselves in
agendas different from those advocated by the official art establishment. Through
questioning and challenging established models, norms, and standards, unofficial art kept
expanding the tolerance and taste of the art establishment in China and grew into an
important component of the Chinese art world.13
Simultaneously, the confrontation
between official art and unofficial art constituted a very significant characteristic that
greatly shaped the further development of art in China in the 1980s. As analyzed by many
scholars, there were relatively distinct differences between unofficial art and official art, in
terms of content, style, and the function that art was expected to perform.14
Officially
acknowledged art concentrated on traditional Chinese painting and oil painting developed
under the influence of European classical art and Soviet socialist realism. The subject
matter of official art reflected the states overall ideological requirements and stressed the
positive representation of Chinese society. Unofficial art, on the other hand, mainly
focused on experimental forms, largely derived from Western modern and contemporary
art, and aimed to subvert established aesthetic standards. In terms of the content, it tended
to address individual and social problems and challenged official ideological criteria.
13 For an extensive study of the emergence of Chinese unofficial art and its relevant activities in the1980s, see Gao Minglu, Shu Qun, and others in their collaborative book, Zhongguo Dangdai
Meishu Shi [The History of Chinese Contemporary Art 1985-1986] (Shanghai: Shanghai Peoples
Publishing House, 1991); Gao Minglu, The '85 Movement: Avant-Garde Art in the Post-Mao Era
(Ph.D. diss.Harvard University, 2000).
14 See Julia Andrews and Gao Minglu, The Avant Gardes Challenge to Official Art, D. Davis et
al (eds), Urban Spaces in Contemporary China(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995),
221-278.
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The first unofficial art group was The Stars, consisting of 23 amateur artists who were
basically self-taught instead of being trained in any art academies.15
They held their first
formal exhibition Xingxing Huazhan [Star Exhibition] in 1979 in a public park in
Beijing without official permission and became the first influential avant-garde group in
China after 1949. The exhibition presented art works that largely applied formerly
maligned Western styles such as Postimpressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, and Abstract
Expressionism,16
thus challenging both the aesthetic conventions and the political
authority of the art establishment.17 After that, many young artists and critics who were
trained in the national academies joined avant-garde art movements. These avant-garde
artists organized themselves into numerous art groups. Though their individual causes
differed, these groups shared the position of challenging the officially established art, that
is, essentially socialist realism, and of seeking new aesthetic possibilities.18
15 Chang Tsong-zung, Hui Ching-shuen, and Don J. Cohn (eds.), The Stars: 10 Years(Hong Kong:
Hanart, 1989).
16 In Maos era, these western art trends and styles were condemned as decadent Western
Capitalist art and were officially criticized.
17 A lot of writings have been devoted to The Stars and their art by scholars like Geremie Barm,
Gao Minglu, and Li Xianting. For a contemporary and earliest review of The Stars exhibition by a
young critic who would become one of the leading supporter of Chinese unofficial art, see Li
Xianting, Guanyu Xingxing Meizhan [about The Stars exhibition], Meishu [fine arts] (Mar
1980): 8-10; for retrospective accounts of The Stars activities and their significance in Chinese art
history , see Joan Cohen, The New Chinese Painting, 1949-1986 (New York, Harry Abrams, 1987);Geremie Barm, The Stars in Retrospect, in The Stars: 10 Years, 76-82; Gao Minglu, Shu Qun,
et al.,Zhongguo Dangdai Meishu Shi [The History of Chinese Contemporary Art 1985-1986]; and
Li Xianting, Major Trends in the Development of Contemporary Chinese Art, in China's New Art,
Post-1989, Valerie C. Doran (ed.) (Hong Kong: Hanart T Z Gallery, 1993), X-XXII.
18For a comprehensive understanding of the avant-garde movement in the 1980s in China, see
notes 24 and 25. Also see Lauk'ung Chan, "Ten Years of the Chinese Avantgarde: Waiting for the
Curtain to Fall," Flash Art, vol 25 (Jan/Feb, 1992): 110-14.
