CCA Contempory Chinese Art Reader

Contemporary Chinese Art
PRIMARY DOCUMENTS
Author
Hung Wu
Date
2010
Publisher
The Museum of Modern Art
Purchase URL
https://store.moma.org/books/books/contemporary-chinese-art-primary-
documents/943-943.html
MoMA’s Primary Documents publication series is a preeminent resource for

researchers and students of global art history. With each volume devoted to a
particular critic, country or region outside North America or Western Europe
during a delimited historical period, these anthologies offer archival sources––
such as manifestos, artists’ writings, correspondence, and criticism––in English
translation, often for the first time. Newly commissioned contextual essays by
experts in the field make these materials accessible to non-specialist readers,
thereby providing the critical tools needed for building a geographically inclusive
understanding of modern art and its histories. Some of the volumes in the Primary
Documents series are now available online, free-of-charge.
© 2010 The Museum of Modern Art

Erratum
In the print edition of this publication, on page 121, the 1989

installation and performance Dialogue was mistakenly attributed
to both Xiao Lu and Tang Song. Although Tang Song was also
arrested following the event, Xiao Lu is the sole author of the work.
CONTEMPORARY CHINESE ART
Edited by
WU HUNG
with the assistance of

PEGGY WANG
THE MUSEUM
OF MODERN ART,
NEW YORK
PRIMARY DOCUMENTS
Contemporary Chinese Art: Primary Documents is Cover: Mao Tongqiang. Tools (detail). 2005 – 8.
made possible by lead sponsor The Robert H. N. Ho Installation with found objects, 3,875 square feet
Family Foundation. (360 square meters). Installation view, Beijing,
B·
2008
Inside covers: Hong Hao. Selected Scriptures,

Page 331, The Strategic Defense Order (detail).
1995. Screenprint, 22 × 30 3 ⁄4" (56 × 78 cm).
Generous support is provided by Guangdong Museum of Art, China. See pl. 46
The International Council of The Museum of
Modern Art.
s colo ur: Lo g o - Sp o t colo ur: Lo g o typ e - 4C an d sp o t colo ur: Title page: The first Stars Art Exhibition, outside
K 40 PMS 194 K 100
Additional funding is provided by Budi Tek, the National Art Gallery in Beijing, on opening
Byron A. Meyer, E. Rhodes & Leona B. Carpenter day, September 27, 1979. Photograph by
Foundation, Jerry I. Speyer and Katherine G. Farley, Li Xiaobin
Blakemore Foundation, Guy and Myriam Ullens,
LLWW Foundation, OCT Contemporary Art Pages 2 – 3: The Stars demonstration on October 1,
Terminal of He Xiangning Art Museum ( OCAT ), 1979. Detail of photograph reproduced in
Anne H. Bass, Jo Carole Lauder, Larry Warsh Newsweek, October 15, 1979. See p. 9
and AW Asia, Robert Rosenkranz Foundation,
Vicki and Roger Sant, Agnes Gund, Robert E. Pages 150 – 51: Zhuang Hui. Shooting a Group
Meyerhoff, The Fran and Ray Stark Foundation, Portrait (detail). 1997. Color photograph,
H.R.H. Duke Franz of Bavaria, Jack Shear, 3' 4" × 24'11" (101 × 760 cm). Collection the artist.
Thierry Barbier-Mueller, Mr. Marc Besen AO See p. 227
and Mrs. Eva Besen AO, Lyn and Jerry Grinstein
in honor of Jay Levenson, Sophia Sheng, Eleanor
Ford Sullivan, Migs Wright, Constance Caplan, Printed in Italy
Uli Sigg, and Lenore and Bernard Greenberg.
Produced by the Department of Publications,

The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Edited by Joseph N. Newland, Q.E.D.

Designed by Gina Rossi
Production by Christina Grillo
Printed and bound by Editoriale Bortolazzi-Stei s.r.l.,
Verona
This book is typeset in Linotype Syntax, Neuzon,

and STHeiti. The paper is 150 gsm Eurobulk.
Published by The Museum of Modern Art

11 W. 53 Street, New York, New York 10019
( www. moma.org )
© 2010 The Museum of Modern Art,

New York. All rights reserved
Certain texts and illustrations are covered

by claims to copyright cited in the Text Copyrights
and Photograph and Illustration Credits on
p. 454
Distributed by Duke University Press, Durham, N.C.

( www.dukeupress.edu )
Library of Congress Control Number: 2010928884

ISBN: 978-0-8223-4943-3
This book is supplemented by a Web site, at

www.moma.org / chineseprimarydoc, containing
additional historical texts on the subject of Chinese
contemporary art. Further texts may be added
to the Web site over time, making it an ongoing
archive.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
v
CONTENTS
xi
| AFTER THE STORM

xiv ABOUT THIS VOLUME
1CONTEMPORARY ART AS DOMESTIC

MOVEMENT, 1976 – 89
I. THE BEGINNING OF CONTEMPORARY
ART: 1979 – 84
5 INTRODUCTION
6 UNOFFICIAL ART GROUPS AND EXHIBITIONS

7 PREFACE TO THE FIRST NATURE, SOCIETY, AND MAN EXHIBITION
( ZIRAN, SHEHUI, REN ) ( 1979 )
By Wang Zhiping
7 PREFACE TO THE FIRST STARS ART EXHIBITION ( XINGXING
MEIZHAN ) ( 1979 )
By Huang Rui
8 A LETTER TO THE PEOPLE ( 1979 )
By Xu Wenli and Liu Qing et al.
11 ABOUT THE STARS ART EXHIBITION ( 1980 )
Compiled by Li Xianting
14 A DEBATE ON “FORMAL BEAUTY” AND
OTHER ISSUES
14 FORMALIST AESTHETICS IN PAINTING ( 1979 )
By Wu Guanzhong
17 EMOTION, INDIVIDUALITY, FORMAL AESTHETICS ( 1979 )
By Liu Shaohui
19 NEW DIRECTIONS IN REALIST PAINTING
Scar Art
19 SOME THOUGHTS ON CREATING THE PICTURE-STORY BOOK
MAPLE ( FENG ) ( 1980 )
By Chen Yiming, Liu Yulian, and Li Bin
22 MAN’S RATIONAL MEDITATION: A BRIEF DISCUSSION OF
CHENG CONGLIN’S THEMATIC OIL PAINTINGS ( 1970S / 1994 )
By Deng Pingxiang
Native Soil Art
23 A LETTER FROM THE ARTIST OF FATHER ( FUQIN ) ( 1981 )
By Luo Zhongli
25 MY SEVEN PAINTINGS ( 1981 )
By Chen Danqing
Melancholy Youth and “Contemplative Painting”
29 EXPECTING HER TO WALK ON THE MAIN ROAD ( 1981 )
By Wang Chuan
30 “CONTEMPLATIVE PAINTING” IN CHINA AND ANDREW WYETH ( 1985 )
By Ruan Xudong
II. THE ARRIVAL OF AN AVANT-GARDE

MOVEMENT: 1985 – 86
35 POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL CONTEXTS
36 ENLIGHTENMENT OF A NEW ERA: ON IN THE NEW ERA
( ZAI XINSHIDAI ) ( 1985 )
By Zhang Qun and Meng Luding
38 PIONEERS OF CONTEMPORARY CHINESE ART — A CRITIQUE OF
THE PROGRESSIVE YOUNG CHINESE ARTISTS EXHIBITION ( 1985 )
By Zhao Jinghuan
42 BEIJING THEORISTS’ REACTIONS TO THE ART OF ROBERT
RAUSCHENBERG ( 1985 )
Compiled by Zhu Ye
45 FOREWORD TO FINE ARTS IN CHINA ( 1985 )
45 APPENDIX A NATIONWIDE FORUM AND MODEL: ART
MAGAZINES AND SYMPOSIA ( 2003 )
By Martina Köppel-Yang
51 ’85 ART NEW WAVE
General Discussions
52 THE ‘85 ART MOVEMENT ( 1986 )
By Gao Minglu
62 THE SIGNIFICANCE IS NOT THE ART ( 1986 )
By Li Jiatun [ pseud. Li Xianting ]
63 A SUMMARY OF EVALUATIONS OF THE ‘85 ART MOVEMENT
( 1986 )
Compiled by Gao Minglu
66 APPENDIX THE LANDSCAPE OF CHINA’S MODERN ART
MOVEMENT ( 1991 )
By Tong Dian
Writings by Members of Selected Art Groups
78 WE — PARTICIPANTS OF THE “’85 ART MOVEMENT” ( 1986 )
By Wang Guangyi
79 AN EXPLANATION OF THE NORTHERN ART GROUP ( 1987 )
By Shu Qun
83 ON NEW SPACE AND THE POND SOCIETY ( 1987 )
By Shi Jiu
89 NEW FIGURATIVE: MANIFESTATION AND TRANSCENDENCE
IN FIGURATIVE PATTERNS OF LIFE ( 1987 )
By Mao Xuhui
94 RED BRIGADE PRECEPT ( 1987 )
By Ding Fang
95 STATEMENT ON BURNING ( 1986 )
By Huang Yong Ping
96 INTRODUCTION TO THE EVENTS EXHIBITION THAT TOOK PLACE
AT THE EXHIBITION HALL OF THE FUJIAN ART MUSEUM ( 1986 )
By Huang Yong Ping
97 TOWARD A PHYSICAL STATE OF CONTEMPORARY ART
ITSELF ( 1986 )
By Wang Du
III. FROM COLLECTIVITY TO INDIVIDUAL

CREATIVITY: 1987 – 89
99 INTRODUCTION
100 RETHINKING THE MOVEMENT

100 RETURNING TO ART ITSELF ( 1988 )
By Jia Fangzhou
101 RETHINKING ART
Purifying Artistic Language
101 A FEW THOUGHTS ( 1988 )
By Zhu Zude and Liu Zhenggang
Absurdity and Irrationality
103 NON-EXPRESSIVE PAINTINGS ( 1986 )
By Huang Yong Ping
Art as Process
105 LOOKING FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT IN A QUIET
PLACE ( 1989 )
By Xu Bing
106 REGARDING “ANALYSIS” ( 1989 )
By Chen Shaoping
106 CHALLENGING MODERNISM — AN INTERVIEW WITH
WENDA GU ( 1986 )
Conducted by Fei Dawei
Against the Public
112 THE POINT OF DEPARTURE FOR ART PROJECT NO. 2
( YISHU JIHUA DI ER HAO ) ( 1988 / 2008 )
By Zhang Peili
113 THE CHINA / AVANT-GARDE EXHIBITION
The Exhibition
114 BACKGROUND MATERIAL ON THE CHINA / AVANT-GARDE
EXHIBITION ( 1989 )
By Zhou Yan
116 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA / AVANT-GARDE CURATOR ( 1989 )
By Li Xianting
121 A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF CHINA / AVANT-GARDE ( 1989 )
By Hang Jian and Cao Xiao’ou
The “End” of the New Wave
127 FACING THE END OF THE NEW WAVE: AN INTERVIEW WITH
FINE ARTS IN CHINA ( 1989 )
By Peng De
128 THE MODERNIST DILEMMA AND OUR OPTIONS ( 1989 )
By Yi Ying
134 ILLUSTRATIONS
2
GLOBALIZATION AND A DOMESTIC
TURN, 1990 – 2000
152 INTRODUCTION
I. INTRINSIC PERSPECTIVES
154 ARTISTIC TRENDS IN THE EARLY 1990S
( 1990 – 93 )
155 NEW GENERATION AND CLOSE UP ARTISTS ( 1992 )
By Yin Jinan
157 APATHY AND DECONSTRUCTION IN POST-‘89 ART: ANALYZING THE
TRENDS OF “CYNICAL REALISM” AND “POLITICAL POP” ( 1992 )
By Li Xianting
167 APPENDIX THE MISREAD GREAT CRITICISM ( DA PIPAN ) ( 2008 )
By Huang Zhuan
171 TENDENCIES IN CHINESE POP ( 1996 )
By Gu Chengfeng
179 A SURVEY OF CONTEMPORARY CHINESE PERFORMANCE ART ( 1999 )
By Gao Ling
184 MAJOR TRENDS IN CONTEMPORARY CHINESE
ART OF THE MID- TO LATE 1990S
185 Identity and Experience
Self
185 A PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF 65 KG ( 1994 / 2000 )
By Zhang Huan
187 FOUR NOTES ( 1994 )
By Ma Liuming
188 THE BOUNDARY OF FREEDOM: A PERSONAL STATEMENT ON
ASSIGNMENT NO. 1 ( ZUOYE YIHAO ) ( 1994 / 2003 )
By Qiu Zhijie
190 REPORT FROM THE ARTIST’S STUDIO ( 1996 ) INTERVIEW WITH
ZHANG XIAOGANG
by Huang Zhuan
192 PREFACE TO IT’S ME! ( SHI WO! ) ( 1998 / 2000 )
By Leng Lin
Feminism and Women’s Art
193 WALKING OUT OF THE ABYSS: MY FEMINIST CRITIQUE ( 1994 )
By Xu Hong
194 TOWARD A FEMALE INITIATIVE ( 1996 / 2003 )
By Tao Yongbai
197 WRAPPING AND SEVERING ( 1997 )
By Lin Tianmiao
198 CLOTHES CHEST ( YIXIANG ) ( 1995 )
By Yin Xiuzhen
198 Engagement with Social Transformation
Gaudy Art
199 LIVING IN KITSCH — THE CRITICAL “IRONY” OF GAUDY
ART ( 1999 )
By Liao Wen
Urban Destruction and Construction
205 “CHANGCHUN, CHINA”: A REPORT ON A PERFORMANCE
OF MAKING RUBBINGS FROM BUILDINGS SLATED
FOR DEMOLITION ( 1994 )
By Huang Yan
206 ‘94 ACTION PLAN FOR DEBRIS SALVAGE SCHEMES FOR
IMPLEMENTATION AND RESULTS ( 1994 )
By Zhan Wang
207 NEW MAP OF BEIJING: TODAY AND TOMORROW’S
CAPITAL — ROCKERY REMOLDING PLAN ( 1995 )
By Zhan Wang
208 ONE HOUR GAME ( YOUXI YI XIAOSHI ) ( 1996 / 1997 )
By Liang Juhui
209 REPORT ON ZHANG DALI’S DIALOGUE ( DUIHUA ) ( 1998 )
By Jiang Tao
212 A DIALOGUE ON DIALOGUE ( 2000 )
Conducted by Gou Hongbing with Zhang Dali
Sociality in Contemporary Art
213 STATE OF EXISTENCE ( 1994 )
By Zhu Fadong
214 12 SQUARE METERS ( 12 PINGFANG MI ) ( 1994 )
By Zhang Huan
215 ICE • ’96 CENTRAL PLAINS ( BING • 96 ZHONGYUAN ) ( 1996 / 2000 )
By Wang Jin
216 ON PAINTED SCULPTURES ( 1995 / 1997 )
By Liu Jianhua
217 STANDARD FAMILY ( BIAOZHUN JIATING ) ( 1996 / 1997 )
By Wang Jinsong
217 WHY DO I WANT TO PHOTOGRAPH THE STREETS OF
GUANGZHOU? ( 2002 )
By Chen Shaoxiong
219 Experimental Photography and Video Art
Photography
219 TRENDS AND STAGES OF PHOTOGRAPHY’S DEVELOPMENT
IN MAINLAND CHINA SINCE 1976 ( 1994 )
By Li Mei and Yang Xiaoyan
224 APPENDIX ZERO TO INFINITY: THE NASCENCE OF PHOTOGRAPHY
IN CONTEMPORARY CHINESE ART OF THE 1990S ( 2002 )
By Karen Smith
227 I ONLY CHOSE THE “GROUP PORTRAIT” ( 1997 )
By Zhuang Hui
230 FRAGMENTS ( 1998 / 2004 )
By Rong Rong
231 A FEW WORDS ON THE PHOTOS ( 2002 )
By Hai Bo
Video Art
232 APPENDIX THE RISE AND DEVELOPMENT OF VIDEO ART
AND THE MATURITY OF NEW MEDIA ART ( 2002 )
By Wu Meichun and Qiu Zhijie
238 SELECTED VIDEO WORKS OF THE 1990S ( 1992 – 97 / 2008 )
By Zhang Peili
242 SIX VIDEO WORKS ( 1997 )
By Wang Jianwei
246 AN ARRANGEMENT OF A FEW IDEAS AND SOME WORK ( 2002 )
By Zhou Xiaohu
248 Overseas Chinese Artists
249 ENTROPY, CHINESE ARTISTS, WESTERN ART INSTITUTIONS:
A NEW INTERNATIONALISM ( 1994 )
By Hou Hanru
252 DOES A CULTURE IN EXILE NECESSARILY WITHER? — A LETTER TO
LI XIANTING ( 1991 / 2003 )
By Fei Dawei
254 ON WORDS ( 1999 / 2000 )
By Xu Bing
257 face the new millennium: the divine comedy of our times; a thesis
on the united nations art project and its time and environment
( 1995 / 2003 )
By Wenda Gu
260 WILD FLIGHTS OF FANCY ( 1998 )
By Cai Guo-Qiang
266 AI WEIWEI DIALOGUE WITH ZHUANG HUI ( 1995 )
269 STATEMENT ( 1989 )
By Hung Liu
269 ABOUT RESIDENT ALIEN ( 2000 )
By Hung Liu
270 Debates over Using Animals and the Human
Body in Making Art
271 POST-SENSE SENSIBILITY: DISTORTED BODIES AND DELUSION ( 1999 )
By Qiu Zhijie and Wu Meichun
274 REFLECTIONS ON PERFORMANCE ART ( 2002 )
By Chen Lüsheng
276 MINISTRY OF CULTURE NOTICE ( 2001 )
277 ZHU YU’S SKIN GRAFT ( ZHI PI ) ( 2000 / 2003 )
By Zhu Yu, with introduction and commentary by Wu Hung
II. EXTRINSIC PERSPECTIVES

288 INTRODUCTION
289 ESTABLISHING AN INFRASTRUCTURE FOR

CONTEMPORARY ART
Contemporary Art and the Market
290 HEADING TOWARD THE MARKET ( 1992 )
By Lü Peng
291 WHO IS GOING TO SPONSOR THE HISTORY? ( 1991 )
INTERVIEW WITH HUANG ZHUAN
The First 1990s Biennial Art Fair
298 CATALOGUE PREFACE: OPENING UP THE 1990S ( 1992 )
By Lü Peng
299 NOTES ON THE SELECTION PROCESS ( 1992 )
By Chen Xiaoxin
303 REFLECTIONS AND QUESTIONS RAISED AFTER THE FIRST 1990S
BIENNIAL ART FAIR ( 1993 )
By Lü Peng
The “System” of 1990s Contemporary Chinese Art
307 FROM “SYSTEM” TO “CIRCLE”: AN ANALYSIS OF THE STATE OF
AVANT-GARDE ART IN THE LATE 1990S ( 2003 )
By Wu Hong
Art Medium and Criticism
310 CONTEMPORARY CHINESE ART MEDIA IN THE 1990S ( 1999 )
By Pi Daojian and Pi Li
316 CRITICISM ON CHINESE EXPERIMENTAL ART IN THE 1990S ( 2002 )
By Yi Ying
324 MY OUTLOOK ON CRITICISM ( 2003 )
By Yin Shuangxi
325 MY VIEW OF ART AND CRITICISM ( 2003 )
By Huang Du
326 EXPERIMENTAL ART EXHIBITIONS AND THE
2000 SHANGHAI BIENNALE
Experimental Exhibitions
327 “EXPERIMENTAL EXHIBITIONS” OF THE 1990S ( 2002 )
By Wu Hung
337 SUPERMARKET ( CHAOSHI ZHAN ): INFORMATION FOR SPONSORS
( 1999 )
By Xu Zhen, Yang Zhenzhong, and Alexander Brandt
338 THE PATH TO TRACE OF EXISTENCE ( SHENGCUN HENJI ): A PRIVATE
CONTENTS

SHOWING OF CONTEMPORARY CHINESE ART ( 1998 )
By Feng Boyi
343 POST-SENSE SENSIBILITY ( HOU GANXING ): A MEMORANDUM ( 2000 )
By Qiu Zhijie
The 2000 Shanghai Biennale
347 TRANSCENDING LEFT AND RIGHT: THE SHANGHAI BIENNALE AMID
TRANSITIONS ( 2000 )
By Zhang Qing
351 CHINA’S FIRST LEGITIMATE MODERN ART EXHIBITION: THE 2000
SHANGHAI BIENNALE ( 2000 / 2003 )
By Zhu Qingsheng
353 THE SHANGHAI ART MUSEUM SHOULD NOT BECOME A MARKET
STALL IN CHINA FOR WESTERN HEGEMONY — A PAPER DELIVERED
AT THE 2000 SHANGHAI BIENNALE ( 2000 )
By Wang Nanming
354 PREFACE TO FUCK OFF ( BUHEZUO FANGSHI ) ( 2000 )
By Ai Weiwei and Feng Boyi
356 CONTEMPORARY CHINESE ART IN THE
GLOBAL CONTEXT
Contemporary Chinese Art in the West
357 THE RECEPTION IN THE WEST OF EXPERIMENTAL MAINLAND
CHINESE ART OF THE 1990S ( 2002 )
By Britta Erickson
363 ENTROPY, CHINESE ARTISTS, WESTERN ART INSTITUTIONS: A NEW
INTERNATIONALISM ( 1994 )
By Hou Hanru
Questions about the “International Identity” of
Contemporary Chinese Art
366 OLIVA IS NOT THE SAVIOR OF CHINESE ART ( 1993 )
By Wang Lin
The Rent Collection Courtyard Controversy
368 THE RENT COLLECTION COURTYARD COPYRIGHT BREACHED OVERSEAS:
SICHUAN FINE ARTS INSTITUTE SUES VENICE BIENNALE ( 2001 )
Introduction by Britta Erickson
371 THE REPRODUCTION OF RENT COLLECTION COURTYARD AND
POSTMODERNISM ( 2000 )
By Dao Zi
377 QUOTING DOES NOT EQUAL PLAGIARISM ( 2000 )
By Liu Xiaochun
380 ILLUSTRATIONS
396 CODA: ENTERING THE NEW MILLENNIUM

( 2000 – 2008 )
408 CHRONICLE 1976 – 2006
437 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
441 INDEX
456 THE TRUSTEES OF THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

