Avant Garde Art Groups In China

Provides a new perspective on the Chinese avant-garde through the figure of artist and activist Tian Han

A groundbreaking book that describes a distinctively Chinese avant-gardism and a modernity that unifies art, politics, and social life. To the extent that Chinese contemporary art has become a global phenomenon, it is largely through the groundbreaking exhibitions curated by Gao Minglu: "China/Avant-Garde" (Beijing, 1989), "Inside Out: New Chinese Art" (Asia Society, New York, 1998), and "The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art" (Albright-Knox Art Gallery, 2005) among them. As the first Chinese writer to articulate a distinctively Chinese avant-gardism and modernity—one not defined by Western chronology or formalism—Gao Minglu is largely responsible for the visibility of Chinese art in the global art scene today. Contemporary Chinese artists tend to navigate between extremes, either embracing or rejecting a rich classical tradition. Indeed, for Chinese artists, the term "modernity" refers not to a new epoch or aesthetic but to a new nation—modernityinextricably connects politics to art. It is this notion of "total modernity" that forms the foundation of the Chinese avant-garde aesthetic, and of this book. Gao examines the many ways Chinese artists engaged with this intrinsic total modernity, including the '85 Movement, political pop, cynical realism, apartment art, maximalism, and the museum age, encompassing the emergenceof local art museums and organizations as well as such major events as the Shanghai Biennial. He describes the inner logic of the Chinese context while locating the art within the framework of a worldwide avant-garde. He vividly describes the Chinese avant-garde's embrace of a modernity that unifies politics, aesthetics, and social life, blurring the boundaries between abstraction, conception, and representation. Lavishly illustrated with color images throughout, this book will be a touchstone for all considerations of Chinese contemporary art.

This volume gives a critical account of four of the most significant avant-garde art groups active within the People's Republic of China between 1979 and 1989.

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Chinese art has experienced its most profound metamorphosis since the early 1950s, transforming from humble realism to socialist realism, from revolutionary art to critical realism, then avant-garde movement, and globalized Chinese art. With a hybrid mix of Chinese philosophy, imported but revised Marxist ideology, and western humanities, Chinese artists have created an alternative approach – after a great ideological and aesthetic transition in the 1980s – toward its own contemporaneity though interacting and intertwining with the art of rest of the world. This book will investigate, from the perspective of an activist, critic, and historian who grew up prior to and participated in the great transition, and then researched and taught the subject, the evolution of Chinese art in modern and contemporary times. The volume will be a comprehensive and insightful history of the one of the most sophisticated and unparalleled artistic and cultural phenomena in the modern world.

This volume gives a critical account of four of the most significant avant-garde art groups active within the People's Republic of China between 1979 and 1989.

Since the mid-1980s, China has seen a flowering of artistic activity that has paralleled and often commented on the explosion in material culture brought about by economic reform. China Avant-garde provides an overview of recent cultural developments and presents examples of works by 60 ofthe most prominent and influential Chinese artists active today . Articles by prominent Chinese art historians detail recent history in the arts, as well as presenting discussions of developments in cinema, literature (including theatre and poetry), Chinese classical and popular music, and photography.

Since the confirmation of Deng Xiaoping’s policy of Opening and Reform in 1978, the People’s Republic of China has undergone a liberalization of culture that has led to the production of numerous forms of avant-garde, experimental, and museum-based art. With a fast-growing international market and a thriving artistic community, contemporary Chinese art is riding a wave of prosperity, though issues of censorship still abound. Shedding light on the current art scene, Paul Gladston’s Contemporary Chinese Art puts China’s recent artistic output into the context of the wider cultural, economic, and political conditions that surround it. Providing a critical mapping of ideas and practices that have shaped the development of Chinese art, Gladston shows how these combine to bind it to the structure of power and state both within and outside of China. Focusing principally on art produced by artists from mainland China—including painting, film, video, photography, and performance—he also discusses art created in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and diasporic communities. Illustrated with 150 images, Contemporary Chinese Art unravels the complexities of politics, artistic practice, and culture in play in China’s art scene.