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With the emergence and development of unofficial art movements in the 1980s came a
political response: the Chinese political authorities applied harsh censorship in order to
curb and limit the significance of the unofficial avant-garde movement. The level of
control and the resulting oppressiveness of governmental art policies towards unofficial art
practice vacillated as the Chinese state was itself struggling to find a suitable route to
modernize China, and thus it constantly shifted its attitude from repression to co-operation
towards Chinese cultural workers (meaning all kinds of professionals who produce
certain types of culture such as art, film, literature, music, etc.).19Most well-known, of
course, was its notorious suppression of Chinese intellectuals in the Tiananmen Square
Incident in 1989 and the consequent harsh policies towards unofficially sanctioned artistic
activities.
In order to cope with the hostile political situation, unofficial artists invented new formats
and sought new possibilities to continue their activities, resulting in so-called underground
art.20
Different from avant-garde art, which sought direct confrontation with the
authorities and official art, underground art, as its name implies, proceeded with great care
to avoid inviting attention from officials. A range of artistic practices can be roughly
19For an elaborated analysis of the Chinese states vacillation of its cultural policies and their
effects in the cultural domain, see Maria Galikowski,ArtandPoliticsinChina1949-1984(Hong
Kong: Chinese University Press, 1998); Geremie Barm, In the Red: On Contemporary Chinese
Culture(New York: Columbia University Press, 1999).
20 Underground art is also understood as underground exhibitions. Both refer to Chinese
contemporary art that was prohibited to exhibit in public museums or galleries in the 1990s.
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incorporated under this term: apartment art, studio art, and underground exhibition art.21
All of these actually deal with the way contemporary artists exhibit their work. Their use of
non-officially sanctioned contemporary media, including installation, video, and
performance art predestined that they could not get a public display space for their art; and
in order to avoid authorities interference, neither could they openly publicize their
exhibitions. So these artists held experimental, short-term, and very provisional exhibitions
in some unconventional places, including artists studios, their private apartments,
warehouses and workshops on the border areas between urban and suburban districts. 22
Only audiences qualified as quan nei ren would be invited for their temporary shows.
Quan nei ren literally means people within ones social circle and refers to close
artist-friends, domestic and overseas critics and curators who are sympathetic to
contemporary art. Though faced with a hostile official attitude, the continuous
development of underground art in China actually benefited somewhat from the
governments new diplomatic policies since the 1990sno matter how much the
government and underground artists may dislike acknowledging thisas it further opened
Chinas door to the rest of the world and gradually applied a supportive attitude towards
international exchanges and mutual communications.
21 For detailed discussion on the origin, development, and major representatives of apartment art,
please see Gao Minglu, Inside and Outside Public Walls: The Living Space of the Chinese
Avant-Garde,in The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art[exhibition catalogue] (Beijing:
China Millennium Art Museum, 2005), 59-84.
22 Feng Boyi, Di Dixia ji Qita Guangyu 20 Shiji 90 Niandai Yilai de Zhongguo Qianwei
Yishu [Underground and Others: On Chinese Avant-Garde Art since the 1990s], Yishu Tansuo
[Art Exploration], iss.4 (2003): 23-26.
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Since the beginning of the new century, however, the Chinese state has taken up a new
attitude towards unofficial contemporary art and has invested considerably in exhibiting
and promoting the formerly restricted category. As the following chapters suggest, this
change of attitude has to be understood in relation to the states new cultural agenda and
global discourse in a changing social and political environment. As a result of this new
process that I call the officialization of contemporary art, the boundary between official
and unofficial art has largely been blurred. In fact, I argue in this dissertation that these
terms such as unofficial art and underground art have lost their original meaning and
significance since the mid 1990s and especially since the beginning of the new century.
As China experiences the increasing impact of marketization and globalization, and
especially the intervention of the international art world, changes are happening in both
official and unofficial camps, and the relationship between them has become more one of
complicity than of polar opposition, more of imbrication than clear division.
A new examination of art from contemporary China should involve the extensive
transformation of social mechanisms that condition both the production of official and
unofficial art. They both respond, in particular ways, to the intertwined pressures and
demands as well as opportunities coming from marketization, globalization, and the
revival of cultural nationalism, the three major movements that are steering the direction
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of China.23
As this dissertation aims to illuminate, official art can no longer maintain a
defined and unchanging status in China. It is becoming ambiguous, polymorphous, and
inclusive, in order to keep up with new developments. This is most evident in the domain
of art exhibitions, a prominent component of the art world in our time. Since 2000, there
have been many examples of state-sponsored exhibitions that increasingly include
various types of art originally banned in formal representations of Chinese official art.