T he series of documentary anthologies to which this volume belongs began in
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
2002 with the publication of Primary Documents: A Sourcebook for Eastern and
Central European Art since the 1950s. The goal of the series is to make accessible to
English-language readers primary documents relating to the visual arts of specific
countries, historical moments, disciplines, and themes. Subsequent titles include:
Listen, Here, Now! Argentine Art of the 1960s: Writings of the Avant-Garde ( 2004 ),
Alfredo Boulton and His Contemporaries: Critical Dialogues in Venezuelan Art,
1912 – 1974 ( 2008 ), and Modern Swedish Design: Three Founding Texts ( 2008 ).
We are now delighted to present the next offering in our series, Contemporary
Chinese Art: Primary Documents. Over the past two decades, contemporary art from
China has received ever-increasing attention in the international art press, in
museum exhibitions throughout the world — including shows at MoMA — and in
university-level art history courses. However, original documents by artists and crit-
ics from China have remained difficult to access for anyone without the ability to
read Chinese. We felt that a publication that made available in English a full range
of critical texts, artists’ writings, and scholarly essays would be essential reading
for anyone interested in the subject who wanted a deeper understanding of the
visual arts of mainland China over the past several decades.
We quickly determined that the best editor for this volume would be Wu Hung,
the Harrie A. Vanderstappen Distinguished Service Professor in Art History and East
Asian Languages and Civilizations, Director of the Center for the Art of East Asia,
and Consulting Curator at the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago.
Prof. Wu began his career as a scholar of traditional Chinese art, and since the
1980s, he has developed an additional specialty in contemporary Chinese art, as a
curator, a critic, and an historian. He has quickly become the acknowledged inter-
national authority in this field. We are deeply indebted to him for accepting the
challenge of editing this book, the first of its type in English; for his rigorous prepa-
ratory work on the publication in conducting an in-depth survey of Chinese art
between 1976 and 2006; and for the mastery with which he organized the texts and
wrote his own precise introductions and summarizing Coda.
Wu Hung’s first step was to work with OCT Contemporary Art Terminal of the
He Xiangning Art Museum ( OCAT ) to convene a meeting of an advisory team of
leading scholars, critics, and artists in Shenzhen, China, to ensure that a broad
range of voices would be considered in the history presented in this book. We are
grateful to our co-organizers at OCAT for making this important workshop possible,
in particular to Fang Lihua and Le Zhengwei. The generosity and expertise of the
participants helped shape this volume, and we wish to acknowledge them indi-
vidually: Fei Dawei, Feng Boyi, Huang Zhuan, Liu Xiaochun, Lü Peng, and Zhu
Qingsheng. Jane DeBevoise of the Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong; Sarah Suzuki, The
Sue and Eugene Mercy, Jr., Assistant Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books at
MoMA; and I also attended the meeting. Sarah Suzuki and I are particularly grateful
to Peggy Wang, currently a PhD candidate in Art History at the University of
Chicago and soon to be an Assistant Professor of Art History at Denison University,
for providing us access to the fascinating discussions and debates through a run-
ning translation of the proceedings.
Peggy Wang served in addition as the editorial associate for Contemporary
Chinese Art, working closely with Wu Hung on all aspects of the book. She was
invaluable in this role for her work in researching and collecting the numerous texts
and far-flung images, for supervising a large team of translators and shepherding
the resulting translations, for contributing translations herself of key texts, and for
ensuring that the manuscript was completed to the highest of standards, on time
xii
and on budget. She brought to the project her tireless commitment, academic rigor,
|
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
and scholarly understanding of the field to ensure the realization of the book.
Contemporary Chinese Art: Primary Documents could not have been produced
without the generous support of a number of key sponsors. The publication and
related launch events were made possible by The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation,
and we are deeply grateful to the Foundation for supporting this important project,
which shares their mission of seeking to deepen our understanding of contemporary
Chinese art and also to encourage cross-cultural exchange. Significant support was
also provided by The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art and its
members, who have sponsored our series of publications from its inception. We
wish to express our special thanks to Jo Carole Lauder, the Council’s President Ex-
Officio; Sharon Rockefeller, the Council’s new President; Agnes Gund, its Chairman;
and Carol Coffin, its Executive Director. Additional funding was provided by Budi
Tek, Byron A. Meyer, E. Rhodes & Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, Jerry I. Speyer and
Katherine G. Farley, Blakemore Foundation, Guy and Myriam Ullens, LLWW
Foundation, OCT Contemporary Art Terminal of He Xiangning Art Museum ( OCAT ),
Anne H. Bass, Jo Carole Lauder, Larry Warsh and AW Asia, Robert Rosenkranz
Foundation, Vicki and Roger Sant, Agnes Gund, Robert E. Meyerhoff, The Fran and
Ray Stark Foundation, H.R.H. Duke Franz of Bavaria, Jack Shear, Thierry Barbier-
Mueller, Mr. Marc Besen AO and Mrs. Eva Besen AO, Lyn and Jerry Grinstein in
honor of Jay Levenson, Sophia Sheng, Eleanor Ford Sullivan, Migs Wright, Constance
Caplan, Uli Sigg, and Lenore and Bernard Greenberg.
Many members of the Museum’s staff helped with this publication. We are
particularly grateful to Sarah Suzuki, who, in her role as an advisor to the publica-
tion, dedicated so much time and enthusiasm to make sure that the resulting book
reflects the Museum’s interest in the field of contemporary Chinese art and is acces-
sible and relevant to MoMA’s varied audiences. We thank her for this and for her
own commitment to the field of contemporary Chinese art, which has resulted in
important acquisitions of works of art for the collection and exhibitions at the
Museum. In the Department of Publications, we wish to thank the wonderful team
that has helped us produce our series of books: Christopher Hudson, Publisher;
Kara Kirk, Associate Publisher; and Marc Sapir, Production Director; Christina Grillo,
Production Manager; and Hannah Kim, Marketing Coordinator. We are especially
grateful to David Frankel, Editorial Director, for the insights and support he brought
to this project. Contemporary Chinese Art is the first volume in this series that is
accompanied by Web pages on moma.org, which complement the book and make
available related texts and images; we thank Allegra Burnette, Creative Director of
Digital Media, for making this possible. In the International Program, we are grate-
ful to Sylvia Renner, Assistant to the Director, for helping with many of the organi-
zational details of the book, and to Gwen Farrelly, Program Associate, for her
critical work in overseeing the project management and staffing of the manuscript
and the organization of the launch events and for her dedication to every aspect
of the book’s quality. We thank Kristopher Kersey and Kip Michel, formerly of the
International Program, for their work and feedback in the early stages of the proj-
ect, in addition to Erica Huang. In our development office we wish to thank
Elizabeth Burke, Foundation Relations Director; Alexis Ferguson, Manager of
Corporate Membership; and Anna Berns, Development Officer for all of their help.
In the Museum Library we are grateful to Milan Hughston and Jennifer Tobias. We
also owe thanks to Doryun Chong, Associate Curator of Painting & Sculpture; Peter
Reed, Senior Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs; and Jennifer Russell, former
xiii
Senior Deputy Director for Exhibitions, Collections, and Programs. And we are
|
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
especially grateful to Kathy Halbreich, Associate Director, for her enthusiasm for
this project and the accompanying launch events, and to Glenn D. Lowry, the
Museum’s Director, for his support of the entire publication project from its con-
ception, and the series at large.
Outside the Museum, we thank Joseph N. Newland, Q.E.D., the editor of the
English-language edition of the book, for his essential work in editing the English
text and for the enthusiasm and energy that he brought to the final stages of the
project. We are especially grateful to Gina Rossi of Gina Rossi Design for an original
design that beautifully captures the spirit of the publication and the period. We
also thank Yinxing ( Mia ) Liu for her contributions to the text and photo research as
well as translations. We particularly appreciate the contributions of Zhu Qingsheng
and his team at Peking University’s Center for Visual Studies, including Fang Hui,
Pu Hong, Teng Yuning, Wu Lijun, and Zhou Mengxuan, who created the chronicle of
historical and art-historical events in China between 1976 and 2006. Wu Hung and
Peggy Wang assembled the expert team of translators who are based throughout
North America and China, and we acknowledge each of them for enabling our pub-
lic, staff, and researchers to gain access to so many documents that were previously
unavailable to English-language readers: Lee Ambrozy, Phillip Bloom, Xinxing Liu,
Kristen Loring, Kela Shang, Michelle Wang, and Jiayun Zhuang.
The Museum is collaborating with the Asia Art Archive ( AAA ), Hong Kong, to
co-launch this book and the AAA’s own Web-based project Materials of the Future:
Documenting Contemporary Chinese Art from 1980 – 1990. AAA’s commitment to col-
lecting, preserving, and making accessible information on contemporary Asian art
to a broad global audience parallels the underlying goal of this publication, and we
appreciate their collaboration and support of our project, and especially wish to
thank Claire Hsu, Jane DeBevoise, and Phoebe Wong.
Finally, we thank all of the artists, authors, and institutions and collectors who
provided permission to include and reproduce images and texts in Contemporary
Chinese Art: Primary Documents. Without their enthusiastic cooperation and
support, this volume could not have been produced.
Jay A. Levenson
Director, International Program
The Museum of Modern Art
D uring the past twenty to thirty years, contemporary Chinese art has emerged
ABOUT THIS VOLUME
as one of the liveliest and most creative trends within international contem-
porary art. Many exhibitions have introduced this art to a global audience, and the
number of publications about it has also grown rapidly. Except in a few cases, how-
ever, most of these publications are exhibition catalogues and picture albums. No
systematic introduction to contemporary Chinese art has yet been written in any
Western language, and nearly all the relevant primary documents exist only in
Chinese and are scattered in hard-to-find publications, making it extremely difficult
for international scholars and students of this art to use first-hand textual materials
in their research and writing. The primary goal of this volume is to remedy this situ-
ation by providing a collection of carefully selected texts in English translation. We
have also included some significant texts that originate in English or have been
translated previously. Arranged in chronological order and framed by contextual
explanations, these texts guide readers through the development of contemporary
Chinese art from the late 1970s into the 2000s.
From the beginning of this project, we recognized that the volume’s structure and
selection of documents would have to reflect a consensus among experts in this
field, especially Chinese art critics and curators who have played pivotal roles in
promoting contemporary Chinese art. For this purpose, a workshop co-organized
by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the OCT Contemporary Art Terminal
of the He Xiangning Art Museum ( OCAT ) was convened in Shenzhen, China, in
December 2007. Six veteran critics and organizers attended the meeting, including
Fei Dawei, Feng Boyi, Huang Zhuan, Liu Xiaochun, Lü Peng, and Zhu Qingsheng
( Gao Minglu, Li Xianting, and Yi Ying were invited but could not attend ). Other par-
ticipants included Le Zhengwei from the He Xiangning Art Museum; Jay Levenson
and Sarah Suzuki from MoMA; Jane DeBevoise from the Asia Art Archive, Hong
Kong ( as an invited observer ); Peggy Wang of the University of Chicago ( as the assis-
tant organizer and interpreter ); and Fang Lihua of OCAT ( as the assistant host orga-
nizer ). The meeting was chaired by Wu Hung. Over two full days, the workshop
discussed a wide range of historical, theoretical, and editorial issues in a candid and
often heated atmosphere to formulate the following guidelines for the volume:
• The term “contemporary Chinese art” ( Zhongguo dangdai yishu ) as employed in this
volume is not a purely temporal concept, but is defined more generally in the con-
text of post – Cultural Revolution Chinese society, politics, and globalization. Briefly,
the term refers to a broad artistic sphere that began to take shape in the 1970s and
that has undergone continuous development over the past thirty years. It consists
of various trends that self-consciously distinguished themselves from official art,
mainstream academic art, and traditional art ( although also constantly interacting
with these categories ). Sometimes called “modern art” ( xiandai yishu ), “avant-garde
art” ( qianwei yishu ), or “experimental art” ( shiyan yishu ), its basic characteristics
include persistent experimentation and social engagement, and a strong disposi-
tion towards internationalization. This volume therefore does not include materials
on academic art and ink painting, but it does reflect contemporary art’s engage-
ment with these fields.
• The volume focuses on contemporary Chinese art from mainland China, including
the activities of mainland artists residing overseas. This is because contemporary
Chinese art emerged as a domestic phenomenon in the 1970s and 1980s, and its
subsequent development has been closely related to China’s social and economic
xv
transformation. Artists who emigrated in the 1980s and 1990s were often key
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participants in the early avant-garde movements, and have continued to interact
with the mainland art world after moving to other countries. Based on this histor-
ical context, this volume does not include documents concerning contemporary art
in Taiwan or Hong Kong, or of artists who emigrated from mainland China before
the 1980s.
• The volume is not meant to be a comprehensive archive, nor does it provide an

interpretative history of contemporary Chinese art. Its main objective is to provide
carefully selected and translated primary documents to aid in the global under-
standing of and research into the development of contemporary Chinese art. To
help readers utilize the selected documents, each chapter and section starts with a
concise preface that explains the significance of the texts while providing the nec-
essary historical background. These prefaces thus provide a de facto narrative for
the volume. The volume also includes a Chronicle summarizing important art phe-
nomena and related political events.
• Based on the developmental phases of contemporary art since 1976, the volume is
divided into four periods: ( 1 ) the emergence of this art in the late 1970s, ( 2 ) the
avant-garde movements during the 1980s, ( 3 ) globalization and a “domestic turn”
in the 1990s, and ( 4 ) recent developments since 2000. Because of the lack of signif-
icant documents on contemporary art before 1979, the first period is not repre-
sented by translated texts but is introduced by a narrative account and the relevant
information in the Chronicle. Conversely, although abundant documents exist for
the period after 2000, the absence of the necessary historical distance for selecting
the most important of these means that this period is also represented only through
a summarizing Coda and the Chronicle. The translated documents in the volume
therefore come only from the years 1979 to 2000, while the chronicle spans the
period from 1976 to 2006.
• The documents selected for the volume belong to different genres and reflect dif-
ferent views. Their inclusion does not imply the endorsement of any particular
approach but rather reflects the history of contemporary Chinese art and its internal
complexity. The materials range across manifestos of avant-garde groups, prefaces
to important exhibitions, writings by representative artists, important critical and
analytical essays, significant debates, and even some official documents. In a few
cases, we also included texts written afterward to provide either missing historical
information or significant analytical perspectives. These later texts are labeled with
“Appendix” to distinguish them from historical documents written at the time.
• Owing to the changing content and context of contemporary Chinese art, the two
main sections covering 1979 – 89 and 1990 – 2000 are structured differently. Part
One on 1979 – 89 follows a chronological order and ends with the China / Avant-
Garde exhibition of 1989. Part Two concerning 1990 – 2000 is divided between
“intrinsic” and “extrinsic” perspectives on contemporary Chinese art. Intrinsic per-
spectives include style, content, medium, trends, and the artist’s self-identity.
Extrinsic perspectives include various social, political, and intellectual aspects,
such as infrastructure, exhibition and curatorial system, globalization, the market,
and art criticism.
The workshop in Shenzhen also discussed the volume’s compilation procedure. The
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six attending critics agreed to serve as the project’s advisers, continuing to provide
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ABOUT THIS VOLUME
feedback on the content and structure of the volume. Before the workshop, Wu
Hung had drafted a conceptual outline for the volume and made a rough selection
of primary documents as the basis for discussion. Based on the consensus reached
during the workshop, he revised both documents and sent them to the advisers for
consultation. Such communication continued throughout the compilation process.
Additional essays as well as other portions or unabridged versions of some longer
texts are being made available on www.moma.org / chineseprimarydoc — a related
Web site to which even more materials may be added in the future. A list of the
texts on the Web site as of press time can be found on page 453.
The translation of the primary texts was organized and administered by Peggy
Wang, who also served as the project manager and editorial associate. Based on
recommendations from several professors in major American universities and an
evaluation of sample translations, she assembled a team of translators, including
Lee Ambrozy, Phillip Bloom, Yinxing ( Mia ) Liu, Kristen Loring, Kela Shang, Michelle
Wang, and Jiayun Zhuang. The translation of each original Chinese text went
through four steps: a rough draft was provided by a translator; Wang revised the
draft; Wu Hung read the revised translation and made further changes; and Wang
finalized the text. Where there was an existing English translation, Wang or Wu
checked that against the original Chinese text and made necessary revisions. It
should be noted that some earlier texts by avant-garde artists are deliberately
obscure and ambiguous. In translating these texts we have tried to underscore the
writer’s basic ideas while also preserving the original flavor.
Under the direction of Zhu Qingsheng and Wu Hung, a team at Peking University’s
Center for Visual Studies that included Fang Hui, Pu Hong, Teng Yuning, Wu Lijun,
and Zhou Mengxuan compiled an extensive Chronicle of important events in the
history of contemporary Chinese art. Wu Hung streamlined it for this volume.
Yinxing Liu and Peggy Wang then translated it into English.
THE BEGINNING OF CONTEMPORARY ART | 2
1
CONTEMPORARY ART AS
3 | CONTEMPORARY ART AS DOMESTIC MOVEMENT
DOMESTIC MOVEMENT 1976–89
I. THE BEGINNING OF
CONTEMPORARY ART: 1979–84
W hen the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution began in 1966, it had an
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instant impact on the existing Chinese art system. Mobilized by Mao
Zedong ( 1893 – 1976 ), the political campaign suspended all courses in art acade-
mies, shut down all art magazines and periodicals, persecuted nine out of ten
famous artists and professors, and condemned individual artistic expression as
counterrevolutionary bourgeois garbage. The attack on the Four Olds — old ideas,
old culture, old customs, and old habits — also rendered exhibitions and discus-
sions of ancient and Western art non-existent. All of this was done under the
name of the “proletarian dictatorship,” an extreme means of political control
instigated by Mao to safeguard the purity of Communist ideology. The result was
a total politicization of art. Mao, now nearly deified, became the central figure of
innumerable paintings, sculptures, and prints. Other popular subjects of visual
representation included images of the revolutionary masses, the history and
current policies of the Chinese Communist Party, and Mao’s poetry. Highly formu-
laic in form and content, these images filled exhibitions throughout the country.
Whereas such extreme political and ideological control characterized the
Chinese art scene throughout the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976,1 it began
to foment opposition toward the latter part of that period. Particularly after 1973,
many young artists, both inside and outside of art schools,2 became increasingly
frustrated with the emptiness of Cultural Revolutionary art and began to secretly
explore alternative modes of artistic expression. Some of them reembraced the
idea of art-for-art’s sake, eagerly absorbing inspiration from Western modern art,
including Romantic, Impressionist, and Post-Impressionist paintings. Their
works, often small, poetic landscapes, demonstrated a radical departure from the
idioms of orthodox revolutionary art. In Beijing, for example, some twenty to
thirty like-minded young men and women gathered around the little-known
painter Zhao Wenliang and created a large body of oil paintings depicting almost
exclusively scenes from nature. They later called the group the No-Name Painting
Society ( Wu ming huahui ), when they held their first public exhibition in 1979.3
Another important phenomenon at the end of the Cultural Revolution was
the appearance of alternative political art. By the mid-1970s, Premier Zhou Enlai
had become the remaining hope for many Chinese, who saw him as the only per-
son able to save China from the disasters of the Cultural Revolution. With Zhou’s
death in January 1976, this hope seemed to vanish. Even worse, the extreme leftist
leaders headed by Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, condemned Zhou and prohibited peo-
ple from mourning him. All these factors triggered the April Fifth Incident, a mass
demonstration in Tiananmen Square which was suppressed by the government. A
group of young amateur photographers recorded the incident from beginning to
end and hid the negatives in spite of threats of government persecution. After
1976, they formed an underground network and compiled their private records
into volumes for public circulation.4
The Eleventh Party Congress in August 1977 officially ended the Cultural
Revolution. Deng Xiaoping returned to power the same year and began to imple-
ment a series of political and economic reforms. In art, many artists who had
been purged over the past twenty years under Mao’s rule were rehabilitated. Art
colleges were restored and started to admit students on all levels in 1978.
Mainstream art magazines, some of them reestablished as early as 1976, began
to feature Western, contemporary Japanese, and classical Chinese art. A result of
these changes was the reemergence of academic art, now eager to regain its
independence by distinguishing itself from propaganda art. In politics, the April
Fifth Incident was redefined as a “revolutionary event.” The Third Plenum of the
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Eleventh Party Congress, held in December 1978, further declared an end to class
THE BEGINNING OF CONTEMPORARY ART
struggle in favor of shifting “the emphasis of the Party’s work to socialist modern-
ization.” This provided crucial political sanctioning for the economic reforms that
would soon dominate the post-Maoist era.5
Partly owing to the new political atmosphere, a vibrant democracy movement
surfaced in late 1978 and early 1979. Young activists, many of whom had just
returned from the countryside to the cities, organized quasipolitical societies and
published a variety of political and literary journals. Whereas most of these groups
advocated antiauthoritarianism, some of them went so far as to reject the Party’s
leadership. Deng’s government responded by banning unofficial organizations
and activities, revealing the limitations of his “socialist democratization and legal-
ity.” Sympathetic to the dissidents but fearful of chaos returning, most Chinese
intellectuals and artists accepted Deng’s reasoning for the crackdown: the coun-
try’s newly regained stability required such governmental intervention. For all
these reasons, 1979 is remembered in modern Chinese history as a year flooded
with intense hope, anxiety, and pent-up emotion. Not coincidentally, this year
also witnessed the emergence of contemporary Chinese art, most clearly signified
by the first group of unofficial art exhibitions in public spaces.
Notes
. The Cultural e olution of ially ended by the Ele enth arty Congress in August . But, in fa t,
it on luded with Mao s death and the purging of the ang of our in the fall of .
. The Cultural e olution pre ented the graduation of se eral lasses in art olleges. Students remained
in these s hools to parti ipate in politi al a ti ities. Starting in , some s hools admitted students
sele ted from re olutionary workers, peasants, and soldiers. A May Se enth Art ni ersity was
established in the old Central A ademy of ine Arts, Bei ing.
. or a history of the No-Name ainting So iety, see ao Minglu, ed., “Wu ming”: Yige beiju qianwei de lishi
[ The “No-Name”: A History of a Self-Exiled Avant-Garde uilin: uang i Normal ni ersity ress, .
. Yongyuan de siyue [ Eternal April . Also see Wu Hung, Between ast and uture: A Short History of
Contemporary Chinese hotography, in Wu Hung and Christopher hillips et al., Between Past and
Future: New Photography and Video from China Chi ago: Smart Museum of Art, ni ersity of Chi ago
New York: International Center of hotography ttingen: Steidl ublishers in ollaboration with
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chi ago, and Asia So iety, New York, , .
. or Chinese politi s in the post Cultural e olution era, see Mauri e Meisner, Mao’s China and After:
A History of the People’s Republic New York: The ree ress, , .
UNOFFICIAL ART GROUPS AND EXHIBITIONS
I n 1979, for the first time in the history of the People’s Republic, unofficial art
exhibitions became an important phenomenon and attracted broad attention
from society at large. Three such shows were held in Beijing, the country’s politi-
cal center: the first Nature, Society, and Man ( Ziran, shehui, ren ) exhibition orga-
nized by the April Photography Society ( opening April 1 ), the first exhibition of
the No-Name Painting Society ( opening July 7 ), and the first exhibition of the
Stars Art Society ( opening September 27 ).
Most members of the three groups were young amateur artists who had never
received formal art training and were not affiliated with any art institution. Among
the three exhibitions, the first two were deliberately “apolitical.” Or rather, they
realized their political agenda by rejecting political propaganda and advocating
“pure” art.
In contrast, some works in the Stars Art Exhibition ( Xingxing meizhan ) were
explicitly political, shocking the viewers with a fierce attack on Maoist ideology.
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The rst Nature, Society, and Man e hibition at Sun Yat-sen ark, Bei ing, 1979
Echoing the democracy movement, the members of the Stars group also organized
the exhibition as a public declaration of their “outsider” position by staging the
show on the street outside the National Art Gallery, the headquarters of official
art. The police interfered and canceled the exhibition two days later. The Stars
responded by holding a public demonstration on October 1, the thirtieth anniver-
sary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST NATURE, SOCIETY, AND MAN EXHIBITION