Unofficial art, in the meantime, no longer carries sincere political messages that would
come from dissident artists with alternative social ideals and artistic inspiration. Indeed,
as argued by some scholars, the impetus of the market has become the foremost
motivation in Chinese unofficial art practice, whose relationship with official art in turn is
becoming less oppositional and sometimes even reciprocal.24
The same is true for unofficial arts relationship with the cultural authorities. As some
scholars have noted, since the mid 1990s, for many young artists whose essential goal is to
maximize personal gains in the thriving art market instead of attacking official art and its
ideology, unofficial art has already become a self-claimed makeover.25
In order to achieve
the status of unofficial art, some artists have purposely sought the authorities disapproval
and condemnation, with which they can paint themselves as rebellious and politically
23 See chapter three for elaboration on these issues.
24 Geremie R. Barm, Packaged Dissent, Artful Marketing, inIn The Red: On Contemporary
Chinese Culture(New York: Columbia University Press, 1999).
25 Ibid.
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dissident in order to add international credentials to their art, which without this official
condemnation might simply be read as platitudinous. For instance, in 1995, the journalist
Sang Ye interviewed one of the resident painters from the Yuan Ming Yuan Artists Village,
the first one of its kind in Beijing and probably in China, and got the following response:
I know this guy [who] was really hoping to create some kind of disturbance so
he could be picked up by the authorities. Once he set up a stall opposite the China
Art Gallery [now known as the China National Museum of Fine Arts] to exhibit
his black paintings. He wanted to confront the government, but nowadays the
authorities are as cunning as you are. When Old Ma [Desheng] and the Stars
were detained for putting on their exhibition, it was really explosive. Now here
you have this wannabe lining up his works along a wall in an alley, and theauthorities simply ignore him. They didnt want to give the kid a break. They
didnt allow him a chance to stir up any trouble or to make a name for himself.26
The changing nature of Chinese unofficial art and its relationship with the authorities has
indeed already drawn the attention of a few critics and scholars who have a keen awareness
of the transformation of Chinese society. Li Xianting, himself a leading critic-supporter of
unofficial art since the 1980s, once warned:
Foreigners [i.e. westerners] who are given to collecting, or studying, Chinese
modern art are, in many cases, inclined to pay undue attention to unofficial
artists who do not belong to state-run art organizations. Their judgment, however,
is suspect, for they tend to be attracted to anything that is unofficial, and they
are surrounded by a group boasting that they are Chinas artistic avant-garde,
although they may be far from that.27
Li here reminds us of the existence of pseudo avant-garde artists and the international
26 Sang Ye, Fringe-Dwellers: Down and out in the Yuan Ming Yuan Artists Village, trans.
Geremie R. Barm,Art AsiaPacific, no.15 (June 1997): 77.
27 Quoted from Geremie R. Barm, The Stars in Retrospect, in The Stars: 10 Years, 81.
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fascination with Chinese unofficial art. This fascination has in fact promoted the successful
careers of a great number of Chinese unofficial artists at the international marketplace in
the 1990s. Unofficial art, the term that implies a strong political message or at least
rhetoric of anti-official, dissident, and rebellious sympathies, seems to be naturally
attractive in international communities. To many international art professionals and the
general public, unofficial art from Communist China seems to automatically carry an
implication of democratic sentiment. Therefore, much has been invested in supporting and
promoting the production and circulation of Chinese unofficial art in international art
circuits, which has the effect of encouraging more artists from China to take up an
unofficial reputation. The sudden and massive presence of Chinese unofficial artists at
international exhibitions such as the Venice Biennale, the Johannesburg Biennale,
Documenta, and the Sao Paulo Biennialstarting abruptly in 1993 when fourteen artists
from Mainland China were presented at the Venice Biennalecannot be separated from
this enthusiastic international interest in unofficial art.28
Overseas fascination with
unofficial art has already created an ironic phenomenon in the Chinese art world. After
their return from the Venice Biennale in 1993, artists like Wang Guangyi and Fang Lijun,
representatives of Political Pop and Cynical Realism respectively,29
became superstar
artists and soon they began living a life no less sumptuous than those nouveau riche who