( ZIRAN, SHEHUI, REN ) ( 1979 )
By Wang Zhiping
News photos annot repla e the art of photography. Content annot be e ualed with
form. hotography as an art should ha e its own language. It is now time to e plore art
with the language of art, ust as e onomi matters should be dealt with by using the
methods of e onomi s. The beauty of photography lies not ne essarily in important
sub e t matter or in of ial ideology, but should be found in nature s rhythms, in
so ial reality, and in emotions and ideas.
riginally published in Yongyuan de siyue [ Eternal April April 1979 : 88 89. Translator unknown.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST STARS ART EXHIBITION ( XINGXING MEIZHAN )

( 1979 )
By Huang Rui
We, twenty-three art e plorers, pla e some fruits of our labor here.
The world lea es unlimited possibilities for e plorers.
We ha e used our own eyes to know the world, and our own brushes and awls to
parti ipate in it. ur paintings ontain all sorts of e pressions, and these e pressions
speak to our own indi idual ideals.
The years ome at us there are no mysterious indi ations guiding our a tion. This
is pre isely the hallenge that life has raised to us. We annot remo e the element of
temporality the shadow of the past and the glow of the future are folded together,
forming the arious li ing onditions of today. esol ing to li e on and remembering
ea h lesson learned: this is our responsibility.
We lo e the ground beneath our feet. The land has nurtured us, we ha e no
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words to e press our passion for the land. Sei ing this moment of the thirtieth anni-
ersary of the nation s founding, we gi e our har est ba k to the land, and to the peo-
ple. This brings us loser. We are full of on den e.
Te t translated from a poster at the e hibition, September 1979. eprodu ed in Huang Rui: The Stars
Times 1977 – 1984 Bei ing: Thinking Hands uanyi Contemporary Art Ar hi e, 2007 . Translated by
hilip Tinari.
A LETTER TO THE PEOPLE ( 1979 )

By Xu Wenli and Liu Qing et al.
tober 1 of this year marked the thirtieth anni ersary of the founding of the eople s
epubli of China. In order to hampion the i il rights onferred by the Constitution of
the eople s epubli , all of Bei ing s unof ial press organi ations demonstrated against
the illegal a t that the ubli Se urity Bureau of the ong heng istri t of Bei ing om-
mitted when they for ibly shut down the unof ial outdoor Stars Art Exhibition (Xingxing
meizhan . The oppressed organi ed a gathering in front of the emo ra y Wall in idan.
After assembling, they mar hed toward the of es of the Muni ipal Committee of
Bei ing, seeking to further urge the Muni ipal Committee to deal seriously with the affair
of the Stars Art Exhibition.
rgani ed by the masses themsel es, the Stars outdoor e hibition opened on
September 27 in the street-side park to the eastern side of the National Art allery.
The eastern and southern sides of the e hibition site were both do ens of meters away
from the street. The western side of the site was the eastern wall of the museum, and
in the northern part was a small stand of trees. In total, the e hibition presented the
works of twenty-three young artists. The works both inherited from tradition and
broke through that tradition , striking people like a breath of fresh air.
The e hibition was open for two days, from September 27 28. All was orderly,
the spe tators were enthusiasti , and the e hibition was lled with the ultural life
brought by the isitors to the street-side park. Throughout the show, it re ei ed the
support and praise of earlier generations of artists.
But it was pre isely this kind of wonderful e hibition that met the misfortune of
being for efully shut down. Early in the morning on September 29, the ong heng
ubli Se urity Bureau mobili ed nearly one hundred poli emen, who sei ed all of the
e hibited works left in the are of the National Art allery. There was also a group of
unidenti ed people who gathered together in an organi ed way to ause a ommo-
tion and to harass and abuse the e hibition s personnel they also made trouble with
foreign reporters for no reason.
The Stars Exhibition absolutely should ha e re ei ed the prote tion of the
Constitution. As an e hibition of artworks, it is not at all like those propagandisti
works, or those big- and small- hara ter posters that are pasted throughout all of the
ity s streets and alleys. It is not affe ted by the restri tions of the Si Announ ements.
Thus, the prete t that the ubli Se urity Bureau was upholding the Si
Announ ements is ompletely untenable sophistry.
This is an affair that was mali iously engineered by the ong heng ubli Se urity
Bureau before National ay tober 1 . It has aroused the intense dis ontent of the
general publi and of leading gures in e ery eld. After all of the apital s unof ial
press organi ations had heard the news, they unanimously ondemned the illegal
a tions of the ong heng Bureau, and they fier ely demanded that the Bei ing
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The Stars demonstration on tober 1, 1979. hotograph reprodu ed in Newsweek, tober 15, 1979
Muni ipal Committee personally redress the ong heng Bureau s mistaken beha ior.
At 1:00 a.m. on September 30, they drew up a pro lamation, whi h they ointly posted
on the emo ra y Wall at 9:45 a.m. At the same time, they made a opy for Comrade
Lin Hu ia, the irst Se retary of the Bei ing Muni ipal Committee. They sent this as an
urgent dispat h to the Confidential Communi ations ffi e of the Muni ipal
Committee at 10:45 a.m. on September 30. It seems that Comrade Lin Hu ia read this
letter ery ui kly. Thus, the unof ial press organi ations originally hoped to be able
to re ei e the Muni ipal Committee s response soon. nfortunately, the two om-
rades who had been dispat hed from the Muni ipal Committee and who were wel-
omed at the predetermined meeting point at four in the afternoon of the 30th merely
listened to the omplaint on e more and promised to report to their leader. But by
9:00 a.m. on tober 1, no response had yet been heard. Thus, the oppressed unof -
ial press groups ould not help but organi e an assembly of the masses in front of the
emo ra y Wall at idan at 9:15 on tober 1. The general publi parti ipated in this
a ti ity despite the hea y rain. At the assembly, representati es from the Stars Art
Exhibition re ounted how the in ident had ome to pass, and they read aloud the
prefa e to the e hibition, as well as the Indi tment iled against the ubli Se urity
Bureau of the ong heng istri t of Bei ing at the Supreme eople s ro uratorate.
Afterward, representati es from the unof ial press organi ations one by one made
reasoned, well-supported addresses, and they read aloud the olle ti e pro lamation.
At that time, the rowd was be oming impassioned, applauding easelessly. When the
assembly was on luding, the leader of the on o ation e plained that be ause the
Muni ipal Committee had still not replied to our demands, we had no hoi e but to,
on this National ay, e er ise the rights onferred by the Constitution. We would
olle ti ely go to the Muni ipal Committee to hear their response, and we would
make use of a parade to de lare to the people of the whole ity our de ision to defend
our i il rights resolutely.
Before the mar h, the leader announ ed si rules for the mar h, parti ularly empha-
si ing that we must not strike ba k when hit, must not shout ba k when ursed by
people who intentionally harassed us. After the assembly, iers were also disseminated.
The mar h ad an ed under the lead of large red hori ontal banners reading
10
Mar h to phold the Constitution and We Want oliti al emo ra y, We Want

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Artisti reedom Throughout the pro ession, slogans periodi ally rang out, and the
mar hers sang the mighty re olutionary songs Unity Is Strength, March of the Volunteers
the national anthem of the eople s epubli of China , and The Internationale. When
they had rea hed Liubukou, a pi ket line of se eral hundred poli emen suddenly
appeared a ross Chang an A enue. The mar hers ery self- ons iously rossed the
street at the rosswalk. eferring to the route defined by the poli emen, from
Bei inhua A enue they rossed the subway and set out toward the of es of the
Muni ipal Committee. Thus, they lost the han e to mar h on Chang an A enue.
nder the dire tion of the assembly s pi ket s uad, the mar hers ad an ed in an
orderly manner in the slow- ar lane, and along the way the leader e plained to the
rowd the reasons for the mar h. They gained the sympathy and support of the gen-
eral publi , and the followers of the pro ession ame to e eed one thousand people.
When the team passed through the entran e to the Bei ing Muni ipal ubli Se urity
Bureau, slogans like The ong heng Bureau s illegal banning of the Stars e hibition is
an a t of trampling on the Constitution, The Bei ing Muni ipal ubli Se urity
Bureau must prote t iti ens rights, and Long li e the people Long li e demo ra y
resonated onspi uously.
All of these a ti ities were do umented at large by our ountry s unof ial report-
ers, photo ournalists, news reporters, and photographers, as well as reporters from our
ountry s of ial news agen ies and from many other ountries.
After an hour, the team safely rea hed the entran e to the Muni ipal Committee.
The leader of the assembly again re ounted to the rowd the reasons for this mar h.
Then, si representati es engaged in negotiations with lerks from the f e of Letters
and Calls of the Muni ipal Committee and from the ropaganda epartment. The lerks
were still unable to deli er the Muni ipal Committee s response. Again, they simply
listened to how the affair ame to pass and promised to report to their leaders, but
regarding the timeframe for the response, they ga e no limit.
In order to take into a ount e eryone s interests, the representati es who parti -
ipated in the negotiations ga e the leaders of the Muni ipal Committee suf ient time
to think, and they again on eded to wait for a response. But they de lared that they
retained the right to further a tion should they not re ei e any response or should
they not re ei e a satisfa tory response.
Laun hed by the united unof ial press organi ations, this olle ti e parade for
upholding the Constitution did all that one ould hope in attempting to reali e politi-
al demo ra y and artisti freedom in our ountry.
Long li e demo ra y
Long li e the people
rgani ers of the Stars Art Exhibition editors of Search (Tansuo editors of Today (Jintian
editors of Beijing Spring ( Beijing zhi chun ertile Soil art group Wotu editors of April
Fifth Forum (Wusi luntan
Bei ing, tober 1, 1979
Te t translated from a poster, tober 1979. eprodu ed in The Stars: Ten Years Hong ong: Hanart 2,
1989 . Translated by hillip Bloom.
ABOUT THE STARS ART EXHIBITION ( 1980 )
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Compiled by Li Xianting

The Stars Art Exhibition ( Xingxing meizhan took pla e from No ember 23 to e ember
2, 1979, and be ame a ma or topi of dis ussion among iewers, in art ir les, and
parti ularly among younger people. Although opinions differed some endorsed it
while others opposed it the rea tions were all ery intense.
The e hibition omprised 23 indi iduals, most of them young amateur artists, and
e hibited 1 3 works, in luding ink-brush paintings, oil paintings, prints, wooden s ulp-
tures, et . The works an be di ided into two ategories: those that del ed into life,
and those that e plored form.
How did the e hibition ome about What was the intent behind some of the
more pro o ati e works How did audien e members ultimately iew the e hibition
These are all uestions that help to e aluate the e hibition, and e plore the ir um-
stan es behind the intense rea tions. With these uestions in mind, I sat down to talk
with Wang eping, Ma esheng, Huang ui, and u Leilei.
My rst uestion to them was: ollowing your prefa e, dis uss some of your
thoughts behind the organi ation of this e hibition as well as your artisti iewpoints.
Below is a summary of their answers:
The prefa e marked the entral themes of the e hibition, in luding two main aspe ts:
rst, artists must be ome in ol ed with the so iety they li e in. nly by identifying with
the fate of people an our art ha e any real itality. A line in the prefa e says, the shadow
of the past and the glow of the future are folded together, forming the arious li ing on-
ditions of Today. esol ing to li e on and remembering ea h lesson learned: this is our
responsibility. We lo e life, but the ery pra ti al lessons of the last few de ades
parti ularly what took pla e during the ang of our years ha e taught us not to look
at life through rose- olored glasses, nor to embra e hildish romanti ideals. This is what
our en ounter with so iety has taught us. Most of us were born after the liberation in
1949, and played different roles during the Cultural e olution. But, as Chinese so iety
e ol ed, we gradually reali ed what our mission in life was: to re ord with our pens and
brushes what was taking pla e before our eyes, and to do this with lear points of iew.
We resol ed to follow in the footsteps of the humanitarian artist the ollwit
18 7 1945 . Why do you think our e hibition set off su h strong sympatheti rea tions
in people eople ame to the e hibition with their own s ars and wounds: our imma-
ture paintings and s ulptures were hardly powerful enough to inspire su h deep feelings
in them. It is our lo e of life that has gi en us the ourage to break out of the prolonged
silen e imposed upon us and ry out, in the language of art, from our wounded souls.
The se ond point on erns the sear h for new forms of e pression. uring the
ang of our period, if you started talking about form, you were immediately slapped
with the harge of formalism. As ulture and s ien e de elop, it s only natural to
seek new forms to e press new ideas and feelings. In many ountries in the urrent
world, there has been onstant renewal in the forms of ar hite ture, fashion, and art
this is a general tenden y that no one an stop. In the prefa e, we wrote: The world
lea es unlimited possibilities for e plorers. Artists should pro ide a onstant stream
of no elties for their audien e. We should follow i asso s e ample, ne er easing our
e ploration of the world. ur works are still uite hildish. And sin e most of us ha e
had no formal training in art, we must rst go through the pro ess of learning some-
thing new only then an we talk about nding some sort of Chinese identity. It is riti-
al for us to be able to e press the thoughts and feelings of the Chinese people in our
art, e en if the form we use is indis riminately borrowed.
Wang eping on luded by saying, the ollwit is our banner, and i asso our
12
pioneer. But, for us, ollwit is more important. nlike the literati of the Ming
|
13 8 1 44 and ing 1 44 1911 dynasties who pursued art for art s sake, we ha e
no desire to run away in order to a oid the omple ities of and struggles taking pla e
in so iety.
I then asked the four artists, How do these ideas manifest themsel es in your
works
Wang eping: I do s ulpture in wood for no other reason than to e press my
pent-up feelings. I was a ed uard at the beginning of the Cultural e olution. All
those ountless a ts of rebellion were manipulated by a bun h of onspirators who
turned a ast amount of human energy to their own ad antage. Thus, I hate Lin Biao
and the ang of our with a passion, and hoped to get it off my hest. I ne er studied
s ulpture and an t paint. I was a playwright before I started with s ulpture and ha e
only been at it for a year. My ma or inspiration was the ren h Theater of the Absurd.
I don t hold that art must obey any ob e ti e laws, and as the for es of produ tion
de elop in a so iety, people will naturally sear h for new means of e pression. I found
a medium for myself that is not limited by any rules of outward form that lea es me
totally free to e press my feelings. The result is what I all absurd s ulpture. In Long,
Long Life ( Wanwansui , I started out with a small re tangular pie e of wood, and
planned to make a s ulpture of a person holding high Mao s Little Red Book and
shouting slogans. I was ha ing trouble rendering the hand and arm in a natural man-
ner, and then something in the wood itself ga e me a hint about how to pro eed. I
ended up ha ing the arm growing out of the head, and though this was absurd it on-
eyed the idea of holding high in a graphi manner.
I had a similar e perien e with The Backbone of Society ( Shehui zhongjian . At rst
I planned to make a gure with lips but without a mouth, eyes without eyeballs, and
a nose with no nostrils that s the way I isuali ed in ompetent bureau rats who were
always s rewing things up. But when I was working on the pie e I dis o ered a hole
in the top part of the hunk of wood I was using, and that ga e me a new idea: a head
without a brain. Some of my s ulptures are premeditated: I get an idea, and try to
nd a pie e of wood to mat h it. But at other times the wood itself inspires my re-
ation. Silence ( Chenmo pl. 1 is an e ample of the latter pro ess. I had a pie e of
wood with a big knot in it and was planning to s ulpt a human head. I started work-
ing on the mouth in a realisti manner, but suddenly noti ed that the knot looked like
a mouth plugged up with a wooden stopper. When I was working on the eyes, one of
whi h was losed, I felt that this wasn t e a tly what I wanted. Closed eyes gi e the
impression of a relu tan e to see what is going on. Then I ame up with the idea of
de eption: hadn t the ang of our tried to pull the wool o er the eyes of the Chinese
people and ut China off from the rest of the world How ould I e press that I
ould wrap the eyes with gau e, but gau e wouldn t look good with wood, and so I
thought about e ploiting the ontrast between natural wood and ar ed wood, and
nally ame up with the idea of ar ing some s where the eyes belonged, to show
that they had been sealed with tape.
Ma esheng: There is a footnote to my painting Rest ( Xi : He ame into the
world in silen e, and departs again in silen e, ha ing left behind millions of drops of
sweat on the earth. E ery year when I went ba k to the ountryside, I would wat h
the peasants doing their mindless and primiti e physi al labor, reali ing how poor
they were in material and ultural terms, ompared with the people in the ities. Yet
they ne er omplained, and went about their work in silen e. Then I went ba k to
the ity and saw how different things a tually were. Some arty adres were always
ranting on about how poor China was, and how e eryone had to tighten their belts,
13
but they did nothing of this kind. E en as thousands of people had no pla e to all
|
home, they were busy building lu ury ats for themsel es. I had great sympathy for
those hardworking peasants and workers, and wondered how su h ine uality ould
e ist in our so iety.
Huang ui: The sub e t of my paintings Last Will and Testament ( Yizhu and New
Life ( Xinsheng was Bei ing s Yuanmingyuan ld Summer ala e ardens, past and
present. I was trying to depi t the past as bleak and desolate, with the sky permanently
o er ast. I painted a green sky and red louds to show that there was a debt of hate
that has to be repaid. There was a warning there to the younger generation: ne er for-
get the destru tion that took pla e in the past With new life there was hope. Though
struggling out of the darkness was painful, we were not attempting it alone and nally
managed to regain our footing. In Space ( Kongjian I tried to depi t our desire for
demo ra y. I had on e seen a photograph of a et plane set against a ba kground of
blue sky. Inspired by this memory, I painted a blue sky and a red earth, and ur ed
white lines rossing the patterned frames in the ba kground. The lines seemed to ha e
a will of their own, with nothing to inhibit their mo ements. E pressing myself in this
way made me feel uite happy.
u Leilei: I think that the essen e of painting as an art is the e pression of the art-
ist s inner personal feelings. He has to paint from his own e perien e, be it painful or
pleasurable. My set of paintings Train of Thought ( Sixu is an attempt to depi t the pain-
ful thought pro ess under the fas ist, auto rati ang of our. The rst painting repre-
sents ontemplation, an indi idual thinking about himself and the world. The se ond
painting depi ts onsternation, frustration, and ontradi tions. In the third painting, I
tried to suggest seeking, yearning, struggle, disappointment, and the will to o er ome
obsta les. The fourth painting presents the indi idual s failure to ome up with an
answer, his being stru k down, and his persisten e in trying to regain his footing and go
on thinking. In We Don’t Want Laws Like This ( Buyao zheyang de falü , I tried to show
the many masks behind whi h the law was mas ueraded during the ang of our
period. To some people, the law presented an ingratiating smile, to others it showed an
angry fa e. The torture de i e worn on the head gi es an idea of how sa age and terri-
fying the legal system was during these years. The o erall effe t of the painting suggests
hypo risy, a person with one eye open and one eye shut. This painting was an attempt
to e press my outrage at the way the ang of our enfor ed the law, and my sin ere
hope that the prin iple of e uality before the law ould be reali ed.
riginally published as uanyu Xingxing Meizhan in Meishu [ Art 147, no. 3 1980 : 8 9. eprodu ed
in The Stars: Ten Years Hong ong: Hanart 2, 1989 . Translated by onald . Cohn, edited by eggy Wang.
A DEBATE ON “FORMAL BEAUTY” AND
14
OTHER ISSUES
|
B eginning in 1979, a heated debate took place in the mainstream journal

Meishu ( Art ). The participants included professional artists, critics, and
theorists and focused on the relationship between content and form in artistic
representation. The debate was triggered by Wu Guanzhong’s essay entitled
“Formalist Aesthetics in Painting,” in which this French-trained art professor
challenged the official doctrine of “content determining form” and encouraged
artists to discover abstract beauty in nature and real life. His propositions pro-
voked numerous responses in Meishu and other journals over the next several
years. Related to this debate, some artists and critics also tried to associate artis-
tic creativity with individual originality, rather than the collective ideology sanc-
tioned in official aesthetic theory. These theoretical discussions were echoed by
changes in art practices and exhibitions: a small exhibition of reproductions of
Impressionist paintings took place in Beijing in June 1979, introductions to
Western modernist art increasingly appeared in published materials, Yuan
Yuansheng’s formalist portrayals of minority women in the new Beijing Capital
International Airport provoked major controversy, and the unofficial Twelve Men
Exhibition ( Shi er ren huazhan ) held in early 1979 in Shanghai featured mainly for-
malist works. Together, these phenomena reflected an effort to reestablish formal
qualities as the foundation of art criticism and art creation.
FORMALIST AESTHETICS IN PAINTING ( 1979 )