28 See chapter four for elaboration on Chinese artists participation in the 1993 Venice Biennale.
29 For detailed discussion on Political Pop and Cynical Realism and their representative artists,
see Li Xianting, Major Trends in the Development of Contemporary Chinese Art, in China's New
Art, Post-1989, Valerie C. Doran (ed.) (Hong Kong: Hanart T Z Gallery, 1993), X-XXII.
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acted quickly in the early period of Chinas economic reforms to profit financially.30
Chinese art critic Zhu Qi describes them as piously entrepreneurial artists who have
managed to become quite well-off by painting portraits of Mao Zedong and depicting
similar political parodies.31
Writing in his 1999 examination of unofficial cultural groups, Geremie Barm perceptively
described:
As economic atavism consumed the country, the relationship between officialand alternative, mainstream and marginal cultures continued their
metempsychosis. In 1995, many nonofficial artistic hopefuls, young men and
women anxious to achieve the local and international recognition that had
launched so many brilliant careers since the late 1970s, actively courted official
displeasure as part of their presale publicity. Although in the past, this strategy
had worked wonders for many artists, filmmakers, and writers of middling talent,
it was no longer necessarily effective.32
Barms insight echoes Sang Yes. The so-called unofficial or dissident art can be the
product of a premeditated scheme and has nothing necessarily to do with unofficial art. A
30 Wang Guangyi was reported to check in to five-star hotels just to experience the life of luxury;
Fang Lijun was heard to hire some less-lucky artists to replicate paintings in his typical style in
order to meet the increasing market demand for his art works. A recent update by David Barboza
reports that Wang Guangyi drives a Jaguar and owns a 10,000-square-foot luxury villa on the
outskirts of Beijing; Fang Lijun owns six restaurants in Beijing and operates a small hotel in
western Yunnan province. See David Barboza, In Chinas New Revolution, Arts GreetsCapitalism,The New York Times, Jan 4, 2007.
31 Zhu Qi, "Do Westerners Really Understand Chinese Avant-Garde Art?Post '89 Essay,"
Chinese-art.com (Electronic Journal, no longer available), vol.2, iss.3 (2001).
(Accessed July 20, 2003).
32 Geremie R. Barm, In The Red: On Contemporary Chinese Culture (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1999), 204.
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note should be added here: What those artists aim to achieve is, of course, not just the
disapproval of the authorities, but ways in which they can obtain attention from the
public and eventually from overseas art professionals. With the label of unofficial
artists they had the chance to draw interest from international critics, curators, and
dealers who were seeking alternative art in China. Thus we see two phenomena: First, as
early as the mid-1990s, some Chinese artists had already started consciously to
manipulate the technology of unofficial art to increase their personal profile; second, by
that time the authorities had already changed their policy in dealing with occasional
unauthorized cultural activities. They became skillfully tolerant, without having to always
resort to political enforcement of cancellation and public condemnation, which some
unofficial artists purposely expected to achieve.
As such, since the mid-1990s, the main drive of the Chinese art world has no longer been
geared by the opposition between official art and unofficial art, but by the dynamics of
the art market. In this market-oriented context, new kinds of artists have emerged, who
neither have any ideological issue with official art, nor have the goal to be labeled
dissident artists.33
They also prefer not to have any affiliation with official institutions.
Instead, they position themselves as independent artists, and endeavor to explore an
33 Here I particularly refer to the type of artists who are consciously engaged in producing what
is normally regarded and discussed as high art. The new kinds of artists I apply here do not
include the more familiar, not so new artists who produce kitsch, craftwork art, and decorative
items, marketed towards the masses and domestic or foreign tourists.
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apolitical, personalized approach to artistic expression. Many of them chose to directly
respond to the international art world and art market. The number of these kinds of artists
is increasing rapidly in China, in parallel with the countrys move in an evidently less
political but more market-oriented direction. In the meantime, there also appear artistic
practices that actually cannot be easily categorized. In some cases, a single artist can be
engaged in several types of artistic activities and simultaneously maintain two or three
identities, putting up different faces for different conditions.34
All these changes have
inaugurated a significantly different and much more complicated Chinese art scene, in
comparison to that of the 1980s and early 1990s.
2. Main Objectives and the Methodology
This study examines the changing institutional context of contemporary official Chinese
art through two momentous official art exhibitions: the first Chinese Pavilion of the
Venice Biennale (Chinese Pavilion) and the first Beijing International Art Biennale
(Beijing Biennale), respectively authorized by the Ministry of Culture and the Chinese
Artists Association in 2003. By investigating the sociopolitical and institutional context
against which the two exhibitions were mounted and the actual staging, display and
reception conditions, the study explores the complicated and intertwined relationship
between official art and unofficial art and aims to redefine conventional understanding
34 I regard this as a kind of internal complicity, which I believe to be a typical product of Chinas
current politics.
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about the conditions and modality of official art from China. In particular, I examine the
evident divisions in these state newly sponsored exhibitions in terms of curatorial
concepts and artistic production and try to articulate how the Chinese government
attempts to make use of contemporary art for its national cultural project, how the old art
establishment endeavors to update its operating system in order to maintain its dominance
over the Chinese art world, and how newly emerging artistic groups make use of recently
available resources to compete with the old mainstream and to claim an officially
sanctioned space. The main issues that this study is concerned with include the way
official art has operated since the 1980s, the function of the market economy in the
transformation of the Chinese art world, the impact of globalization on the ongoing
dialogue between official art and unofficial art, cultural nationalism and the changing
status of underground/contemporary art in the view of the cultural authority, and the new
types of relationships among official art, unofficial art, and art by those who have tried to
commence a discourse between the two since the mid 1990s.
Ultimately I want to illuminate that in China official art is still being controlled, but the
government is taking on different approaches and presenting itself with a different
appearance. The main objectives of this dissertation are to uncover these newly invented
strategies and to differentiate old and new governmental directives, to articulate the effect
of the extensive social transformation on the operating system of official art, and to analyze
the kind of art that has responded to these processes.
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I believe that this study is particularly important and timely since the majority of recent
interest and attention devoted to Chinese art has focused on diasporic and transnational
artists (many of whom are former unofficial artists), particularly a narrow range of artists
visible in the global marketplace. This often results in a view that sees movements within
the scope of official art as unchanging and non-responsive to new developments in the
contemporary world. I aim to overturn these assumptions and stress internal dynamism and
complexity. Exploring a broader array of producers, including artists, critics, curators, and
cultural officials, I examine the competing institutional and individual agendas that have
framed their relation to the domestic and international political strategy of the Chinese state.
I argue that Chinese official art is no longer a unified, self-contained domain and is no
longer isolated from the rest of the world. Rather, it has become a site of intense
competition, negotiation, and interaction of various forces with different agendas coming
from the central government, local art institutions, global market forces, and international
art communities.
Because of the nature of this project, there is no single body of established scholarship
upon which I can base my work. Especially, in relation to the Chinese Pavilion and the
Beijing Biennale, there are scarcely any systematic scholarly works that have been done
yet, both in China as well as outside of China. Neither is there a single library or archive
that I can depend on for written materials or images concerning the exhibitions of
Chinese art in which the state and the official art establishment have played a significant
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role since the late 1990s. This study seeks to begin the work that will help to shape a new
but important field of art historical study.