By Wu Guanzhong pl.
iv i i i i
Sin e liberation, we ha e ery learly and me hani ally forged oppositions between
reati e omposition chuangzuo and daily pra ti e xizuo . When I rst returned
to China, I was ery against this distin tion. I thought it was a mistake, utterly un usti-
able, and in ongruous with the rules of artisti reation. The a t of produ ing art is a
omplete entity, where the produ t and the pro ess are simply two on epts and an
be seen as two sides of one issue. Yet, in our a tual pra is, sket hing from life and
depi ting spe i hara ters are all onsidered pra ti e it is pre isely be ause these
are onsidered pra ti e that one an apture the ob e t without sub e ti e inter en-
tion . nly when depi ting an e ent, a s enario, or a narrati e is a work onsidered a
reation. In reati e art, other than representing something, the problem of how
to represent tugs deeply in the minds of many artists and is also a entral uestion in
art history. The Impressionists ad an ements and use of olor are undeniable: an you
all their sket hes mere pra ti e To all pretentious narrati e paintings pra ti e
would a tually be more appropriate.
f ourse, we hope to see masterpie es that possess the strong artisti ability to
present grand themes. Yet how an The True Story of Ah Q ( Ah Q zhengzhuan or the
story of ia Baoyu i.e., the no el Dream of the Red Chamber not be onsidered
national treasures When we think about art, to put it more on retely, we are making
onsiderations about form. ormalist aestheti s are a riti al link in artisti reation
and our uni ue way of ser ing the publi . n e when I was sket hing in the elds of
Shao ing, I ame upon a tiny pond. In the middle were red du kweed and green moss.
Throughout the night, the eastern winds blew them into ea h other, entangling them
into a rhythmi pattern. Spread a ross the top was an une en layer of anola owers,
15
e hoing the darkness of the re e tions in the water. The sullen beauty aught my
|
A DEBATE ON “FORMAL BEAUTY” AND OTHER ISSUES
attention, and for a while I ould not take my eyes off it. But, if I were to paint this
kind of non-themati art, I would be riti i ed to no end n the way ba k, I was
deep in thought. Suddenly, I thought of a tri k: to paint a group of people hard at
work and a red ag at a distant orner of the re e tions in the water, with the sub e t
being on the shore, the east wind blows, in order to defend myself against riti ism
The ne t morning, I arried my paint bo and hurried to the pond. oodness ne
night of the western winds destroyed the omposition on the water. The same red
du kweed, green moss, yellow owers . . . the ontents did not hange, but their
ompositional relationships had been transformed. n e the form hanged, it lost its
rhythm, it lost its beauty I didn t want to paint it anymore
I don t think the moon in foreign ountries is rounder than in China, but an intro-
du tion of their reati e methods should be permitted In the 1950s when I was pur-
suing my edu ation in aris, our studio was ommissioned by the aris Musi A ademy
to make four wall paintings about different types of musi : lassi al, mid entury,
romanti , and modern. When making sket hes, I initially rendered rhythmi abstra -
tions of the uni ue attributes of these four types of musi , su h as using a balan ed
and harmonious omposition to display the elegan e of lassi al musi , an unre-
strained and igorous group of lines to praise romanti passion. . . . Then, I onstru ted
figural forms: the dan ing girls, musi ians playing stringed instruments, the poet
Homer . . . , yet the groupings of these gures and their relationships with ea h other
were based on height, length, angles, ur ature, and linearity. I had to stri tly follow
an abstra t linear omposition of the primary forms in order to ensure the uni ue
rhythm of ea h work.
i i i
When hildren make art, they follow their feelings and senses. There is an important
element within sensory per eption: mis on eption. Big eyes, bla k braids, pine trees,
and birds, these ob e ts uni ue attributes are greatly differentiated in a hild s mind.
What they feel and e press often e eeds the limits of ob e ti e obser ation, and thus
an be alled mis on eption. But it is often assaulted and murdered by art tea hers
upholding the so- alled udgel of ob e ti ity and realism.
I often like painting the rows upon rows of densely pa ked ity houses or slightly
une en lusters of mountain illages. Their beauty is lo ated in the arian es between
the e enness and une enness of the tight lusters. Sometimes when I ha e e tra time,
I think, h This time, I will paint stri tly with pre ision and a ura y. But the out-
ome turns out not to be as ri h and multifa eted as when I follow my senses, be ause
some aspe ts of the latter fo us on irregularity and repetition in layering. If we om-
pared this with e aminations using photography or perspe ti e, it would far e eed
those boundaries.
Emotions and logi are not only in opposition, but are often antagonisti to ea h
other. I was professionally trained. When I rst began to learn how to sket h, I also
used isual measurements, proportions, linear e aminations, and other su h methods
to stri tly apture the ob e t. Artists must at least possess the ability to sket h ob e ts,
but the riti al uestion is whether or not s he is able to apture the ob e t s beauty.
Logi re uires pure ob e ti ity emotions tend toward personal feelings, nurturing
mis on eption. Stri tly re uiring training for ob e ti e pi toriali ation does not always
lead to art it is sometimes a tually the wrong route, the lost route, or e en the route
that runs in the opposite dire tion from art.
When I was a student, I on e sket hed a female nude model. She was a large,
16
middle-aged woman, who, when seated, had a body that appeared espe ially stodgy
|
and a head that looked omparati ely small. The tea her said that from the sitter, he
ould feel the Notre ame of aris. What he was referring to was a medie al othi
ar hite tural style. His words stimulated the students feelings and skewed their
per eptions.
ifferen es in personal feelings are also one of the reasons for the de elopment
of personal style. issarro and C anne on e sat side by side painting the same sub e t.
Two ren h farmers who were passing by stopped and wat hed for a long time. As
they were lea ing, they ga e one line of riti ue: ne hisels referring to issarro ,
the other uts referring to C anne . Yet an assignment ompleted by a lass of a
do en or so students is not allowed to display a single bit of differen e. This has been
an enduring phenomenon
The formation of style ertainly annot be feigned it is the natural out ome of a
long-term faithfulness to one s own feelings. Indi idual feelings and preferen es often
shape the artist s area of e pertise. eople en oy hou infang s 1895 1975 strong
e pressions when he hases, runs, beats, and kills, but they also en oy Cheng Yan iu s
1904 1958 sad and tragi tones both are famous eking pera performers . The feel-
ing of reinfor ed on rete in an Tianshou s 1897 1971 paintings and that of uni er-
sal harmony in Lin engmian s 1900 1991 works all emerged after de ades of training.
Style is pre ious, but it often makes the artist a prisoner to praise, bound to a style
and afraid to forge new territory.
i ,
Aestheti s formal aestheti s is already a s ien e that an be analy ed and dis-
se ted. Analyses of the models and methods of su essful artists or artworks ha e long
been standard ontent in Western art s hools. But in our nation s art s hools, they are
still prohibited. The ignoran e that young students ha e about this fundamental
knowledge is astonishing It s worth onsidering the dis ontent that erupted in the art
world when nineteenth- entury ren h pastoral lands apes were rst e hibited. Why
is it that we must, in an age when satellites are orbiting the skies, only show foreign
steamers Many art workers hope to show European modern painting in order to fully
engage with the s ien e behind formal aestheti s. This is the mi ros ope and s alpel
of art. We need to use them to ulminate our tradition, to fully de elop our tradition.
il painting must be ome Chinese Chinese painting must moderni e. It seems that
only after seeing Higashiyama ai s e plorations ha e we begun to awaken to the
uestion of integrating East and West.
i i “ i ”
isual art has su essfully portrayed tou hing themes and mo ing epi s, su h as the
stone s ulpture Horse Trampling a Hun Warrior ( Mata xiongnu in front of Huo ubin s
gra e, odin s The Burghers of Calais, ela roi s Massacre at Chios, and many others.
These e amples are innumerable in Chinese and foreign art history. Art dire tly and
losely ollaborates with politi s, literature, et ., su h as in propaganda posters, book
illustrations, and narrati e paintings. There are many e amples of su essful partner-
ships, and these works ser e enormous so ial fun tions. At the same time, I also hope
to see more independent works of art, whi h possess their own spirit onsonan e of
formal beauty and aren t saddled with added obligations to prea h. When I see some
of the fres oes by the ren h painter Cha annes, I am drawn into their image of a
silent world: a forest, people lost in thought, o ks of sheep, and a light boat gently
oating a ross a small stream. . . . I ha e entirely forgotten the topi of ea h work, and
17
at the time, I didn t want to understand them either, but rather re eled in the image of
|
A DEBATE ON “FORMAL BEAUTY” AND OTHER ISSUES
the artist s spirit onsonan e. I all these works untitled. In Chinese poetry, there are
also many pie es that are labeled as untitled. ntitled does not ne essarily mean
without thought, but rather implies a profound poeti ism that annot be generali ed
by a simple topi . The untitled -ness of a painting is easy to understand: be ause the
beauty of an image often annot be substituted by language, why must one use
language to interfere with the silen e of beauty
i ’
After being an art tea her for de ades, I ha e taught many students, but what on erns
me is how many young people I ha e harmed Art tea hers mainly tea h artisti meth-
ods, relating the rules and regulations of formalist aestheti s. uring the past de ades,
howe er, in a hostile en ironment, where anyone who speaks of forms would be riti-
i ed as being a formalist, who wishes to be rometheus The tea hing ontent
be omes no more than pure te hni ues that entail sket hing while staring at a sub e t
and this is grandly alled ealism Well-intentioned tea hers think that in the upper-
le el ourses, they an dis uss a bit about form this is ust like only being able to taste
offee or i e ream after one is full from a meal But, I don t know if there is a bridge
that links realisti ally opying an ob e t to the artisti beauty in e pressing emotions I
belie e that formal aestheti s should be the main omponent of art edu ation and that
the ability to depi t an ob e t is only a kind of painting te hni ue it is ultimately ust a
means to assist in apturing the aestheti feeling of the sub e t, thus o upying a
subordinate position. As to how to re ogni e and understand the sub e t s aestheti
feeling, analy ing and ha ing a strong grasp of the formal elements that make up aes-
theti feelings should be a ital link in art tea hing, a staple for students in art s hool
E erpted from a te t originally published as Huihua de ingshi mei in Meishu [ Art 138, no. 5 1979 :
33 35, 44. Translated by Mi helle Wang.
EMOTION, INDIVIDUALITY, FORMAL AESTHETICS ( 1979 )

By Liu Shaohui
ne of the restri tions imposed on artisti reation by the ang of our was the effa e-
ment of both indi idual artisti reation and the artist s indi iduality. As a result, e ery-
thing be ame identi al and onformist.
The ang of our treated artisti produ tion as me hani ed manufa turing they
treated artists as ameras that worked by hand. This was the rudest humiliation wrought
against artisti reation.
Without originality in artisti reation and without artisti indi iduality, there
ould be no artisti styles and s hools, and there ould be no true blooming of a hun-
dred owers.
Lea ng through the pages of the histories of Chinese and world art, we must ask :
What artist from u ai hi 348 40 to i Baishi 18 4 1957 , from Mi helangelo
1475 15 4 to i asso 1881 1973 has been re orded in the annals of history not
be ause of his artisti originality and his strong indi idual style
Modern lands ape painting master Huang Binhong 18 5 1955 on e said: ainting
human gures re uires the breath of the spirit painting lands apes re uires the breath
of the soul. ainters must possess the ability to pan for gold among the sand. They must
be ourageous they must ha e resol e. They must pan away all the sand in order to nd
18
the gold. E en this is not enough. Artists also must draw forth all of the gold that they
|
store on their own bodies, and they must ombine it with the gold they ha e sifted from
the sand. In so doing, the breath of the spirit and the breath of the soul will be i i ed.
Here, Huang Binhong speaks elo uently of the relationship between life and art,
between sub e ti ity and ob e ti ity. f ourse, in the eyes of the ang of our, life
was not ne essary, and they were indifferent to sand and gold. n the painters
bodies, there ould not possibly be any gold there was only sand. Thus, they were all
part of the stinking ninth ategory a type of lass enemy during the Cultural
e olution referring to bourgeois intelle tuals and they all had to engage in trans-
forming their world iew. Conse uently, world iew transformation be ame a blud-
geon to obliterate artisti indi iduality.
Should artists transform their world iew f ourse But what are the riteria for
this In the eyes of the ang of our, as long as you ran along with them and respe t-
fully offered paintings of the will of of ialdom, you ould be held up as a red painter
whose world iew had been well transformed.
I think that sin e artists are spokesmen for the people, sin e they are engineers
of the soul, they share the same breath as the people. They an share their fate. They
an understand and empathi e with the emotions of the people, and they an under-
stand and empathi e with their needs. This world iew seems to be transformed pretty
well already .
But, e en when an artist s world iew is transformed satisfa torily, it still annot
repla e his indi iduality or originality in art. Be ause what makes an artist different from
normal people lies in his being able to pan gold from among the sand in life. He an
dis o er the un ommon within the ommon. This ability to pan gold from among the
sand is inseparable from the gold stored on his own body. ne ould also say that if
an artist stores no gold on his body, then he annot possibly pan gold from among the
sand in life. Besides his ideas, this gold stored on the body also in ludes his emo-
tions, his artisti training, and his indi idual means of representing life. Together, these
things onstitute the artist s indi iduality.
nly in possessing indi iduality is he able to use his own ision and spirit to e am-
ine life only thus is he able to use his own means to gi e e pression to life or to ha e
originality in art.
Some of our leaders in the eld of artisti reation ha e also be ome used to
ordering painters what to paint and what not to paint. The baneful effe ts of the ang
of our run deep. They do not understand the ob e ti e law of artisti reation. They
do not respe t the indi iduality of the people who reate art. They are not good at
making use of the strengths of the art workers. They insin erely all for the liberation
of art workers thought, but in truth, they simultaneously make use of e ery rope to
fetter the art workers indi iduality.
It is time to hange this situation. therwise, let reation ourish and let a
hundred owers bloom are simply empty phrases.
E erpted from a te t originally published as an ing, ge ing, ingshimei in Meishu [ Art 134, no. 1
1979 : 9 10, 12. Translated by hillip Bloom.
NEW DIRECTIONS IN REALIST PAINTING
19
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A

longside the pursuit of formal beauty and abstraction, Scar Art and Native
Soil Art emerged at the end of the 1970s and early 1980s as two main direc-
tions in post – Cultural Revolution academic art. Both trends insisted on realism.
But, instead of following the orthodox Socialist Realist art characterized by
highly idealized images of revolutionary workers, peasants, and soldiers, their
advocates resurrected “critical realism” and humanism from early-twentieth-cen-
tury Chinese art and literature.
Exemplified by the picture-story book Maple ( Feng ) and Cheng Conglin’s oil
painting Snow on X Day X Month, 1968 ( 1968 nian X yue X ri xue ), works of Scar
Art restaged tragic moments from the Cultural Revolution: the suffering of indi-
viduals, the meaningless sacrifices and self-sacrifices, and the general apathy and
ignorance toward the victims. A particular trend of Scar Art, represented by
works of He Duoling, Wang Chuan, and some other Sichuan oil painters, focused
on a “lost generation” of Chinese youth, expressing their melancholy and rekin-
dled hope. Native Soil Art instead advocated realistic portrayals of ordinary peo-
ple ( albeit still often in a romanticized manner ). The most influential works in
this trend included Luo Zhongli’s Father ( Fuqin ) and Chen Danqing’s Tibetan
series. Unlike the “avant-garde” Stars group, the supporters of these two trends
remained inside established art institutions and generally avoided direct con-
frontations with the authorities. They also paid much greater attention to tech-
nique and the aesthetic appeal of painting, and in so doing eagerly sought
inspiration from modern Western art, especially Photorealism and the nostalgic
paintings of Andrew Wyeth ( 1917 – 2009 ).
Note
. or dis ussion of this mo ement, see ulia . Andrews, Painters and Politics in the People’s Republic of
China, 1949 – 1979 Berkeley and Los Angeles: ni ersity of California ress, , and eremie
Barm and Bennett Lee, trans., The Wounded — New Stories of the Cultural Revolution, 77 – 78 Hong ong:
oint ublishing, , .
Scar Art
SOME THOUGHTS ON CREATING THE PICTURE-STORY BOOK MAPLE

( FENG ) ( 1980 ) [ pl. 3 ]
By Chen Yiming, Liu Yulian, and Li Bin
After the publi ation of the no el Maple, we ui kly a epted the re uest by the Picture
Stories ( Lianhuan huabao editorial board to turn the te t into a set of narrati e pi tures.
The writing in the no el is realisti and mo ing, as if re orded on-site at the
moment of the armed atta ks. It immediately brings people ba k to that unpre e-
dented era, making them re all and feel on e more the se ere impa t of it all. These
things still remain fresh in people s memories, and for those who, like anfeng, e pe-
rien ed the a ti ities of the ed uards, the pain is probably espe ially poignant.
nly now, after a de ade, ha e we reali ed that it was with our own two hands that
we forfeited our futures and brought gra e onse uen es onto our entire nation. But,
ba k then, we rmly belie ed that we were destroying the ld World. The ed uard
mo ement atta ked the e isting order, from s hools to so iety, destroying and
impa ting all that we on e respe ted and pursued. And, all of this stemmed from
primarily sel ess and pious moti ations to resolutely ser e an unpre edented for e of
20
spiritual energy.
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This is perhaps the tragedy of our generation. In using painting to reinterpret this
sub e t matter, an immense fer or dri es us to fa tually show the purity, sin erity,
bitterness, and sweetness of the young people of this generation to use forms and
olor, and the starkness of reality, to rip apart the most glorious things of our genera-
tion for all to see.
The images of Lu anfeng and Li Honggang are representati e of the ed uards at
that time. In our memories of the past, we an nd many of these distin t gures. They
were raised through an orthodo , positi e edu ation they were sin ere and simple,
studious yet ignorant. Numerous young people are like anfeng, who mo ed from
being token good students to Chairman Mao s ed uards, using a sort of passionate
fanati ism to de ote themsel es to a mo ement of unpre edented magnitude, e en
willingly sa ri ing their own li es to be entren hed in the ruelties of armed onfron-
tations. These images are spe i , i id, orporeal embodiments. They do not t into
the ang of our s heroi models of great bra ado. Nor do they onform to some newer
models of terrifyingly brute thugs. They were ust students from the 19 0s, edu ated
and ontemplati e, with distin t personalities and deli ate emotional atta hments.
Although we were ultimately unable to fully portray the multidimensionality of these
people, we did feel that it was ne essary to stri e to show their indi idual personalities.
or the gures and en ironment, we arranged for some ontrast in their u tapo-
sition in order to reate a dramati effe t. or e ample, formerly uiet and alm
s hools ha e be ome smoky and deadly war ones, with ruined desks and tea hing
materials piled together to form forti ations during the armed atta ks. Slender female
students from the 19 0s wear mismat hed military lothing from the forties sprawling
beneath a portrait of a smiling E e uti e i e remier i.e., Lin Biao are the bodies
of young people who suffered a brutal death. These images ha e always remained in
our memories. Ba k then, we were old and indifferent to them, but looking ba k now
they appear espe ially heart-wren hing.
Compared with the narrati e pi tures Scar ( Shanghen , we used more slogans this
time. Slogans were an indispensable omponent of the Cultural e olution, and their
images help enhan e our representation of the atmosphere of that time. Also be ause
people nowadays ha e be ome so familiar with slogans, using only a few of their
words an e oke endless asso iations.
As for the treatment of Lin Biao, the ang of our, and others, we had some
different ideas in the beginning, but we didn t think they would ause su h an uproar.
Howe er, later on, the iews of se eral omrades on rmed that our approa h was
orre t. In this series of paintings, we didn t add embellishment to Lin Biao and the
ang of our. We presented them in a straightforward manner in order to e pose
the de eption they propagated during the nas ent years of the Cultural e olution.
Su h de eption was the indispensable pre ondition of this histori al tragedy of ourse,
other people an use other methods to deal with this issue .
But the signi an e of this is that it tou hes upon an artisti problem that has yet
to be resol ed the problem of how to depi t histori al protagonists and antagonists.
As a result, Maple attra ted a great deal of attention from the art world.
We ha e always been interested in histori al sub e ts, but often after de eloping
general ompositions for the paintings, we are plagued with the thought that we an-
not histori ally and a urately portray these sub e ts.
The one hundred years of re olution in our ountry merit our artisti efforts, and
many aspe ts of our e thousand years of history also deser e our e a ation and
re-presentation. But, as a nation with su h a massi e and long ulture, how is it that
21
the kinds of histori al paintings we offer her for the thirtieth anni ersary of the eople s
|
epubli are so unbe oming erhaps it s due to the politi al need to gloss o er, fabri-
ate, or distort, or perhaps it s the repeated, unpredi table hanges in poli y fortu-
nately an as is easier to alter than marble . The oil painting The Founding of the Nation
( Kaiguo dadian has suffered this kind of fate, not knowing how many times it has to
be hanged. Be ause of this la k of respe t for history and the proliferation of works
that speak to a distortion of history, many people see this as being normal, and are
ignorant of real history, or instead see it as a distortion.
There is no la k of artists who yearn to realisti ally and histori ally represent his-
tory. But, without logi ally dis ussing these issues, this infuriating phenomenon will
not be sol ed.
After the publi ation of the narrati e paintings Maple, one mother wrote a letter
to the editors, talking about how after hildren read it, they asked their tea her: If Lin
Biao and the ang of our were all bad people, then why were they all so handsome
She e en asked the editors not to publish su h pi tures again in order to a oid poison-
ing hildren su h that they are unable to tell the differen e between good and e il.
We don t know why this mother didn t tell her hildren that sometimes wol es dis-
guise themsel es in sheepskins, and at times e en dress up like grandmothers. But,
what is e en more lamentable is that there are still so many men and women who
wish that the Chinese people ould be like na e hildren, always belie ing that a
pleasant demeanor ne essarily signi es a bene olent person, and that a illain ne es-
sarily bears an ugly fa e. It seems as if learning this allows people to tell the differen e
between good and bad, ensuring that they will ne er be poisoned again. This standard
of artisti reation ourished under the ang of our and seems to ha e dragged the
entire nation s abilities to think and appre iate ba k to hildhood. This has already
aused alarming onse uen es. Around us, it has reated so many dogmati and
simplisti works, and so many iewers who an only a ept this kind of work.
The maga ine Picture Stories that published Maple halted all sales for a while, but
has now restarted its publi ation. Yet, many urgent problems in artisti reation still
ha e not been resol ed. Take for e ample this set of pi tures. Many aspe ts of it are
uite immature, and with a little time, one ould easily dis o er its limitations, from
its initial plans to its e entual presentation. To speak of it as groundbreaking is guilt-
indu ing. In terms of reati ity, we ha e learned ery little, and espe ially in terms of
artisti presentation there is little that is new. What is onsidered forbidden territory
is a tually a result of the years we ha e spent on a path of realism that has be ome
in reasingly narrow. E en today, the artist still needs to be areful all the time, wast-
ing mu h energy to embellish and e ade while being on guard and holding one s
tongue. This is be ause one doesn t know when the different le els of departments of
inspe tion will suddenly impose restri tions. This is ery far remo ed from the spirit
of the Third lenary Session and the demands of our fellow ountrymen. With regard
to the urrent in-depth dis ussions about the standards of truth, we hope that the art
ommunity an be in ol ed in many of the related uestions and pro eed with a
series of broad dis ussions, in order to take a step toward liberating thought and
learing away obsta les. This is truly the antidote that would allow our nation s artis-
ti reati ity to ourish.
riginally published as uanyu huang uo lianhuanhua Feng de yi ie iangfa in Meishu [ Art 145,
no. 1 1980 : 34 35. Translated by Mi helle Wang.
MAN’S RATIONAL MEDITATION: A BRIEF DISCUSSION OF CHENG
22
CONGLIN’S THEMATIC OIL PAINTINGS ( 1970s / 1994 )