As a result, contact with the current Chinese art world has become my most imperative
archive. My primary sources come from many interviews I conducted with people
involved in the two exhibitions of 2003 in summer 2004 and 2005 in Beijing. I also
interviewed artists of importance in this dissertation project and obtained their personal
diaries or comments on their individual works in question and on that of other artists. I
visited art museums, galleries, artist villages, and attended various official and unofficial
exhibitions. I had conversations with a wide range of artists, critics, and curators in order
to examine their view of the exhibitions and their experience in encountering the art
market and the international art world. All existing materials, such as official documents,
press releases, catalogues, and critical writings in newspapers, magazines, and on the
internet inevitably became major resources for this dissertation. In other words, the
literature that this project depends on covers a broad range of primary materials such as
exhibition catalogues, interviews, reviews, and personal statements, the majority of which
were produced by participants who are closely engaged in the making of the Chinese
contemporary art scene.35
Thanks to internet publications, both from local sources and
35 I use Chinese contemporary art [zhongguo dangdai yishu] instead of contemporary Chinese
art, which has been widely used overseas, for the reason that Chinese contemporary art is a
common usage applied by Chinese artists, critics, and curators, in reference to contemporary art
by Chinese artists differing from contemporary art produced by other nationals such as African,
Latin American, or Western artists. On the other hand, contemporary Chinese art [dangdai
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international observers, I was able to obtain many reviews and responses from viewers
including artists, critics, and regular audience members who expressed themselves freely
in cyber space, which serves as a significant platform for critical discussion of
contemporary Chinese official art. My resources would otherwise not be so plentiful,
varied, and sometimes poignant if only regular printed publications were available.
In achieving the goals of this dissertation, I combine an analysis of the artistic products of
official art with an articulation of its institutional particularity and sociopolitical
significance in the Chinese context. I am concerned with the social mechanisms that
condition the kind of art produced, in which way and to what extent it is disseminated, and
how it is received and viewed. I believe this is a crucial perspective to understand the
transformation of the Chinese art world at this moment.
Since the early 1980s, Chinese art historians and theoreticians, haunted by the imposed
state ideology of vulgar Marxist historical approaches for decades, have understandably
taken up formalistic, psychoanalytic, semiotic, and iconographic and iconological
approaches with great enthusiasm, and happily abandoned the enforced Marxist approach.
From then on, any new attempt to address art with an explicit sociopolitical perspective
tended to be labeled as vulgar, outmoded or stereotyped. That may explain why theories
zhongguo yishu ] is used in a broader sense, referring to art created by artists at the contemporary
time and its counterparts are traditional Chinese art or modern Chinese art.
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such as formalism, structuralism and post-structuralism, postcolonial theory, and feminist
theory have been eagerly taken up by newly emerging scholars since China launched its
Reform and Open-door Policy in 1978, while there is little interest in new Marxist art
history, even that coming from the West. The fondness for new theories except Marxism,
on the one hand, is a counterbalance to the diversity missing in the past; on the other hand,
it is motivated by the desire to keep up with the new developments in art theory in the West.
In recent years writers who are engaged in new art history and art criticism have mainly
focused their efforts on how to fit Chinese phenomena into western theoretical
paradigms.36
Being aware of the new perspectives and tools that these paradigms have
provided for examining Chinese phenomena, I nonetheless want to point out a notable
negative result, which is the production of a large amount of writings that are flooded with
highly complex terms and phrases in a rush to master the newest theoretical trends in art
history and criticism.37 Much less attention has been invested in observing the social
mechanisms that motivate, regulate, and channel multifaceted flows of the contemporary
Chinese art world. This is where my dissertation can fill the gap and point to new
possibilities and perspectives for understanding the formation of the current status of the
Chinese art scene.
36 This phenomenon is very apparent in many articles published in the 1990s in a few art magazines
that position themselves as standing at the forefront of Chinese contemporary art history and art
criticism, includingJiangsu Huakan[Art Monthly in Jiangsu], Yishu Yanjiu [Art research],Meishu
Guancha[Art Observation], and others.
37 This phenomenon, unfortunately, reflects the publish or perish, imperative in academia.
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I am convinced as I carry out the research of this study that no current theory is adequate to
describe or explain the characteristic dynamism of the Chinese art world. It seems that an
empirically directed observation would be the most effective approach, based on which
conclusions can be made. My empiricism, however, is guided by my concern with the
socio-anthropological aspects of the Chinese art world, which are playing crucial roles in a
less and less politically charged contemporary China. In the art world, as in other realms,
the influence of a few major figures and their connective network can be overwhelming
and far-reaching, sometimes deciding the maintenance or change of the status quo. An
awareness of this phenomenon is an important prerequisite for an in-depth understanding
of the complex scene found in the Chinese art world. One may discover that the major
players are almost the same group of people in various ostensibly diverse and even
opposite roles. In my writing the names of some key personnel will come up again and
again, together with their affiliated institutions. In China, any discussion of the
mechanisms of the current art world cannot bypass the function of particular individuals, in
this case, a few art officials who carry double or even multiple identities. Geremie R.