|
By Deng Pingxiang
Cheng Conglin s work Snow on X Day X Month, 1968 ( 1968 nian X yue X ri xue pl. 4 ,
whi h established his position in ontemporary Chinese art, emerged from this kind of
histori al ba kground: at the time, in the eld of art, most of the sub e t matter relayed
life during the Cultural e olution. But, most works took the form of politi al riti ism
and la ked artisti style and independent artisti alue. They were super ial and
rude. There was on e a ery famous oil painting titled Why ( Weishenme . An analysis
of the su esses and failures of this work is signi ant in understanding the art and lit-
erature of this period. To be fair, the te hni ues used in the painting ha e attra ti e
ualities. The theme un uestionably e poses the armed onfrontations between fa -
tions during the Cultural e olution, and yet the artisti dimension of the work is shal-
low and unsubtle, resulting in a work that has themati ontent but la ks artisti
ontent. The artist was learly eager to imbue his work with an unmistakable politi-
al in lination i.e., a psy hology of ontent determinism , and therefore rushed to
uestion why there were su h armed onfrontations. Here, the artist iolated histori-
al authenti ity and profundity by applying urrent knowledge after the fall of the
ang of our to the people then li ing within the onte t of politi al fanati ism . At
the time, young people were unable to on ei e of the e ents as being futile self-
destru tion. Clearly, this kind of simple solution annot answer to the tragedy and
so ial and histori al reasons of the Cultural e olution, whi h lasted ten years, ata-
strophi ally impli ating the entire nation and mobili ing billions of people.
Yet, Cheng Conglin appears to take this one step further. His Snow on X Day
X Month, 1968 realisti ally, profoundly, and representati ely re- reates a s ene of armed
onfrontation from the Cultural e olution. It is a winter s day with hea y snow. After
enduring the bloodshed of kni es and guns, the blanket of pure white snow and fresh
red blood shines on the fa es of these na e, passionate young people, both those held
apti e as well as the aliant i tors armed with guns. In the enter of the painting is a
young woman wearing a blouse, bringing to mind the So iet nion s oya
osmodemyanskaya . These images ompose a dense pi ture that is both solemn and
stirring yet pro okes a sense of sympathy. The young men and women in the painting
are all in the best years of their li es under normal ir umstan es, they should be
relentlessly pursuing and thoroughly en oying roman e and sunshine. In the work,
Cheng Conglin neither praises nor disparages he uses serious strokes to lay bare this
histori al tragedy before iewers. Let people see the destru tion of beautiful
things Cheng Conglin relied on his own artisti talent and a ute intuition to internal-
i e and a urately portray the hara teristi s of people during the Cultural e olution,
deepening this nation s atastrophe to a human le el, su essfully enri hing the
meaning of the work. This is the fundamental se ret to Cheng Conglin s su ess. Some
say that Cheng Conglin was deeply inspired by the ussian master artist asily Suriko
1848 191 this is well founded. If we ompare Cheng Conglin s Snow and Suriko s
Boyarynya Morozova, we an obser e se eral similarities, su h as the snow, the drama-
ti ation, et . But these are still se ondary fa tors. Cheng Conglin s e ellen e lies in his
ability to deeply penetrate into the depths of reality, fully reali ing the profundities of
Suriko s art. rom a histori al perspe ti e, Boyarynya Moro o a s protests against
eter the reat s religious reforms whi h were also aimed at politi al reform for ed
the ar to oust her be ause of her substantial so ial in uen e. In his treatment of this
sub e t matter, Suriko did not forget that he was an artist. He did not begin from a
simple histori al riti ue or straightforward e aluation, but rather used a human per-
23
spe ti e and emotional angle to e pose profound histori al nuan es in so iety.
|
rom the painting, we an see the dual e isten e of Suriko as an indi idual and
as the embodiment of an emotional world. sing intense emotions, he in ites peo-
ple s sympathy and ompassion through his portrayal of Boyarynya Moro o a s fe er-
ish, faithful on i tion as well as her solemn relentlessness. It is from behind this
emotion that a profound sense of histori al tragedy naturally wells up from the depths
of people s hearts. It is here that people an see the strength of Suriko s humane
hara ter and moral ualities. Suriko enlightened us: art an only speak to emotions
and spirit, its prin ipal ability is making determinations about emotions and spirit.
Thus, we annot say whether an artisti image is orre t or in orre t, but only whether
it tou hes people. The forms of artisti meaning and so ial meaning are different, yet
we often mi the two together. As a progressi e intelle tual, Suriko s ideas e empli-
ed his support and understanding for so ial ad an ement. He re ealed to people the
formidable for es of onser atism that ne essarily fa e a de eloping so iety and
showed that these for es are not in the hands of groups of e ildoers but are rather
omple so ial and ultural formations. Suriko s rm grasp of histori al topi s in art
endows his series of histori al material with a lasting itality. So iet art, be ause of the
deep lega y that Suriko and his generation of masters established, has been able to
maintain a group of artists who adhere to a stri t tradition of realism that onsistently
turns art toward people and life and is pier ed through with a thread of
humanitarianism.
If we ompare Cheng Conglin s Snow on X Day X Month, 1968 with Suriko s
work, we will dis o er that if we disregard the differen es in ontent and style, their
representations of human beings and history are ongruent. Cheng Conglin s rational
meditations on people has made his Snow on X Day X Month, 1968 a histori ally signif-
i ant work in representing the tragedy of the Cultural e olution. We ould say that
among the works of this theme, there are none that an ompete with this painting.
The su ess of Snow learly pro es Cheng s leading position in ad an ing into the
realm of rationalism. Through isual images, he points out to people the depth and
omple ity of the tragedy of the Cultural e olution, and reminds people that in order
to re e t upon reality they need to de elop a genuine humanist approa h.
E erpted from a te t written in the 1970s and later published as en de li ing hensi: Luelun Cheng
Conglin de huti ing youhua huang uo in eng ing iang, Lun di san dai huajia [ Discussing the Third
Generation of Painters iangsu: iangsu Art ublishing, 1994 . Translated by Mi helle Wang.
Native Soil Art
A LETTER FROM THE ARTIST OF FATHER ( FUQIN ) ( 1981 ) pl. 5

By Luo Zhongli
Comrade ,
Hello. After you left Chong ing, the pro in ial young adult art e hibition also ame to
an end. uring this time, I ha e ontinually re ei ed letters from arious omrades,
whom I do not know, enthusiasti ally supporting me. Among the letters I re ei ed,
many used their personal e perien es and thoughts to disse t and understand this
painting, with many people dis ussing the work with more rational e planations than
myself. Many other letters simply related the iewers plain responses to the painting.
24
Comparing the two types of rea tions, I am more re epti e toward the latter be ause I
|
ne er ga e mu h thought to abstra t ideas and didn t start off with theories. Essentially,
this painting resulted from my strong, enduring feelings toward peasants, and I wanted
to say something honest on their behalf. Thus, with great enthusiasm, I was able to
paint the work in thirty-se en, thirty-eight degree Celsius weather wearing only a pair
of shorts in a fth- oor atti . I used my greatest efforts to portray e erything I was
familiar with all of the uni ue hara teristi s and details of the farmers. This was the
only thought I had during the entire pro ess of painting this pie e.
I ne er thought about te hni ue. I ust wanted to paint e ery detail as meti u-
lously as possible. I on e saw some portraits by an Ameri an hotorealist painter, and
the impression I had of the paintings di tated the form of my work be ause I felt that
this form ould most for efully on ey all of my emotions and thoughts. Eastern and
Western art ha e always fed off of ea h other and borrowed from ea h other. orm
and te hni ue are merely the language I use to ommuni ate my thoughts, emotions,
et . If using this language allows me to speak my mind, then I will draw lessons from it.
In addition to my understanding of farmers and my intera tions with them, the
idea for my painting emerged from the moment I saw a peasant standing guard o er
nightsoil. The output from publi toilets in Chong ing is distributed among the farming
illages in nearby ounties. In order to pre ent farming teams from stealing nightsoil
from ea h other, ea h toilet has a farmer who stands guard. The larger la atories e en
ha e farmers who pit h tents in order to do their duty o er a long period of time.
Howe er, e en with su h pre autions, ghts still break out aused by people stealing
nightsoil. It was Chinese New Year s E e of 1975, rain pressed in from all sides, and
snow kept whipping down onto people it was terribly old. At a publi toilet near my
home, a middle-aged farmer was standing guard. I had already noti ed him in the
morning planted frigidly among the slush. He was in a typi al farmer s stan e, with his
basket pole leaning upright on a hair beside the manure dit h. His body leaned o er
the pole, with both of his hands tu ked inside opposite slee es. He numbly, stoi ally,
and silently stood there with a igarette dangling from the side of his mouth. ntil the
night, he stood there, with only his posture hanging. The happiness and oy of the
New Year s E e night des ended upon the town. The surrounding buildings and ats all
emitted a warm glow of light, laughter, musi , and the sound of re ra kers, o asion-
ally interrupted by outbursts from drinking games . . . all ombined into one resonating
sound. Yet this farmer, who had left his home to stand guard, seemed like a forgotten
man. His numb and stoi demeanor was starkly u taposed against his en ironment. He
also has a family his hildren are still eagerly awaiting his return home. At this moment,
what is he thinking about erhaps he only has one thought that the nightsoil dit h
ould be lled ui kly in order to a umulate more work points, whi h in turn ould
bring in more food in order to feed his family and support the people . . .
As the night progressed, the sounds of a oyous New Year s E e also began to dissi-
pate. The last time I went to the toilet, in the dim light I saw him still there. The old
wintry night had ornered him against the wall by the manure dit h, lea ing his body
shri eled into a tiny bundle. Yet his eyes, as large as a sheep s or o s, were still ated
on the manure dit h. He was ust like a man for ed into a orner and not allowed to
rea t unless out of self-defense. At that moment, I suddenly felt a strong surge of trem-
bling sympathy, ompassion, and emotional e itement atta king me from all sides.
ld Yang, Ms. ianglin, untu, Ah . . . these gures from life, from literature, and
from abroad all rowded before my eyes. I ne er knew what he ate that day to sustain
himself, so I went home and grabbed two moon akes for him. or a long while, he
didn t say a word. He truly was an honest farmer. This must ha e been the reason why
25
he was hosen to do this hard work. This is often the ase: honest farmers always get
|
the short end of the sti k this I know well. I want to s ream for them This was the
original impulse behind this painting. Initially, I painted the farmer guarding the manure,
then I painted a farmer who was originally a member of the ed Army at Bashan, and
then nally I painted Father. The painting was originally alled Hardships with Each Grain
( Lili jie xinku . Then, a tea her suggested that I hange it to Father, at whi h point I
suddenly felt that this title e pressed all of my thoughts and feelings.
E eryone standing in front of Father s enormous portrait would be able to feel its
strong isual impa t. This is why I in reased the si e of the painting. If this painting were
half its urrent si e, its effe t would be ompletely different. Therefore, s ale is also one
of my languages. nly as su h, in front of this enormous head, an I feel the pressure
from his kind, o - or sheep-like eyes, hear his hea y breathing, see his pulsing eins and
his ra ing bloodstream, smell the odor of toba o and sweat, and feel his skin trembling
with sweat beads oo ing from his pores. His dried lips, with only one tooth in his mouth,
lea es iewers asking what he ould ha e eaten how many bitter herbs and how
mu h white ri e. . . . Father this is indeed the father who birthed and nurtured me.
Standing in front of su h a humble, kind, and hardworking father, who annot but be
mo ed What kind of re e tions do people ha e when they onfront this painting
And who are those people who do not understand or lo e this kind of father
Some people ha e written in their letters that Father made them ry. ne farmer
wrote that the man in the painting is a tually a farmer on his team and said that the
people would support this kind of work. These words solidi ed the path that I want to
take to portray farmers, to paint the ordinary life of the abashan farmers that I
know so well, to paint their sadness, happiness, anger, lo e, hate, life, and death.
I feel that artwork must maintain an af nity with the people. Artwork should
ommuni ate and e ho the people s emotions. In order to a hie e this, it is important
to ha e a solid foundation in life and real emotions.
By ne t year s graduation, I plan to paint a series of farmers. I now ha e the
sket hes. nfortunately, you were unable to gi e me ad i e last time. Ne t time, I will
listen to your suggestions.
Sin erely,
Luo hongli, e ember 14, 1980
riginally published as Wo de Fuqin de uo he de lai in in Meishu [ Art 158, no. 2 1981 : 4 5.

Translated by Mi helle Wang.
MY SEVEN PAINTINGS ( 1981 )

By Chen Danqing
I tra eled to Tibet for half a year, where I ompleted Mother and Son ( Mu yu zi pl.
as well as fi e other paintings in Lhasa. After I returned to Bei ing, I painted The
Shepherd ( Muyang ren . When the paintings were e hibited, a lot of people didn t
understand the way I painted. My thinking was as follows: the urrent fashion pri i-
leges inno ation, nationali ation, and moderni ation. As soon as people umped on
the bandwagon, howe er, I had the opposite urge to es ape. It is ne essary to ha e an
assessment and understanding of oneself. erhaps in nding one s ualities and pref-
eren es, it is also possible to dis o er one s strengths. I adhered stri tly to the rules
when I studied painting, as I naturally la ked a romanti temperament. My a ute sen-
26
siti ity was only reali ed through dire t obser ation and on rete ob e ts. In life, I
|
en oy the banal details. My mind brims with the different impressions I ha e a umu-
lated from ha ing li ed among ordinary, lower- lass people. When I depart from these
impressions, my imagination also anishes. I prefer these artists: embrandt, Corot,
Millet, and urastof I e dis o ered that no matter how uni ue an artist s style is, it
always maintains ountless ties with those artisti prede essors that s he prefers . To
me, these names are synonymous with a passion for e eryday life, human relations,
and emotions. They imply an artisti method that is at on e unadorned, penetrating,
ultured, and restrained. This is pre isely the realm to whi h I most aspire. I work hard
to imitate them, and I am not ashamed of this. When I fa ed the simple and natural
human emotions and s enes in Tibet, I naturally hose to use the language of these
artists oil paintings. That kind of intima y and austerity, that form of meti ulous
portrayal, that sense of anti uity that engenders pursuit, I annot imagine a more suit-
able language to e press my feelings. I know this kind of pursuit may at present appear
outdated, and I know that I may not a oid a usations of imitating and pi king up for-
eigners used goods. I ha e to disregard all of that. Art itself is indifferent to what is old
and what is new, not to mention the fa t that modern artists often borrow from pre-
histori art. My hoi es and imitations aren t worth mu h. In reality, purely original
reations are not easy to nd. er the ourse of two thousand years, how many
methods ha en t already been employed by others I might as well put ons ientious
effort into the uality of my art, so long as my emotions are pure and honest and the
language I use is appropriate. My work may e hibit less indi idual features, but this is
not something that I an for e. Some people say I use lassi al oil painting te hni ues
I annot admit to this. I ha e ne er seen original works of lassi al oil painting, I merely
learned super ial te hni ues from the last entury of European painters, and painted
slightly more meti ulously and smoothly. I de eloped a strong interest in the small,
e uisite paintings of some European art e hibitions. We ha e seen uite a few large
ompositions, so I painted these se en small paintings.

Not long after I arri ed in Lhasa, I de eloped se eral themes and made some sket hes,
in luding those for Men of Gangba ( Gangba hanzi and parts one and two of Entering
the City ( Jincheng . Be ause these sket hes were based on memory, they appeared
insubstantial and hollow, so I put the sket hes aside. Anything worth looking at in the
se en paintings, in luding the gures mo ements and appearan es, was all dire tly
deri ed from sket hing. Mother and Son was one su h painting where my inspiration
was triggered through a number of ui k sket hes. Although I didn t plan to paint this
theme, it turned out to be the rst painting I did. When these shepherdesses, arrying
their hildren in their ollars, sprawl a ross the ground to nurse, they appear espe ially
beautiful. Among them, one shepherdess appeared utterly honest she looked so
na e. When the hild for ed his head further into his mother s ollar to breastfeed,
her fa ial e pression as if lost in thought left a profound impression on me. I
thought of the many women who spend their entire li es laboring away and how
people like to portray them beaming and full of energy. But, in real life, they are usu-
ally e hausted and silent. This is what tou hes me. I repeatedly painted this shepherd-
ess and another mother-and-son duo the mother in the enter of the painting and the
one with bare shoulders to the left are both based on this woman. They were with a
group of people, all taking refuge outside someone s tent. At the time, this image
didn t form as a painting in my mind. A few days later, when ipping through my
sket hes, the image of that group of people disappeared. All that was left in the book
27
was that woman a few frontal and pro le pi tures of her and another mother-and-
|
son pair. They seemed to ha e run on their own into the frame of my omposition.
Nothing had to be hanged I only needed to ompose these three mothers more nat-
urally and it would be enough. In omposing the se en paintings, I stro e to maintain
simpli ity and stability, and not e essi ely emphasi e spatial perspe ti e. I preferred
to ll the omposition with people, e en making the paintings seemingly monotonous
and symmetri al. I didn t pursue dramati hanges, and a oided tra es of manipulat-
ing, lling in, or utting-and-pasting images. In the past, I painted pi ture stories, book
illustrations, and also oil paintings. I paid more attention to the sense of omposition
in the s enes, making the tableau more i id and re ned, and loser to the hara ter-
isti s of modern ompositions. But, this time, I sought to do something different
be ause if I treated these paintings in the pre ious manner, the pi ture s harmony and
simpli ity would be eopardi ed. Mother and Son was the rst painting I e e uted.
Many areas were painted with ner ousness and o ert aution. But, be ause of this,
sin erity emerges from the brushwork. Looking at it now, I still uite like it.
Many olleagues think that Mother and Son and other paintings in the series were
painted dire tly from life and don t think that they an be my graduation work whi h
should be a reati e omposition . When I say that these are indeed my graduation
works, they still don t understand the meaning behind my paintings. Now there is a new
theory that e plains why these paintings do not ualify as reati e ompositions. To
people holding this theory, Mother and Son is too mu h like a sket h, simply using a
few sheets of sket hes to onstru t an oil painting. Yet, this is pre isely what I sought to
do. If embrandt s Night Watch is a reati e omposition, then must his self-portrait be
onsidered an e er ise xizuo Mi helangelo s David, da in i s Mona Lisa, ela ue s
Aesop, Impressionist lands apes, Chardin s still lifes should they all be onsidered
e er ises or sket hes I don t know if the an ients differentiated between sket hes and
reati e ompositions, but they treated ea h painting as a serious artwork. The inherent
mission in painting is to depi t form, to relate the intera tion among the eyes, the mind,
and nature. En apsulating and re ning the ontent of the so- alled omposition should
not be omple . It is only a hoi e on the part of the artist. Among the innumerable
images from life, Millet hose the e ening prayer and feeding be ause these two both
aroused his emotions. If we were to riti i e Feeding the Young ( Wei shi for not being
able to summari e and distill the essen e of life as well as The Angelus, and if Millet were
to follow these on entions, then we wouldn t be able to witness his in omparably inti-
mate images of a hild learning to walk, urinating, et . Art has ome full ir le, and we
reali e on e again that one an ust paint what one sees with one s eyes. nly now do
I understand the paramount importan e of these words that Courbet pro laimed a en-
tury ago. Sin e here in China we praise these ealist painters, and sin e their works
a tually don t support the pre ailing theories, I should no longer ha e to worry about
whether or not my paintings an be onsidered reati e ompositions. Moreo er, many
works and e hibitions in the art world ha e already pro en that the parameters drawn
around the term reati e omposition are no longer that effe ti e.
i i ( )
Early on, I didn t really think about painting Pilgrimage. aily a ti ities like walking,
nursing, et . an be used as signi ant material in art. But, the spe ta le of the pilgrim-
age is so e traordinary and rare to witness that it a tually made it more dif ult for me.
I kept hesitating as to whether there was a need to paint this. As a work of art, I wasn t
satis ed with ust painting a few s enes of kowtowing and alling it a day. If I were
only trying to make known rare religious a ti ities from this entury, then do umen-
28
tary lms or photo ournalism would be mu h stronger mediums than oil painting. Yet,
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photographs seem to la k a ertain power of e pression when dire ted at e eryday

life. I initially planned on pla ing a sheep in the orner. It s true that old dogs and
sheep often mingle in the rowd during a pilgrimage, as if they were in the know. But,
I felt as if there was still something missing. I on e saw a hild lying beside a pilgrim s
feet. Around the hild were piles of boots and garments ast off by the adults, and
though people were oming and going all around him, he stayed sound asleep. I
re alled my life in the rural ountryside, where hildren are in ariably tossed on the
ground be ause their busy mothers don t ha e time to take are of them. They ry,
play, sleep, and rawl on the ground until they grow up. Last year I had a daughter,
and I like to wat h her endearing image as she sleeps in awkward positions. I ould not
imagine letting my daughter sleep on the streets. Yet, the numerous Tibetans who
ome to Lhasa for pilgrimage nd shelter on street orners and in alleyways. Children
who are too young are strapped to their mothers ba ks as they kowtow. Slightly older
hildren an be pla ed to the side. And hildren old enough to kowtow do so with the
adults. I knew of a little girl like this, who did not ha e parents and walked alone to
Lhasa for her pilgrimage. Suddenly, in my heart, I heard a language that spoke of life
and human emotions. This is the language that I stro e to ommuni ate in all of my
paintings. Children lying sound asleep an pull people s drifting thoughts ba k to life.
nly when I m able to relate this indes ribable kind of life with this manner of pas-
sionate de otion are my paintings apable of possessing a ertain deep and subtle
meaning. That night I made a sket h. The ne t day, I drafted a omposition using a thin
layer of oil paint. Se retly, I do like my design of the hild, but I don t admire this
painting as a whole be ause it doesn t on ey the intense emotions I felt when I set
eyes on the tens of thousands of pilgrims in Lhasa.
Some people want me to dis uss how I depi t my emotions toward people and
their li es, or how I fo us on so ial phenomena or ethni groups. If I were to really
elaborate on these topi s, I ould probably write se eral pages. But, this is pre isely
what I m unwilling to speak more about. I depend on my artwork to speak, so I hope
people will pay attention to the work it s as simple as that. I also feel that when a
work tries to intentionally show how mu h the artist ares about people and attempts
to depi t their li elihood, then the work will no longer mo e people be ause the life
represented in the painting will appear too for ed. My greatest wish is that the audi-
en e an inad ertently and une pe tedly be mo ed by the works realism and human-
ism, feeling that: This is life these are human beings. I also don t want people to
asually e pound upon my intentions or tenden ies. Some people say the paintings
are good be ause I e pose and ondemn this so ial phenomenon as being frighten-
ingly ba kward and ignorant. My response is to deny this. I hate using painting to
e pose anything. Some people say that I e press sympathy and pity for my sub e ts,
but this is also not ne essarily the ase. I don t want a painting to simply appeal for
pity, like how people would rea t if they went to an e hibition on natural disasters.
But, I annot deny that this phenomenon depi ted in the painting engenders om-
ple and onfused emotions in e eryone, in luding myself. But none of this a ounts
for the basi impulse for my work. When I was in Si huan, I also heard about thou-
sands of ommon people who o ked to worship the Buddha, but I won t go and
paint this. As an artist, there is a point that I must emphasi e, and that I hope others
will also take noti e of, whi h is that this kind of a s ene of pilgrimage is not simply
meant to send people into deep thought, but it is a tually beautiful, e en ma esti .
These kind people who prostrate themsel es on the ground, they don t know how
bitter their own li es are, nor do they know how beautiful they are. This is the reason
29
why I wanted to paint them. As for iewing the paintings, ea h person an ha e his
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her own feelings and understandings of them. That is a different story.
E erpted from a te t originally published as Wo de i hang hua in Meishu yanjiu [ Fine Arts Research ]
no. 1 ebruary 15, 1981 : 49 51. Translated by Mi helle Wang.
Melancholy Youth and “Contemplative