Barm, the Chinese expert who himself has spent decades studying and working in China
and is deeply conversant with the fluctuating intellectual undertakings in Chinese society,
gives an illuminating description in his study of Chinese official and unofficial culture
since the early 1990s:
I was thrilled and dejected in turn as mainland culture flourished and foundered at
the whims of party leaders; I also learned more about the mechanics of
manufactured dissent than probably is good, even for a healthy cynic. To witness
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famous critics of the party reach accommodations with the authorities in private
while putting on the brave face of the dissident to foreign journalists and scholars
was also an educational experience.38
This is a telling and revealing description of the operating mechanism of Chinese society
and the complex relationship among intellectuals, the authorities, and outsiders. In the
Chinese art world, without exception, we witness the similar machinations of individual
critic-curators who manage, using only available resources, to set themselves up as
prominent figures in the avant-garde field, while at the same time maintaining allegiance to
the established structure and receiving the corresponding benefits. Marveling at the scale
of multipolar developments in the cultural domain, Barm expresses his surprise:
There is, however, no adequate nomenclature to describe the disparate range of
cultural material produced over the past twenty years, for it has grown,
metamorphosed, and developed within the orbit of an avowedly socialist state
whose gravitational pull is often all too irresistible and that has itself undergone
an extraordinary transformation. Both [official culture and unofficial culture] have
matured together and used each other, feeding each others needs and developingever new coalitions, understandings, and compromises.
39
This is exactly the dynamic condition of cultural production that I take into account and
within which the transformation of the Chinese art world is happening. With this
understanding, I go on to examine how the cultural authorities, art establishment, and
individuals accommodate new circumstances with particular strategies, how the old
definitions and boundaries have been challenged, and, at the same time, how new
38 Geremie R. Barm, In The Red: On Contemporary Chinese Culture (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1999), xiii.
39 Ibid.
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ramifications have been created within the scope of official art.
3.
Literature Review
In the process of constructing the theoretical framework for my research and writing of
this dissertation, I have been informed by a range of scholarship from different
disciplines, including art history and exhibition studies, history, political science,
anthropology, and cultural studies in various ways. Among them, the main body of
historical and critical literature that my dissertation engages can be categorized into three
groups: studies on Chinese contemporary art history, studies on Chinese cultural
nationalism and culture since the 1990s, and studies on contemporary international
exhibitions in the context of globalization. I will highlight some key figures and texts and
analyze their relevance to my study.
Chinese Contemporary Art History
Among the existing scholarship on Chinese contemporary art history, the works by a few
figures stand out in my study. Chinese scholars such as Gao Minglu, Hou Hanru, and Wu
Hung have worked extensively on Chinese contemporary art and exhibitions of it and
have contributed greatly to a rising body of literature that contains precious first-hand
observations and descriptions, informed interpretations of particular artists and their art,
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and critical reviews of the Chinese contemporary art scene.40
In particular, the work by
art historian, critic, and curator Gao Minglu on Chinese avant-garde art and contemporary
art is an important body of literature that my dissertation relies upon. Gaos close
involvement in the avant-garde movement (as a critic and an exhibition organizer) in the
1980s has allowed him to construct an authoritative study on the social, historical, and
political background of the avant-garde art movement, its development and the activities
of the groups and artists. His study on this significant movement in Chinese art history
was first presented in his booksZhongguo Dangdai Meishu Shi [The History of Chinese
Contemporary Art 1985-1986]41
[with other authors] in 1991 and the anthology
Zhongguo Qianwei Yishu[Chinese Avant-garde Art]42
in 1996 and further developed in
his PhD dissertation The 85 Movement: Avant-Garde Art in the Post-Mao Era in
2000.43
Even though the time period that I deal with in my dissertation is more than a
decade later, many issues he brought up in his early work, such as the sustained dialogue
between Chinese official art and unofficial art, the close interaction between political and
artistic currents in Chinese avant-garde practices, and the co-dependent relationship
between Chinese art and Western art, still have their currency in the contemporary
40 All these figures are active as both art critics and curators and they write in both Chinese and
English.
41 Gao Minglu, et.al.,Zhongguo Dangdai Meishu Shi [The History of Chinese Contemporary Art
1985-1986] (Shanghai: Shanghai Peoples Publishing House, 1991).
42 Gao Minglu,Zhongguo Qianwei Yishu[Chinese Avant-garde Art] (Jiangsu Fine Arts
Publishing House, 1997).
43 Gao Minglu, The '85 Movement: Avant-garde Art in the Post-Mao Era (PhD Dissertation),
Harvard University, 2000.
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Chinese art world. It is from his work that I draw language such as Chinese
Contemporary Art, Chinese unofficial art, and Chinese avant-garde art, and major
concepts regarding the perception of the avant-garde art movement as part of the
intellectual discourse of the 1980s, the differentiation between official art and unofficial
art in respect to content, style, and the basic concepts and functions of art, and the
commercialized nature of Chinese contemporary art since the early 1990s.44
Gao Minglu has continued his participation in Chinese art as it evolves and changes in
response to the shifting Chinese sociopolitical and economic context since the 1990s,
through curating exhibitions and writing about it. These more recent efforts have resulted
in two more exhibition catalogues, Inside/Out: New Chinese Art in 1998 and The Wall:
Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art in 2005, as well as many critical essays.45
His
recent work examines new developments in Chinese art in relation to current issues such
as globalization, transnationalism, and commercialization. Throughout his writings and
his continuing curatorial practice on Chinese contemporary art, Gao clearly positions
himself from the perspective of the artists through narrating as an active participant of
Chinese art. He indeed maintains close personal relationships with many Chinese
44Gao Minglu, Introduction,The '85 Movement: Avant-garde Art in the Post-Mao Era (PhD
Dissertation),Harvard University, 2000.
45 Gao Minglu, ed.,Inside/Out: New Chinese Art(San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art, 1998); The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art[exhibition catalogue]
(Beijing: China Millennium Art Museum, 2005).
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contemporary artists and his interpretations of their art often evolve from their personal
experiences and explanations. He invests a great deal in investigating the subjectivities of
his artists and positions them as protagonists who act with a conscious awareness and
responsibility of being a participant and creator of the history. His writing manifests his
strong interest in constructing a grand narrative of Chinese contemporary art history that
centers on artists, their experiences, and their works and his conviction that every artist
must be given his or her due historical significance. It is here that I separate myself from
his scholarship, for I apply a different approach to looking at art history. Rather than
focusing on the individual agency of artists, I chart artists and art movements within a
social and political perspective in the context of changing economic and institutional
mechanisms. I am interested in exploring how the meaning of art can be produced,
circulated, received, and changed by the context within which it is both staged and
viewed, how art is made relevant to Chinas national and global politics, and eventually
how not only artists, but a wide range of people including Chinese officials, cultural
entrepreneurs, critics, curators and audiences from China and elsewhere participate in the
making of Chinese art history.
Chinese Cultural Nationalism and Culture since the 1990s
Another important body of scholarship that my work draws upon is literature on the new
revival of Chinese nationalism since the 1990s in relation to globalization by historian
Wang Gungwu and political scientists Zheng Yongnian and Guo Yingjie, whose writings
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offer thoughtful examinations on Chinese nationalism and provide the political and social
background for understanding the Chinese states cultural discourses since the 1990s. In
particular, Guo Yingjies book Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary China: the Search
for National Identity under Reform, released in 2004, is a timely study on Chinese
cultural nationalism in contemporary China, a movement that has played and is still
playing a prominent role in the governments present domestic and international
policies.46
In this first ever book-length study on the subject, the author illuminates the
Chinese Communist Partys necessity to embrace and promote cultural nationalism as an
alternative and supplemental ideology since the Party has had to shift away from its
traditional Marxist-Maoist basis of ideology since the 1990s.47
In light of these scholars
works, I frame the Chinese states recent art-related policies and projects, including the
active support of Chinese contemporary art and the investment in international biennales,
as part of the states cultural pr