Painting”
EXPECTING HER TO WALK ON THE MAIN ROAD ( 1981 )

By Wang Chuan
ur generation is a generation that works hard and passionately pursues a better

tomorrow. I, along with my peers, ontinue to fer ently e plore the uestion of how
we should li e our li es. ltimately, what are we after What will we lose during the
pro ess When I follow this meandering trail of thoughts looking for my future, I am
onfused, distraught, and hesitant . . .
Along this rugged and ruthless trail, I read through my mind s eye the old hapter
of the Ten-Year Calamity the Cultural e olution , whi h hroni led all of our sweet
smiles and bitter woes. It broadened the hori ons of my reati e eld of ision. It
made me reali e that thousands of young men had aliantly bidden farewell to the
past and got on with their new li es. But, I still feel the lonely soul that wanders and
grie es. She la ks the ourage to utter the word goodbye to her past. She waits and
e pe ts the future to all on her. She is in deep misery for the past as well as the pres-
ent. She nds no oy or delight. I e perien e a wa e of profound internal agitation,
feeling a deep sense of responsibility to take so ial morality and artisti ons ien e as
my priority and ser e as an ardent ad o ate for those unfortunate youth who so
earnestly hased a better tomorrow. I fa e the dis repan ies between the ideal and
reality. I take as my theme the kind of mental anguish one e perien es when pursuing
the light at the end of the tunnel while immersed in utterly dark uneasiness. I utili e it
to on ey to my audien e the pi ture of truth, good, and beauty through the medium
of art. nly pain an be bartered for the beauty of the soul. I started to paint.
When I stand on the narrow trail, I see the young woman s bewildered soul
through her sorrowful eyes. illing her eyes are bitter tears shed not only for the angst
in the past but also for the humiliation in the future. I want to wipe her tears for her.
But her tears deep down in her heart are beyond anyone s rea h. She has no ourage
to say arewell, narrow trail Zaijian ba xiaolu . But she is already awake. I start to
feel the insurmountable pain of this e ploring soul. I wander in the garish olors of
sunset, looking for her future . . .
This trail, mysterious and ambiguous, rugged and tortuous, wears her down. Her soul
is e hausted. How soothing it would be, if she ould pause for a moment and take a drink
of spring water from her hometown It is not the pallor of her fa e that is ast in silhou-
ette, but rather her in eterate dependen e on the trail. Why are her hands trembling and
powerless Be ause she is telling us: oodbye, lonely that hed ottage goodbye, irgin
soil that has been re laimed. At that moment, she is not sure whether to ry for you or
re oi e for you. Her eyes are ated on you, motionless. What do you gi e ba k to her
You depri e her of her na e and oyful smile. You in i t wounds on her heart She is ready
to depart. She besee hes us not to abandon her, but to bring her along onto the highway.
When I was on ei ing this work, I was obli ious to the garish olors in life and
30
the o eans of people in so iety. I was obsessed with the lonely soul on the narrow trail.
|
Her awakened self- ons iousness was lled with omplaint, repulsion, and remorse.
She begged us to nd a bright road for her leading to the future.
I belie e that feelings differ. ue to different personal e perien es, young people
de elop disparate outlooks depending on their emotional ir umstan es. E en for one
who is ery sensiti e to life, it is not hard to reali e that the beauty of melan holy and
suffering, omplete with her protest against her wasted youth on this narrow trail, is
o erwhelmingly ontagious for the audien e. It is mu h more powerful than smiles
and oy for bringing out a person s ompassionate soul, when the soul has struggled
against the fetters imposed by ten years of misery. She is nothing but power. She is the
leading soul of our generation
In e ploring the reation of realist paintings, we should follow our truthful feel-
ings in life in order to bring out full-bodied emotions in front of our audien e, and to
ause a larger audien e to losely e perien e what lies inside artisti representation.
nly through this an a work gain its own life. We should all respe t our ons ien e as
artists and herish the andid and truthful dialogues with our inner minds. No preten-
sion. No distortion of life. I ha e but one ni e wish: more young people should ha e
se ond thoughts as to how to li e their li es and how to safeguard the dignity of our
li es today. This age endows us with indi idual rights and responsibilities, the spirit to
tra el freely on the highway of knowledge, and the opportunity to reali e our own al-
ues of e isten e and to perfe t oursel es. We should be prepared to fully li e up to the
e pe tations and sense of glory this age gi es us.
I belie e that the ma ority of our young people in the New China are ready to
de ote themsel es to the pursuit of truth. I wish we would all e plore a bright highway
for her, gi e her ourage and power, and allow her to say this: arewell, narrow trail
riginally published as iwang he ta ou ai dalu shang in Meishu [ Art 157, no. 1 1981 : 4 .
Translated by ela Shang.
“CONTEMPLATIVE PAINTING” IN CHINA AND ANDREW WYETH ( 1985 )

By Ruan Xudong
A hild sti ks his head out from behind a high yellow lay wall, ga ing ahead and on-
templating, with tra es of melan holy and e pe tation in his eyes. erhaps this an ient
wall blo ked his ision, separated him from the outside world, and restri ted his nai et
as a hild. erhaps, he will respond to the all of the spring bree e, muster the ourage
and strength of a se en- or eight-year-old, leap o er this an ient wall that has on ned
him for far too long, and walk toward the new world waiting outside of the wall. Su h
is the painting Ancient Wall ( Lao qiang , by the young Chinese oil painter He uoling.
n the opposite side of the a i ean, in Ameri a, there was a young girl
who suffered from polio. n a withering meadow in winter, situated in the barren
eld, she rawls toward a faraway house on the hori on. E en from her ba k one
reads hope and aspirations. She len hes her teeth, parts the o ergrown thi kets,
and rawls toward her destination. . . this is Christina’s World by the Ameri an oil
painter Wyeth.
Like an o ershadowing superno a in our nation s art ommunity, this is a brand-
new type of oil painting ontemplati e painting arising a few years following the
introdu tion of Wyeth s works into our ountry. It is so named after Wyeth s pensi e
31
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He uoling. Spring Breeze is Awake. 1981. il on an as, 50 38 129 97 m .
National Art Museum of China
paintings. They demonstrate ertain ties with Wyeth s works, but are also distinguish-
able. In omparison, their hara teristi s are listed as follows:
egardless of what the work depi ts, one an always feel the presen e of a thinker.
Su h is the interse tion of the two types of paintings, and their most fundamental fea-
ture. igures in the works are mostly ta iturn and introspe ti e, and to some e tent
are probably all pondering o er something. In Christina’s World, the girl pensi ely fa es
the house on the hori on. In A Faraway Place, the young boy is fas inated by and med-
itates o er what he belie es are mysterious pla es. In Barn Swing, Wyeth himself is
sitting in his hildhood swing, reminis ing about his bygone hildhood years. And so
on and so forth. What is more intriguing is the ontemplation o er these ontempla-
tions, whi h is more profound than the gures in the paintings be ause it is a ontem-
plation of all of so iety, the uni erse, and life. There is no denying that a thinker resides
in the painting, yet this thinker annot be identi ed with any spe i image within the
painting. To the same group should be added the hild in Ancient Wall, the old farmer
in Father ( Fuqin , the armed soldier in Why ( Weishenme , the Tibetan girl in The
Faraway Horizon ( Yuanfang de dipingxian , the ountry girl in Spring Breeze Is Awake
( Chunfeng yijing suxing , night ollege students in The Third Generation ( Disandai
ren . . . . In these silent people, artists of ontemplati e paintings ha e in e ted sober
re e tions on so iety and history. All in all, e ery ontemplati e painting and ea h of
Wyeth s works ha e a thinker persona within it. The thinker e presses ri h yet eiled
sentiments, without whi h these two types of paintings would not e ist. Howe er,
their kinds of thinking ultimately di erge. That is, the thinking in ontemplati e paint-
ings intends to proa ti ely hange the world, whereas Wyeth s works arry more pas-
si e and sentimental tra es. In Ancient Wall, the boy aspires to destroy the old wall, a
symbol of the remnants of a feudal so iety. The work demonstrates a desire to es ape
po erty and ignoran e. But, in A Faraway Place, the hild seems satis ed ust to be
remo ed from so iety and the rowds and en oy himself in leisure and pea e. The girl
in Farewell, Narrow Trail ( Zaijian ba xiaolu bids farewell to the memorable past, in pur-
suit of a better tomorrow. In ontrast, the young man in Barn Swing is engrossed in
reminis ing o er his hildhood, and takes emotional sola e from the swing. The old
farmer in Father has ne er been ri h in his life despite his ontinued industrious
ulti ation. But, he ne er gi es up his dream for a life of abundan e, and he seems to
32
be able to smell the fragran e oming from the newly har ested rops. In ontrast, the
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old man in Lonely Old Man ( Gudu de laoren is solitary, friendless, and hopeless. Both
works attempt to e pose and point to ertain aspe ts of so iety. The former re eals
the outdated pra ti es and the damages infli ted on China by ultraleftist politi s,
whereas the latter un o ers the loneliness and agony of farmers in a apitalist so iety.
The former is premised on ad an ement and de elopment, yet the latter highlights
hopelessness. The thinker in the former work is mindful of progress, whereas in the
latter he is obsessed with despair and de e tion. The former is losely based on so iety,
the latter on nature. These differen es bring about the distin t kinds of inspiration that
the two thinkers are apable of bestowing on iewers.
...
The two types of painting share similar meti ulous e e ution and linear pastel tones.
Wyeth s works that ha e been introdu ed into this ountry, almost without e eption,
are done with detailed des ription and austere tonality. This te hni ue is uite uni ue.
It is free of the dreariness and monotony seen in some lassi al paintings. It has no
ost-Impressionist boisterousness and rau ousness. It is also more el ety and steady
than the urrent So iet ussian style. Thus, it ser es as an e ellent e ample for us to
learn from. It s no a ident that ontemplati e paintings should be so strongly in u-
en ed by it. u taposed against ea h other, the four works Spring Breeze Is Awake, The
Faraway Horizon, Christina’s World, and A Faraway Place are e tremely similar in terms
of the te hni ues they employ and the stylisti de orum they obser e. The withered
grass, the lo ks of hair, the te ture of the lothing, the feel of the esh all are natu-
ralisti and redible. At the same time, the paintings are en eloped in a general tonal-
ity of subdued o her, whi h adds to their solemn yet stirring feel. Had the lassi al
style been adopted, the paintings would ha e been more dull and depressing.
Con ersely, ontemporary styles would ha e made the works more abstra t and less
amiable, and a So iet ussian style would ha e failed to on ey the profound emo-
tional subte t. When we look ba k at Ancient Wall, the meti ulous depi tion of the
wall, damaged yet entren hed, reminds us of the orruption and resoluteness of feu-
dal do trines. The artist painstakingly rendered the hild behind the wall. He has
dishe eled hair and wears wrinkled lothes. His lthy little fa e and hands e iden e
malnutrition. His eyes e in e mi ed feelings of agony and hope. All these hint at the
e ru iating pain and suffering from po erty and ignoran e under e treme leftist ide-
ology. These details symboli e people s aspirations for material and spiritual ri hes.
The painting also depi ts a spirited at with lustrous fur, in stark ontrast to the hild,
pro iding a omparison that a entuates the symboli meaning of the work. It should
be noted that artists working with ontemplati e paintings did not ompletely and
indis riminately opy when learning from Wyeth s te hni ues. Instead, they made
their own dis o eries in the dire tion of integrating national and ethni elements into
their pie es, seen in works su h as Cheng Conglin s A Summer Night in 1979: Around
Us, We Feel the Aspiration of Our Nation ( 1979 nian de xiaye, women gandao minzu de
kewang , and the series of paintings by Luo hongli. E plorations su h as these are
ommendable.
The dri ing for e behind the rise of ontemplati e painting was the artists
dis ontent with ertain aspe ts of reality. They are the generation that ame of age
during the Cultural e olution and are thus deeply prone to self-re e tion. They share
the same ualities of youth, ebullien e, pruden e, liberalness, progressi eness, and
the sense of responsibility in ontributing to the betterment of so iety through their
brushes. er the ourse of ten years of uphea al, their ri h personal e perien es of
agony and suffering familiari ed them with people s li es and drew them loser to the
33
people. Their wasted youth and the tragedies they witnessed, together with the po -
|
erty and ignoran e of many regions of the ountry, ompelled them to ombat the
glori ation of indi idual leaders and e treme leftist ideologies. They made up their
minds to effe t hange with their brushes, and de oted themsel es to building Two
Cultures i.e., material and spiritual ri hes . In omparison, Wyeth s pensi e paint-
ings were generated through his fundamental dissatisfa tion with so ial reality and
his helplessness to hange it. He an only sympathi e with the farmers and e press his
personal sentiments and melan holy. Wyeth was born into a humble Ameri an family.
Throughout his life, he li ed in the ountryside. He also fre uently took part in agri-
ultural a ti ities along with other farmhands. Therefore, he has a profound under-
standing of farm life and has reated a large number of paintings fo using on farmers.
The paintings represent, on the one hand, the farmers bene olen e, diligen e, and
austerity, and, on the other hand, the po erty and misery in their personal li es. They
more or less point to the blight of Ameri an so iety by embedding the in isible per-
sona of thinker who ontemplates the problems that farmers en ounter in their li es.
All in all, e en though ontemplati e painting and pensi e painting are ery
different in terms of their ountries of origin, so ial ba kgrounds, and the spe i rea-
sons that engendered them, they are both prominent for es in the world of ontem-
porary art among arious artisti s hools, East or West. ther artists whose works are
in the same ein in lude the Canadian artist Ale Col ille, whose e hibition re ently
toured China. Both Wyeth and ontemplati e artists ha e made remarkable a hie e-
ments in symboli ontent and in artisti styles. Their in uen e will ontinue to be felt
o er the long term, in the art of painting in general and in oil painting in parti ular.
E erpted from a te t originally published as hongguo de sisuo hua yu huaisi in Meishu sichao [ The
Trend of Art Thought , 1985: no. 3, 10 12. Translated by ela Shang.
II. THE ARRIVAL OF AN

AVANT-GARDE MOVEMENT: 1985–86
POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL CONTEXTS
35
F
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earing the spread of Western liberal ideas due to the recent Open Door policy,
the Communist Party Propaganda Department mobilized the Anti – Spiritual
Pollution campaign from 1983 to early 1984; the targets of attack included any
manners of “bourgeois imports,” from erotica to existentialism, that ran counter to
the country’s socialist system. In art, discussions of formal abstraction were forced
to stop, exhibitions of Western modern art were suspended, and some contempo-
rary art exhibitions, such as the Experimental Painting Exhibition: The Stage 1983
(Basannian jieduan: Huihua shiyan zhanlan) in Shanghai, were canceled and criticized.
While this official campaign halted the development of contemporary art tem-
porarily, it also fueled a stronger desire in many younger artists to pursue alterna-
tive routes. Two events in 1985 signaled their responses to the official campaign.
The first was their public denunciation of the Sixth National Fine Arts Exhibition
(Diliujie quanguo meishu zuopin zhanlan), a government-sponsored showcase at the
end of the previous year which reembraced the Maoist doctrine of art serving poli-
tics. The second was the installation of the Progressive Young Chinese Artists
Exhibition ( Qianjin zhong de Zhongguo qingnian huazhan ) in Beijing’s National Art
Gallery, whose participants openly embraced modern Western art. Among the
works on display was Meng Luding and Zhang Qun’s In the New Era: Enlightenment
of Adam and Eve ( Zai xinshidai: Yadang Xiawa de qishi ), which was taken as a sym-
bolic statement for the arrival of a new “enlightenment movement.”
The rapid development of contemporary art in the mid-1980s was nourished
by an information explosion: all manner of “decadent” Western art forbidden dur-
ing the Cultural Revolution was introduced to China through reproductions and
exhibitions; hundreds of theoretical works were translated and published in a
short span of time. It was as if a century-long development of modern Western art
was simultaneously restaged in China. The chronology and internal logic of this
Western tradition became less important; what counted most was its diverse con-
tent as visual and intellectual stimuli for a hungry audience. In particular, Robert
Rauschenberg’s 1985 exhibition at the National Art Gallery had a strong impact on
young Chinese artists, inspiring them to reconsider received notions of art and
artistic creativity.
An important channel of disseminating information and ideas was a host of
new art publications established around the mid-1980s, the three most influential
ones being The Trend of Art Thought ( Meishu sichao ), Fine Arts in China ( Zhongguo
meishu bao ), and Jiangsu Pictorial ( Jiangsu huakan ). Their editors and main
contributors belonged to a new generation of art critics who took upon themselves
the mission of promoting contemporary experimental art. Holding positions in
important art schools and research institutes, they also developed close ties with
experimental artists and organized important exhibitions and conferences in
different cities. Through these activities, they played a key role in connecting scat-
tered experimental art groups into a nationwide avant-garde art movement.
Notes
. Words of eng Li un, then the Communist arty ropaganda Chief, uoted in i o Iyer and a id Aikman,
Battling Spiritual ollution, Time , no. No ember , , .
. ei awei, hongyang meishu ueyuan shisheng guanyu diliu ie uanguo mei han uotan iyao Summary
of dis ussions between tea hers and students at the Central A ademy of ine Arts on the Sixth National
Fine Arts Exhibition , Meishu sichao [ The Trend of Art Thought , : no. , , .
. ounded in as a bimonthly popular art maga ine, Jiangsu Pictorial [Jiangsu huakan transformed itself in
into a monthly ournal with the mission to promote ontemporary art.
ENLIGHTENMENT OF A NEW ERA: ON IN THE NEW ERA
36
( ZAI XINSHIDAI ) ( 1985 ) pl. 7

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THE ARRIVAL OF AN AVANT-GARDE MOVEMENT
By Zhang Qun and Meng Luding
id od really say, You must not eat from any tree in the garden or od knows
that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like od, knowing
good and e il Bible . Adam and E e s rebellious a t of eating the forbidden fruit
aused a re olt. Thereafter, obs urity was repla ed by i ili ation, neutral mankind
be ame arnal reatures, and in ar eration in the arden of Eden ended, ushering in a
free world. Their story of brea hing hea en s do trines and restri tions in ites us to
re e t deeply on the past, the present reality, and the future.
Words annot apture the apa ity of a work of isual art. All isual te hni ues are
merely hannels for bridging the gap between the artist and his audien e. Any interpre-
tations by the author would limit the audien e s understanding of the work. Here, we
an only introdu e our original on ept, prior to enturing into un harted territory.
or young people, all on lusions are dubious. The pressure of our time ompels
us to re e t on the past. The pree isting order is be oming less and less suitable for us.
We are not satis ed with the past. We demand further ad enture and e pedition.
e elopment means destru tion. estru tion means reation. Continued reation
propels human i ili ation to mo e forward.
The freedom to reate rein igorates us. It en ourages us to boldly wage wars
against established artisti modes and on entional restri tions.
In re ent years, the sheer number of realisti works makes lear the memories of
trauma and agony that the past has in i ted on the bodies of our artists. We a knowl-
edge the weight of these works. Howe er, their approa h is geared toward dire t
representation and literal des ription. The limited s ope of their sub e t matter
blunted their reati e edge.
Based on the skewed prin iple that art originates from life, the sole yardsti k for
art be ame its resemblan e to nature. This led to a single path for artisti reations.
Styles seen in artists works under this homogeni ing model are merely the results of
different mirrors re e ting the same sub e t matter. This ommon way of thinking
aused people to gradually slip into a trap of standardi ation. A new age, new on epts,
and new ideas onstantly stimulate our minds, and ompel us to fundamentally
restru ture our artisti ideas and to e plore new paths in approa hing art.
We nd that we used to take isual representation as reality a so- alled ob e -
ti e reality as the sour e for art. What we failed to reali e is that mental a ti ities
going on in our brains are also reality, a sort of in isible reality, but reality nonetheless,
apable of being as ertained. Artists not only an obser e the world pro eeding from
reality, but also an sense the world we are li ing in by following the heart. or
different people, there are different worlds. Why, then, should we limit our senses to a
ertain model Sub e ti e reality a essed through obser ing the mind will ne es-
sarily bring about new ideas and new perspe ti es, laim new artisti territories, and
effe t a re olutionary hange in artisti on epts. We should mo e on from re e t-
ing ob e ti e reality to representing the in isible world, fo used not on onforming to
the e ternal surfa e but more on the internal integrity of the indi idual, in pursuit of a
spiritual realm, toward an artisti approa h that marks a determined departure from
pre ious paths.
This approa h of artisti produ tion is premised on mental raw materials. ationality
and sub e ti ity are its main thrust. It relies on intuition and the sub ons ious to
restru ture isual phenomena. Channeling a philosophi al theory, it breaks away from
an image s own original meanings to deri e new ones. It breaks free from natural spa-
37
tiotemporal restri tions and goes beyond the world where dire t senses are apable of
|
ognition. This mental a ti ity an gi e rise to supernatural imagination and thinking,
hen e a hie ing the spiritual realm of mental sensibility only when independent of
dire t senses. Thinking an be both dire t and deri ati e, at and multidimensional.
Thinking an be pursued both from the ma ro osmi le el as well as from the mi ro os-
mi le el. In life, stimuli to trigger artisti reati ity are e erywhere. Therefore, the
sour e of artisti produ tion is in nite. In addition, its omposition an be e en more
liberal and open-ended. All phenomenal elements an be sele ted, in luding ob e ts
that are not mutually onne ted. Through restru turing, they an be adapted into the
or hestration of a new order within the frame. In In the New Era: Enlightenment of
Adam and Eve ( Zai xinshidai: Yadang Xiawa de qishi , the grouping of Adam, E e, and
modern youths, the ontrast between the reat Wall and skys rapers, the blue sky and
the hori on, the forbidden fruit running through the enter, the lo k and the ambi-
en e, all ombine to represent a uni ersal idea of eternity.
This approa h should be distinguished from on eptuali ation. Con eptuali ation
has tenden ies toward formulation and limitation. In ontrast, this approa h has par-
ti ular bearings on emotional and mental a ti ities.
This approa h is not baseless. The ideas it on eys ha e their own dire tions. They
do not limit the audien e s free imagination. This approa h differs from the under ur-
rent of reudian dreams, whi h uts down the brain s ons iousness and redu es it to
fantasti and preposterous absurdity, as opposed to the deliberation of spa e and time
e ident in the new approa h. The new approa h onsists of the tra e tory of thinking
and pro e tion of assumptions. What it represents stands out from dida ti paintings,
whi h are primarily for illustrati e purposes. The new approa h is also to be distin-
guished from paintings that are imbued with stronger a ors of literary logi , or works
that fo us narrowly on isual stimulations whi h merely emanate physi al impetus and
appeal to sensuous pleasures. This approa h, through wea ing together arious ele-
ments, leads the iewers to think and to imagine. If we gi e this notion a name, we
may tentati ely all it art of the mind. This must be distinguished from Con eptual
art as the term is understood within the onte t of modern Western art.
In the New Era is an e periment aimed at testing new ideas and new perspe ti es.
Although it aused ontro ersy, praise as well as ondemnation, the impa t itself
attests to its itality. The era reated us, distin t from both the past and the future. The
tide of our time triggers our self-dis o ery, self- reation, and self-trans enden e. It
en ourages us to fa e reality and to design the future as indi iduals. This way, there
will be no ossi ed models and formulae limiting artisti produ tion. It will ne essarily
bring about a di ersi ed and indi iduali ed new world. Contemporary artists must
e plore themsel es, seeking meaning in their e isten e, meanwhile ettisoning out-
dated do trines inherited from the past and ins ribed on our ons iousness.
The nude human body an be a great sour e of inspiration for artists. ue to its
moralisti tea hings from a feudal so iety, China annot fa e nudity, and instead mis-
onstrues it and attempts to nip it in the bud. Artwork featuring nudes has ne er
appeared in ma or national art e hibitions, not be ause of ontrary aestheti alues,
but be ause of a misunderstanding of human nature. Su h misunderstanding tries to
interpret nudity in terms of las i iousness, whi h only e in es ignoran e. In the New
Era is meant to be a trailbla er, formally setting forth a nude gure in front of the
Chinese art ommunity. ortunately, this painting an now be a essed by the publi .
f ourse, we are young and still e ploring. But, we belie e that the meaning of
this work lies not only in its no el formal omponents, but also in its attempt to break
free from pree isting frames of referen e and restri tions. We hope that this somewhat
38
premature work will a t like a pebble ast into water ausing a ripple effe t.
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riginally published as inshidai de ishi: Zai xinshidai huang uo tan in Meishu [ Art 211, no. 7
1985 : 47 48. Translated by ela Shang.
PIONEERS OF CONTEMPORARY CHINESE ART — A CRITIQUE OF THE

PROGRESSIVE YOUNG CHINESE ARTISTS EXHIBITION ( 1985 )
By Zhao Jinghuan
The urrent Progressive Young Chinese Artists Exhibition ( Qianjin zhong de Zhongguo
qingnian huazhan displays si hundred works of different forms and styles. Not only
are the ontents of the pie es dynami and inspired, and not only do these works
demonstrate a departure in artisti ideology from e treme leftist li h s su h as the-
mati determinism and ontent pre eding form , but they also display a spirit of
reati e freedom in their in estigation of artisti forms and styles, re ealing unpre e-
dented dimensions of inno ation that ha e produ ed a wealth of reati e results. The
signi an e of the e hibition surpasses the e hibition itself. In my opinion, in terms
of e ploring new ideas, this e hibition has the following three hara teristi s.
1. i
Many young artists ha e abandoned the on entional methods of omposing gures
and the en ironment based on photographs. Instead, they ons iously sear h for pos-
sibilities in ombining images and ba kgrounds from different times and spa es, result-
ing in fresh on epts and ideas. In terms of the degree of depth and i idness of the
artisti themes and imagery, su h attempts allow audien es to de elop freer asso ia-
tions and form lasting impressions. This is one of the most distinguishing hara teris-
ti s of this e hibition.
Yu iaofu s oil painting Gently, the Children Perform for Picasso’s Doves ( Qingxie,
haizimen zhengzai wei Bijiasuo de gezi yanzou , based on a true story, is a work with an
un on entional style and ri h with profound meaning. The artist transposes a group of
hildren, who should be performing indoors around tables and hairs, and pla es them
une pe tedly in the open ountryside. This draws a relationship among i asso s do es
that were killed by as ists, the onsolation offered by the hildren, and the open spa e.
In turn, iewers an make free asso iations between this painting and the lash of war
and pea e, i asso, these hildren, and all of mankind s hopes for pea e. The elds, the
do es, the people, and the small watering an pla ed beside a hair these ob e ts
that on e o upied different times and spa es are now organi ed within a single frame
that seems to apture one pla e at one moment. A ording to on ention, this would
be onsidered irrational, and yet it is only with this irrationality that the work an
depart from photography and approa h the essen e of painting.
Wang iangming and ing Lili s Longing for Peace ( Kewang heping is learly a
onglomeration of different moments in time. In one orner of the oil painting stands
a tall, thin girl, who appears malnourished from war and misfortune. She fa es the
iewer with her eyes wide open, anti ipating and pleading. Ne t to her, o upying the
ma ority of the an as, is a large frame ontaining numerous renowned paintings of
world wars, their i tims and their sur i ors, the most prominent being i asso s
Guernica. This frame appears suspended among the louds, while the grassy terrain
below is painted like a arpet with se ered tree stumps and sprouting rubber tree
shoots. The inno ati e design of these images alone re eals the painting s theme, and
39
was the key to its winning rst pla e. hang ongfu s Childhood Memories ( Tongnian de
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huiyi , Li i s Doves ( Gezi , hou Chang iang s Window ( Chuangkou , and a nude paint-
ing that adopts al s style of Surrealism, all possess their own indi idual attributes in
their e plorations in spatiotemporal onstru tion.
In the printmaking ategory, hang un s April 5, 1976 ( 1976 nian siyue wuri is a
striking new work. The artist ut out a hori ontal strip from a photograph of a young
military troop mar hing shoulder-to-shoulder. sing this as a basi unit, he added the
te t April 5, 197 , and repeatedly positioned it throughout the work like a pattern.
He made opies of the ollaged pie es with a photo opy ma hine and added a bright
red bloodstain on top. The entire surfa e possesses a ibrant energy. This method of
using ollage and dupli ation to form an o erlapping spatial omposition similar in
appearan e to op art s trans enden e of realism, while also re alling the igorous
impa t of the uturists is new and uni ue, and su eeds in foregrounding the weight
of that histori al era. As a result, it pi ued the audien e s uriosity and appre iation,
and was rewarded with rst pla e in prints. Interestingly, the artist atta hed a real mir-
ror to the painting. Through this mirror, iewers ould see themsel es be ome a part
of the omposition, thus pro oking an e en deeper re e tion.
The rst-pla e winner in traditional Chinese painting was Hu Wei s Li Daozhao, Qu
Qiubai, Xiao Hong. The artist refrained from making a generi group portrait and
instead arranged the three gures into dis rete spa es. When iewing the three in on-
gruous parts within this one painting, iewers are stru k by a sense of geographi al
and histori al distan e.
2. i
The new here, in luding the aforementioned new forms of spatiotemporal
onstru tion and the new te hni ues that are to be dis ussed below, are relati e terms.
Some ha e already appeared histori ally or elsewhere in the world, and thus annot be
onsidered absolutely new. E en so, gi en the way we per ei e it, it feels new.
er the past two years, among artists who admired and followed the styles of
Millet, Wyeth, and hotorealism, there emerged some new talent and a large number
of futile imitators. A number of those styles were still e hibited, and there were some
ne representati e works, but they no longer hold a prominent position. The di ersi -
ation of methods makes it dif ult to pigeonhole these artists, whi h is a positi e
de elopment.
in Ming s oil painting A Procession Praying for Rain ( Qiuyu de hanglie still retains
elements of European realism, but it has its own reati ity. Its style is on ise, in lu-
si e, and similar to printmaking in that it does not seek to display an e ternal light
sour e or meti ulously rendered details. Instead, it uses blurred brushstrokes and a
brown mono hromati olor palette to delineate authenti images of an ient people
under the streaming sunlight. rom the artist s isual e ploration, we an see the
uni ue hara teristi s of these illuminated gures and the e pressi e power of the
s attered light. hang ongfu s se ond-pla e work Childhood Memories ( Tongnian de
huiyi draws iewers into a dreamlike realm through rude and hildish modeling
methods. Awkward, blo ky limbs and phalanges, ill-proportioned fa ial features,
emotionless fa es, and hapha ardly s attered and magni ed s arabs, frogs, birds, and
water grass, strange insertions of drawing te hni ues, irrational olor ombinations . . .
all make me think ba k to my na e and inno ent hildhood. Like meeting after a long
separation, I feel all the more atta hed to these images. He ong s The Story of Flower-
Planters ( Zhonghuaren de gushi uses broad strokes to asually sket h the ontours of
the gures and plants. The interior spa es are lled with beautiful, lush blo ks of olor.
40
Without additional embellishment, the artist lets things take their own ourse. It
|
ould thus be onsidered a freehand sket h for the oil painting. The artist s intentions
are solely dire ted at reating an image that onnotes sweetness and fruitfulness, sug-
gesting the merits of the ower-planter, and thus establishing a uni ue style. In the
e hibition, there were also some abstra t or semiabstra t works. hou Shaoli s
abstra t work Death Breeds New Life ( Siwang li yunyu zhe xinsheng re alls China s
an ient stone- ar ings or wall paintings. Though suggesting guration, it is a symboli
work with deep and mysterious meaning. sing ar hai and abstruse symbols, the
work radiates new life and hope, e hoing the uni ersal prin iple the new are born,
and the old will die.
Among the prints, Chen Haiyan s award-winning work On the Horizon ( Dipingxian
shang uses geometri lines, ir les, and rosshat hed lines to e press the hara teristi
nature of modern industry. undamentally a semiabstra t work, it shows new isual
e plorations in uen ed by the artist s sensiti ity toward the aestheti and stylisti apa-
bilities of te hnology. Her wood ut Herd of Sheep ( Yangqun starts in a realisti style but
adds bla k-and-white abstra tion and is treated with a ar ing knife. Here, the bla k-
and-white and ar ing blade te hni ues are no longer means of s ienti modeling.
Instead, they form an indispensable element to symboli ing the misty and mysterious
poeti sentiment of the grasslands. In Wang Lan s award-winning re ut of General Store
( Zahuodian , the gures and ob e ts are all made in the na e style of folk paper- uts. It
is ertainly a good work with an unusual taste. In Footsteps of Giants ( Juren de zuji ,
the e aggerated, distorted bodies of the gures ombine with the elasti ity of the loth
surfa e, gi ing iewers a sense of ompatibility between the two omponents.
3. i i
As young artists ha e the opportunity to de elop their indi idual personalities and
independently ondu t artisti e plorations, they ine itably e periment with new
methods and te hni ues that are outside of ed on ention. The term e perimen-
talism in our artisti riti ue an no longer be riti i ed as formalist tri kery. All of
the works in this e hibition are parti ularly dynami in this regard.
Among the oil paintings, Cao Liwei s White Ox ( Bai niu se ond-pla e winner
uses a blanket of pure blue as its sky, a single hue of green for the ground, and only
white for the o . The simpli ity of the white and green olors gi es the o a spiritual
appearan e. Similarly, the ro ky te ture of the fortress in the ba kground is rendered
using only brown. This simple, puri ed te hni ue ontrary to the Impressionists
dots of olor or the hea y realist strokes in Chen an ing s Tibetan series on eys
the sa red and lofty realm of the Tibetan plateau. It brings iewers into a solemn and
poeti atmosphere, and allows them to ponder o er history and religion. Liu ian s
Alley ( Xiaoxiang instead su essfully uses thi k, relie ike images to depi t a rhythmi ,
three-dimensional alley in a uni ed bluish gray. The alley seems to o er ow with a
dreamlike past, and through the simple olor palette, iewers an sense its rhythmi
aden es. The painting Lost ( Mitu seems to ha e a layer of sand sprinkled a ross its
surfa e. Through its une en distribution of light and shadow, the work imparts a feel-
ing of blurred disorientation. The oil painting Homeland, Honor ( Zuguo rongyu uses
op art methods, where news photographs ha e been s reenprinted on top of a
ibrant ba kground, thus displaying hara teristi s of images from the mass media.
Spring in Ruoergai ( Ruoergai de chuntian deliberately uses a style similar to fres o
painting, e posing unpainted pat hes of reddish-green-like rough layers of dirt. There
are also paintings that use layers of paint, produ ing an effe t similar to la uer paint-
ing and in iting a different kind of interest. Some paintings were onstru ted by
41
ombining found materials, su h as olorful loth, pie es of paper, plaster, sand, and
|
e en data sheets, some are as thin as water olor, and some appear like patterns
designed with drafting tools. Some pie es were made using spontaneous te hni ues
showing whimsy and indetermina y, while others employed spray paint or more
meti ulous methods to emulate lighting effe ts or photorealism. In short, the hoi es
of materials, tools, and te hni ues already e emplify myriad ariations in appearan es,
with no trend toward one dominant method.
Among the traditional ink paintings, many works used spontaneous te hni ues,
su h as dyeing rinkled paper, utili ing resist-dye te hni ues, ra kle te hni ues, mak-
ing rubbings, et . un hen s Yearning ( Xiangwang uses this te hni ue to reate a
natural ba kground, onto whi h he has painted an outline of a girl s fa e in o her using
an an ient fres o style. The result is elegant and fresh. Se eral paintings had spontane-
ous olor hoi es, and some e en used halk. uite a few works are painted on silk or
polyester, su h as Lin Wei s Angel ( Tianshi . In this painting, in order to depi t the
white- loaked emissary, the artist sprinkled white powder on a subtle yellow silk
ground. The angel s hair is painted gray, and the entire surfa e is as spotless as a blan-
ket of snow, produ ing the feeling that both the images within the painting and the
thoughts outside the pi ture frame are lu id and pure. Spring Breeze in a Small Town
( Xiaozhen chunfeng , though ategori ed as a traditional painting, also has white
powder spread a ross its ba kground with ink applied onto the surfa e, resembling a
mural painted on a white-powdered wall. The effe t is ery unusual. Nostalgia ( Liulian
zhi qing uses water olor te hni ues to produ e ink painting effe ts. Though without
the traditional ink brush pro ess, it is still full of energy and does not la k in te hni ue
or substan e. Mother, Wisest of All Creatures ( Muqin, wanwuzhiling breaks through
the boundaries between what is onsidered traditional painting and what is not. sing
an almost dry brush and adopting sket hing and printmaking te hni ues, the artist has
reated the image of a di ine mother of humankind. Liang iu ing in The Far Away Sail
( Yuanqu de fengfan boldly used metalli sil er olors to paint an entire an as full of
sil er sh. This fresh approa h a hie es an apt effe t. With regard to the e ploration of
te hni ues in traditional painting, the aforementioned e amples are those that di erge
from tradition, but this does not imply that the traditional ink brush method is out-
dated or that it should be disregarded.
In the ategory of prints, there were also numerous breakthroughs. Many people
showed interest in April 5, 1976 be ause it is still rare to see reprodu ed images in
prints. Howe er, there are people who ob e t to this, belie ing that at this rate, as
soon as one takes a photograph and repli ates it, it an be onsidered a print. Wouldn t
this ust turn into haos I think that at the moment we an lea e the matter open
sin e artisti iewpoints are ne er uni ed to begin with. Besides, at the international
printmaking e hibitions there ha e already been artists, su h as Takamatsu iro from
apan, who ha e been awarded prestigious awards for their olor reprodu tions.
Footsteps of Giants re eals inno ations in its base material, using oarse an as as its
printed substrate and using dying instead of printing. n a light grayish brown loth,
the artist has dyed earthy tea olored images. Blue Dream ( Lanse de meng e hibits the
a tual woodblo k used for printing, rather than the resulting prints, pro iding iewers
with a simple yet profound sense of beauty. Compared with the Eighth National Print
Exhibition ( Dibajie quanguo banhua zhanlan two years ago, it is lear there has been a
great breakthrough in the te hni ue of printmaking. As the number of non-wood
ar ings has in reased, what is most noteworthy is the ariety of te tural ideas that
ha e ome to repla e the pre iously dominant wood ut method.
Through the three aforementioned elements spatiotemporal onstru tion,
42
modeling methods, and representational te hni ues we an see the su ess of this
|
e hibition. But, this doesn t imply that there weren t any aws. irst, there are still
many artists who don t know how to pursue independent thinking and are unable to
dis o er and re ogni e themsel es. Instead, they resort to simply imitating famous
foreign artists. rom early on, young artists should nd their own path. Se ond, a la k
of artisti training has pre ented some artwork from a hie ing their intended hoi es
and treatment, thus resulting in works that appear affe ted, immature, or brash.
Ne ertheless, with the in reasing di ersi ation and interpenetration of different
stru tures, modeling methods, and representational te hni ues, boundaries between
different paintings genres and forms are be oming blurred. This ompli ates the ury s
standards in sele ting and e aluating paintings. How should we respond to the new
situation How do we, in theory, embra e di erse styles and methods By in luding
udges with knowledge of ontemporary art How an we, in pra ti e, eliminate the
outmoded rules and regulations that obstru t artisti de elopment These issues all
need to be dealt with from now on. inally, we should ommend the udging this time,
although not awless, it was basi ally solid and fair. Their work was meti ulously e e-
uted. And, as the de isions were announ ed by the time the e hibition opened, the
audien e was allowed to publi ly e amine them.
riginally published as hongguo dangdai meishu de kailu ianfeng: ing Qingnian huazhan in Meishu
sichao [ The Trend of Art Thought , 1985: no. 5, 12 14. Translated by Mi helle Wang.
BEIJING THEORISTS’ REACTIONS TO THE ART OF ROBERT

RAUSCHENBERG ( 1985 )
Compiled by Zhu Ye
Sin e its opening on No ember 18, 1985, at the National Art allery, the e hibition of
works by the artist obert aus henberg as part of his Rauschenberg Overseas Culture
Interchange ( ROCI ) has eli ited a series of strong and mi ed rea tions from iewers.
or this reason, Fine Arts in China ( Zhongguo meishu bao organi ed a symposium,
omposed of a group of young and middle-aged theorists. The following is a summary
of their statements.
Shui Tianzhong esear h Institute of ine Arts, Chinese National A ademy of Arts : This
e hibition of aus henberg s works is the rst solo e hibition of a Western modern artist
to be prepared and designed by the artist himself. This e hibition opens a window
through whi h we an ha e a deeper and more ob e ti e understanding of styles of
Western modern art. The ways in whi h aus henberg pursues the te hni ues of mak-
ing art and the aestheti beauty of materials are ertainly an inspiration to us. The emer-
gen e of a new artisti style is more often than not a ompanied by new materials and
te hni ues. By omparison, among our painters, many e periment with modern art
using only lassi al te hni ues, traditional tools and materials of Chinese painting . This
in ariably limits any kind of breakthroughs in form.
Chen Zui esear h Institute of ine Arts : The aus henberg e hibition without a
doubt pro ides an intense isual stimulus to many of the iewers. egardless of
whether iewers feel onfused or happy, the e hibition e ites an irresistible uriosity.
If when fa ed with this modern art, in luding op art, one tries to sear h for traditional
43
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oster produ ed on the
o asion of the Rauschenberg
Overseas Cultural Interchange
e hibition in Bei ing
and Lhasa, No ember 18
e ember 8, 1985 National
Art allery, Bei ing
e ember 2 23, 1985 Tibet
E hibition Hall, Lhasa
meanings, one will only be greeted with e asperation. If we surpass this on entional
notion of art, approa h its meaning through a less utilitarian method, and sear h for
the artist s emotions and temperament, perhaps then we an re ei e a ertain
aestheti satisfa tion. uite a few iewers made omments like: I ould do that, too
Well, maybe this is one of the a hie ements of the e hibition. After all, art is about
how e erybody re ogni es his or her own alue in the pro ess of ob e ti ation.
Ge Yan esear h Institute of ine Arts : aus henberg is widely a knowledged as a

renowned artist in the West. His works allow us to per ei e transformations in the
idea of art. In the most a ant-garde art, man s most arefree ideas are e pressed. As a
matter of fa t, his works e ho the most natural features of human beings. By breaking
through formulai patterns, they reate another new art form in the new era.
Gu Shangfei raduate Student in Mar ist Cultural Theory : The works of aus henberg
do not ontain any tra e of an aristo rati spirit. They are on erned with the e eryday
life of ommon people. He uses the most ordinary materials to reate aestheti forms.
His art rea hes into e ery sphere of life, thus redu ing the distan e between art and life.
aus henberg s work demonstrates a mutual reation between sub e t and ob e t. It
has important impli ations in aestheti edu ation, emphasi ing that e erybody an be
reati e and be empowered through this reati ity. This reminds me of a uote by
Auguste odin: There is no la k of beauty in life, there is only a la k of dis o eries.
Liu Xiaochun esear h Institute of ine Arts : The large s ale of the e hibition, and its
lo ation in the main e hibition hall in the National Art allery , were unpre edented.
The department and personnel that san tioned this e hibition ha e made a great on-
tribution. aus henberg s works are ertainly understandable. ne of the pie es in
the e hibition in ol es a rope threaded through a trash an, whi h re e ts an Ameri an
sense of humor. There is another animal assemblage pie e depi ting e ologi al bal-
an e. If Chinese artists addressed this same topi , they would treat it in a mu h more
serious manner. Although our artists now stress indi iduality and self-e pression, prior
to their really rea hing the realm of freedom, their e pressions of indi iduality and self
often pla e restri tions on reati ity.
Fei Dawei Central A ademy of ine Arts : The works of aus henberg an be enlight-
44
ening to artists and perple ing to non-professionals. Some iewers e en atta ked the
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e hibition as de adent or ridi ulous, as if taking it as an irre on ilable enemy.

Today, e en outdated art from the West still has su h a strong impa t on us. This shows
how limited our knowledge is regarding Western on epts and ideas. What has been
introdu ed to China to a ertain e tent remains at the surfa e le el.
Yin Yanjun Spe ial eporter, Fine Arts in China [ Zhongguo meishu bao : aus henberg
is a serious, en y lopedi painter. His paintings sin erely e press what he sees and
knows about the world. He respe ts his iewers and is willing to share his e perien es
with them regarding his en ounters with different regions and ethni ities.
Meng Luding Central A ademy of ine Arts : As a painter, it is relati ely easy to e pe-
rien e the work through form, olor, and isual effe t. aus henberg s point of depar-
ture is ountering tradition, and he breaks through restri tions imposed by
three-dimensional spa e and materials. His representational te hni ues are also ery
different from those found in traditional painting. Some say that his paintings are sin-
ere. I am not sure about that. His paintings ha e stirred up a lot of rea tions among
Chinese painters. We need to nd our own representational methods.
Lü Pintian raduate Student in Art Theory, Chinese National A ademy of Arts :

aus henberg demonstrates his en ironment and state of mind through all forms of
isual o abularies. I feel an indes ribable power and emotion when looking at the
spe i formal relationship onstituted by the isible lines, olors, and stru tures. His
works are ma ros opi and multidimensional. But it seems that no narrati e logi an
be found among the wide ariety of materials, the hoi es of whi h are more likely
a identally and sub ons iously made. In many ases, the artworks ha e no parti ular
onne tion with their titles either. This kind of illogi ality is ompletely different from
traditional art. It pro ides the iewers with a great deal of freedom, allowing them to
per ei e and on ei e of artisti pra ti e with no onstraints.
When aus henberg pla es an abandoned water bu ket in a museum, a sa red
pla e for art, uestions su h as what e a tly is art are raised. Any attempt to nd an
absolute and uni ed answer would be a mistake. erhaps answers only e ist is- - is
spe i time periods or ertain groups of people. As su h, art riti ism today should
be open-minded rather than totali ing. The de elopment of Western art is not only
about form, but also, and more importantly, about on ept. The emergen e of a ari-
ety of genres and styles a tually demonstrates the artists re ognition of their
self-worth.
Liang Jiang raduate Student in Art Theory, Chinese National A ademy of Arts :
aus henberg s art ombines ibrant brushwork, photographs, serigraph prints, and
e en ollages of ready-mades to ollapse the boundary between art and life, and
between painting and s ulpture. He often hooses ommon materials from e eryday
life, and organi es them in a rather rational manner. But, symbolism, metaphor, and
other narrati e stru tures are rarely seen in his works. This represents another on ept
of art, a on ept that is produ ed against a ross ultural ba kground.
Zhang Xiaoling raduate Student in Art Theory, Chinese National A ademy of Arts :
Whether art is good or bad is determined by parti ular aestheti ideals. Without these
aestheti ideals, there is no way to e aluate art. In fa t, the reason that many iewers
are ha ing trouble understanding aus henberg s works is pre isely due to the di erse
45
and parado i al nature of aestheti ideals, whi h pre ents them from re ei ing an
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e ui alent e itement from the art.
aus henberg s works show two trends in modern art: the in reasingly blurred
boundary between art and non-art, and the growing indistin tness among different
genres of art.
riginally published as Bei ing bufen lilun ia dui Laoshengbo uopin de fanyin in Zhongguo meishu
bao [ Fine Arts in China , e ember 21, 1985 no. 22 , 2. Translated by iayun huang.
FOREWORD TO FINE ARTS IN CHINA ( 1985 )
Art is in ltrating the eld of produ tion and the sphere of our li es. At the same time,
produ tion and life are orienting themsel es toward art. Art in a broad sense not only
en ompasses painting, s ulpture, rafts, and ar hite ture, but also bears ountless
onne tions with the basi ne essities of life. It is in this sense that art supplies our
newspaper with far-ranging topi s and sub e ts.
Time is life. But only reform an help to win more time. We are implementing a
system of independent a ounting as well as an editorial system with responsibilities
undertaken by the proprietor, the editor-in- hief, and the asso iate senior editor,
respe ti ely. We e pe t this system to be produ ti e and effe ti e, and help to bring
us in lose ooperation and ommuni ation with our readers.
ur publi ation will appeal to both re ned and popular tastes, pro iding readers
with high- uality topi s while e plaining profound issues in plain and simple terms.
We stri e to o er sub e ts ranging from the most pressing issues in the art world to
the most tangible aspe ts in our pra ti es of beautifying life.
Breadth, epth, and Indi iduality this is our pursuit.
riginally published as hongguo meishu bao fakan i in Zhongguo meishu bao [ Fine Arts in China ,
uly , 1985, no. 1, 1. Translated by iayun huang.
APPENDIX
A NATIONWIDE FORUM AND MODEL: ART MAGAZINES AND SYMPOSIA
( 2003 )
By Martina Köppel-Yang
The a ant-garde of the 1980s was not a homogeneous mo ement. luralism, propa-
gated by the ampaign of the Two Hundreds, initiated a de entrali ation and thus
regionalism. Communi ation between the regional artists groups was made possible
by regional and national art maga ines and symposia that thus played a ma or role in
the propagation of the artisti mo ement of the 1980s. Maga ines and symposia
e erted in uen e in three ways. irst, they were a powerful and immediate fa tor in
the de elopment of a ant-garde art through re iews of e hibitions and single works of
art and through their reports on artists groups and e ents. This not only onstituted a
pool of mutual information, but also reated a kind of snowball effe t. The artists took
the works they saw in those maga ines and symposia as a referen e. A ording to ao
Minglu, many works of that period would not ha e been reali ed without this sour e
of inspiration. Se ond, they shaped art world opinions. Many debates were initiated
by ontro ersial arti les in those maga ines. An important e ample is the ontro ersy
46
on erning the moderni ation of traditional Chinese painting, initiated by Li iaoshan s

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arti le My pinion on Contemporary Chinese ainting, published in Jiangsu Pictorial

( Jiangsu huakan in uly 1985. Third, art maga ines and symposia generated a general
pi ture of the ontemporary art mo ement. This pi ture, e en though di erse and
aried, reated a kind of group ons iousness and propagated ertain on epts with
whi h young artists ould identify. As ao Minglu states, art maga ines and symposia
generated a o-operating general stru ture and they spurred the art world to enter
the a ant-garde of the new Chinese ulture.
Confronted with the onstant hanging of politi al ampaigns and dire ti es, it
was important to report in writing the e ents of the a ant-garde art, and to reate
do uments of a modernist, alternati e trend as a way to se ure its e iden e, and onfer
upon it a sense of autonomous alidity and substan e. urthermore, in China art his-
tory always was made rst on paper. Therefore, it not only seemed ne essary, but also
ery natural to artists and art riti s to reate do uments of the artisti mo ement.
The fun tion of maga ines and symposia was not limited, howe er, to information
gathering, ommuni ation, the shaping of opinion, and the identi ation and do u-
mentation of artists and works of art. Maga ines e tended their responsibilities to inter-
ene dire tly through the organi ation of e ents, e hibitions, and symposia. Symposia
often were on ei ed as preparati e rounds for e hibitions, su h as China /Avant-Garde
( Zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan in the National Art allery in Bei ing ebruary 1989 .
Interesting is the hange in the role of art riti s and art historians, e ident here, as well
as in the ood of art histori al writing. Starting from the late 1970s, the art world was no
longer administered solely by ideologi al working adres. Spe ialists with a master s or
do toral degree in art history often o upied important positions in the art bureau ra y,
and they supported the a ant-garde mo ement out of personal moti ation. They not
only propagated its e ents but also do umented them, and thus wrote an unof ial
history of the art of the 1980s. The most in uential and a ti e of these art riti s were
an in hong, ei awei, ao Minglu, Hou Hanru, Huang huan, Lang Shao un, Li
ianting, Li iaoshan, Liu iao hun, eng e, Shao a hen, Shui Tian hong, Wang Lin,
Wang iao ian, Yan Shan hun, hang hiyang, hu ingsheng.
i
In the eople s epubli of China, art maga ines, like all publi ations, are stri tly
ontrolled. In ertain periods, howe er, ontrol has been loosened. An e ample is the
time dire tly after the Cultural e olution during the period of the so- alled Bei ing
Spring, when freedom of spee h was the of ial slogan. In the mid-1980s, e en the
pri ate nan ing of maga ines and newspapers and thus their independen e from
of ial institutions was admitted. These sporadi periods of rela ation a ount for
the ourishing of the maga ines and for their in uen e. Similarly, new restri tions
e plain setba ks and dif ulties. Maga ines that e isted before 19 5, like for e ample
Art ( Meishu , were reorgani ed immedi ately following the end of the Cultural
e olution. In addition, new ones, su h as World Art ( Shijie meishu were established,
re e ting the pen oor poli y. The rela ation of press and publi ation in the mid-
1980s again stimulated the establishment of numerous new maga ines.
The reorgani ation of old maga ines often was often linked to the reorientation of
their ontent. The monthly maga ine Art, established in 1954, resumed publi ation in
197 . In the years from 197 to 1983 and from 1985 to 1987, with He ong as editor-in-
hief, it re e ted the liberal atmosphere of the art s ene. As the organ of the Chinese
Artists Asso iation, the maga ine fun tioned as a barometer of the ideologi al limate.
Also, be ause of the wide range of the publi it rea hed from adre to a ant-garde
47
artists and art lo ers it played a ma or role in the art s ene throughout the late 1970s
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and the 1980s. E en though it was re uired to follow of ial dire ti es losely, many
arti les ru ial to the de elopment of the a ant-garde were published in this maga ine.
A few of the most important su h arti les in lude the re iew of the pi ture story Maple
( Feng , reports on some of the rst semi-of ial e hibitions, su h as Spring Tide
( Chunchao , or the Stars Art Exhibition ( Xingxing meizhan in Bei ing, re iews on S ar
Art the detailed re iew and riti ue of the Sixth National Fine Arts Exhibition ( Diliujie
quanguo meishu zuopin zhanlan , and numerous e ents of the New Wa e. The maga-
ine further organi ed dis ussions on arious sub e ts, for e ample ontent and form,
self-e pression, realism, and nude painting. Beginning with the uly 1985 issue, the
olumn Inno ate ur Con epts of Art dis ussed e perimental trends of the 85 Art
Mo ement.
The weekly paper Fine Arts in China ( Zhongguo meishu bao , whi h Liu iao hun,
former editor-in- hief, alled China s rst professional art maga ine, o upied a top
position among the Chinese art maga ines of the 1980s. New and unusual were the
organi ation of the editorial staff, as well as its pro le and its goals. ublished by the
esear h Institute of ine Arts of the China Arts esear h A ademy, the paper was
of ial. rom the inaugural issue published on uly , 1985, through the paper s lo-
sure on offi ial instru tion four and a half years later, 229 issues were published.
Signi antly, Fine Arts in China was the rst pri ately nan ed art maga ine in China.
A tually, the inaugural members pri ately lent the initial apital of 200,000 yuan from
the institute. E en though this was an internal agreement, the international press got
wind of it and suspe ted fundamental hanges were on the way with the admission of
a rst pri ate maga ine.
The editing of Fine Arts in China was also organi ed a ording to a new system,
with internal and e ternal editors responsible for different olumns or e en entire
issues. This kind of system allowed the editors, most of whom were art historians of
the middle and young generations, to fo us on their resear h work and their personal
elds of interests. The system of editing as well as the weekly and detailed reports and
re iews on the New Wa e ontributed to the di ersity of Fine Arts in China. Aside from
di ersity, the de lared aims of the maga ine were ompetition, the reporting of urrent
e ents and new trends, the s ienti re iew of works of art and theoreti al topi s, as
well as a balan ed professional pro le. Balan e was to be guaranteed by the di ision
into arious olumns, in luding traditional Chinese painting, alligraphy, ar hite ture,
s ulpture, and art edu ation. The reports on the New Wa e o upied a uarter of the
four-page maga ine. The notion s ienti here is to be read in the sense of not ideo-
logi ally moti ated. Liu iao hun thus tou hes on ad o ating the demo ra y of s i-
en e as another important goal. The maga ine was supposed to pro ide an
un arnished report of the s ienti on i ts and ontro ersies of the art world. or
this reason, deli ate uestions and sub e ts were pi ked up. This pro o ati e and
in ammatory attitude is parti ularly e ident in the e ample of Li iaoshan s arti le
My pinion on Contemporary Chinese ainting that was reprinted in Fine Arts in
China under the title Chinese ainting Has ea hed a ead End. The maga ine s
outstanding pro le, whi h an be subsumed under the notions modern, s ienti ,
in ammatory, and pro o ati e, as well as its e eptional design, e plain its great
in uen e despite its relati ely small print runs of 100,000 opies. Another important
fa tor is the omprehensi e weekly reporting of the urrent e ents of the New Wa e.
The maga ine was, as ao Minglu mentions, the most important forum and means of
ommuni ation for the regional artists groups: Nearly e ery New Wa e artist had an
issue in his hands. The maga ine s high professional standard further fun tioned as a
48
kind of uality erti ate for works of art and e ents of the a ant-garde mo ement.
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E en more in uential, howe er, was its dire t inter ention into the art s ene through
the organi ation and o-organi ation of e tremely important e ents, in luding the
Zhuhai Symposium ( Zhuhai huiyi , and the China /Avant-Garde e hibition, and the so-
alled Xishan Symposium ( Xishan huiyi , a riti al retrospe ti e of the 85 Mo ement.
The Trend of Art Thought ( Meishu sichao , with a similar far-rea hing in uen e, was
published by the Artists Asso iation of Hubei ro in e. The monthly maga ine was
rst published in tober 1984 and appeared bimonthly from 198 . It fo used on the
reporting of news from the front line of ontemporary art theory, and emphasi ed
ompetition zhengming , renewal qingnianhua , a s ientifi , non-ideologi al
approa h and philosophi al a or zhexue yiwei . More than two-thirds of the arti les
were written by young art riti s, supposedly guaranteeing ompetition and inno a-
tion. Art histori al re iews and philosophi al essays both fo using on works of the
a ant-garde, as well as the dis ussion of inno ati e trends of Western and Chinese art
theory, stood for philosophi al a or. In the 1980s su h a on ept was noteworthy,
and The Trend of Art Thought was therefore highly wel omed by art riti s, artists, and
art students. The maga ine s fo us on the ontemporary and the art of the New Wa e
further guaranteed a wide readership.
Compilation of Translations in Art ( Meishu yicong was a maga ine that mainly
translated and dis ussed Western art theory. It was published by the he iang A ademy
of ine Arts later, China National A ademy of ine Arts in Hang hou, with young art
riti s dominating its readership. In spite of its small ir ulation, its in uen e was
onsiderable.
Two other maga ines that basi ally presented works of art, single artists and art-
ists groups were Jiangsu Pictorial ( Jiangsu huakan and Painter ( Huajia . ounded in
1974, Jiangsu Pictorial has appeared monthly sin e its reorgani ation in 1985. Aside
from a s ienti approa h, modernity and a national in uen e were the aims of this
maga ine that, parti ularly in 1985 and 198 , igorously supported the art of the New
Wa e, both in print and by organi ing symposia and e hibitions. ne of the most
in uential ontro ersies of the 1980s, the ontro ersy on the moderni ation of tradi-
tional Chinese painting, was initiated by the abo e-mentioned arti le by Li iaoshan,
originally published in Jiangsu Pictorial. Painter was founded in No ember 1985 by the
Hunan ine Arts ublishing House. The maga ine fo used on the detailed presentation
of single artists and ared for high- uality reprodu tions therefore, although it fo used
on the regional art s ene, it drew a wide readership. inan ial dif ulties aused the
maga ine to publish irregularly.
i
The late 1970s and the 1980s saw the organi ation of numerous symposia, parti ularly
during the years from 1985 to 1988. The of ial publi ation Yearbook of Chinese Art
1949 – 1989 (Zhongguo meishu nianjian 1949 – 1989 re ords for ea h of these years ten to
fourteen regional and national symposia. This does not in lude talks that were sponta-
neously organi ed on the o asion of e hibition openings. These symposia were of -
ial or semi-of ial e ents, organi ed by the Ministry of Culture, the Chinese Artists
Asso iation, ne arts a ademies and, as mentioned abo e, by art maga ines. In 1982, for
e ample, when the graduation works of the students of the Si huan ine Arts Institute
aused a sensation all o er China, the maga ine Art and the Si huan ine Arts Institute
o-organi ed national symposia on the sub e t of arts edu ation, on the instru tion of
the Arts Edu ation f e, a bran h of the Ministry of Culture. n those o asions, the
former head of the A ademy, Ye Yushan, introdu ed his new methods to the publi and
49
thus initiated an in uential dis ussion on the reform of tea hing methods in general.
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Among the numerous symposia are three that played a de isi e role in the de el-
opment of the New Wa e art mo ement, the two so- alled Huangshan Symposium
( Huangshan huiyi and the Zhuhai Symposium. The rst Huangshan Symposium, originally
alled the Symposium on Oil Painting ( Youhua yishu taolunhui , was held in Anhui
ro in e near Mount Huang in April 1985. It was organi ed by the Art esear h Institute
of the ro in e of Anhui, the Central A ademy of ine Arts, and the ainting Institute
in Bei ing, and the maga ine Art History and Theory ( Meishu shilun as a rea tion to the
Sixth National Fine Arts Exhibition. Around se enty art riti s and artists of the young
and middle generation openly riti i ed the e hibition and re ounted re ent de elop-
ments. They formulated ommon points of iew and goals, su h as freedom of artisti
reation and freedom of riti ism, the symposium s motto. or the rst time, the slo-
gan on eptual inno ation guannian gengxin was formulated, omprising inno a-
tion within the nature and fun tion of art as well as in artisti methods. The parti ipants
unanimously refuted the theory of the prima y of sub e t matter ticai jueding lun and
agreed that te hni al, formal, and stylisti pluralism was essential. Art should be on-
sidered from the perspe ti e of aestheti s to prepare a broader a eptan e of abstra t
art. ao Minglu alled this symposium an important fa tor for the promotion of the
de elopment of a pluralist art world. A olle tion of forty arti les, in luding those of
old masters like Wu uan hong, was ompiled as the symposium s output.
The Zhuhai Symposium was organi ed by the ainting Institute of huhai and Fine
Arts in China on the initiati e of artist Wang uangyi. n August 15, 198 , the most
a ti e artists of the 85 Mo ement and representati es of the most important artists
groups, of artists asso iations, art institutes and art a ademies, as well as hief editors
of the most in uential art maga ines from all o er China met in the pro in ial town in
the hu iang delta. At the symposium, originally alled Grand Slideshow and
Symposium on the Art Trends of ’85 ( 85 Meishu sichao daxing huandeng zhanlan lilun
yantaohui , 324 slides representing new trends were shown. or the rst time, this
most omprehensi e and in uential symposium of the 1980s pro ided young artists
and riti s with the opportunity to dis uss their on epts and works publi ly. Essential
and ontro ersial sub e ts were the growing on eptual trends of the New Wa e art
mo ement, adaist trends that were mainly riti i ed by artists and riti s of the older
generation. The idea to organi e the e hibition China /Avant-Garde, also Modern
Chinese Art Exhibition, originally planned to be held in the Agri ulture E hibition Hall
in Bei ing in 1987, was probably born on the o asion of this symposium.
The se ond Huangshan Symposium met from No ember 22 to No ember 24,
1988, in Tun i, near Huangshan. It had been organi ed by the Art esear h Institute
and the Institute for ainting and Calligraphy of the City of Hefei, its goal was to pro-
oke a reorientation and renewal of the a ant-garde and, of ourse, to prepare the
e hibition China /Avant-Garde. More than one hundred artists presented their
re ent works, and Wang uangyi formulated his slogan, urge humanist enthusi-
asm qingli renwen reqing , a slogan that strongly influen ed the art world at
least until mid-1989.
Notes
. ao Minglu, Zhongguo dangdai meishushi, 1985 – 1986 [ Chinese Contemporary Art, 1985 – 1986 Shanghai:
Shanghai eople s ublishing House, , .
. Li iaoshan, angdai hongguohua hi wo ian in Jiangsu huakan [Jiangsu Pictorial no. , . See
also Hans an i k, ie traditionelle hinesis he Malerei ist am Ende ihrer Sa kgasse angekommen in
ra henbr ke, ed. Gebrochene Bilder. Junge Kunst au China. Selbstdarstellungen Bad Honnef: Horlemann,
, and see Martina ppel-Yang, Semiotic Warfare: The Chinese Avant-Garde, 1979 – 1989,
50
A Semiotic Analysis Hong ong: Time one , , .

|
. See also erry Link, Roses and Thorns Berkeley and Los Angeles: ni ersity of California ress, : p.
and hapter . . The de elopment of a group ons iousness and the need for identi ation is e ident
in numerous readers letters.
. ao Minglu, Zhongguo dangdai meishushi, .
. The fa t that many Chinese art riti s had already, in the s and early s, written a history of
modern Chinese art, as well as the often strategi position of many artists should be understood in this
sense.
. See Igor olomsto k, L’art totalitaire. Union Sovietique, III Reiche, Italie Fasciste, Chine aris: Editions
Carr , , .
. See Martina ppel-Yang, Semiotic Warfare, .
. See ao Minglu, Zhongguo dangdai meishushi, Liu iao hun, Dui Zhongguo meishu bao de lishi jishu
[ Historical Record of Fine Arts in China , manus ript. Translation by ppel-Yang in Semiotic Warfare,
. See also Wu Hung, Transience: Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the Twentieth Century
Chi ago: Smart Museum of Art, ni ersity of Chi ago, , , .
. This was also the period of the emo ra y Wall at idan in Bei ing and the period of the big- hara ter
posters dazibao . See also s ar Weggel, Geschichte Chinas im 20 ahrhundert, Stuttgart: r ner, , .
. World Art, a maga ine of the Central A ademy of ine Arts, was established in .
. Chen Yiming, Liu Yu ian, Li Bin, uanyu huang uo lianhuanhua Feng de yi ie iangfa in Meishu [ Art ]
no. : .
. Li ianting uanyu Xingxing Meizhan About the Stars Art Exhibition in Meishu [ Art no. :
. Also, see ao Yan Bushi duihua shi tan in It s not a dialogue, it s a heart-to-heart in Meishu Art
no. , .
. an u, Chuang uo uyao yong i, Si huan meiyuan uesheng de i ian uopian Creating re uires
ourage: A few works by Si huan ine Arts Institute students in Meishu Art no. : .
. See the olumn Bitan in Meishu Art no. : Ye ianyu, Liu jie quanguo meizhan de qishi
Inspiration for the Sixth National Fine Arts Exhibition in Meishu [ Art no. : .
. See also ao Minglu, Zhongguo dangdai meishushi, .
. Ibid., .
. Liu iao hun, Dui Zhongguo meishu bao.
. Ibid.
. In his arti le on the paper Fine Arts in China, Liu iao hun e pli itly riti i es the solution of s ienti
problems through politi al riti ue.
. Liu iao hun, Dui Zhongguo meishu bao.
. This title was hosen by Li ianting, editor of the issue, a ording to a uote of the arti le. See Zhongguo
meishu bao [ Fine Arts in China no. . The arti le, reprinted under this title, aused mu h stronger
rea tions than when it was rst published in Jiangsu huakan [ Jiangsu Pictorial .
. See ao Minglu, Zhongguo dangdai meishushi, .
. Ibid., .
. The e a t title of the symposium is 85 qingnian meishu sichao daxing huandeng zhanlan xueshu taolunhui,
literally Grand Slideshow and Symposium on Young Artistic Trends and Theories of ’85.
. See inter iew with Shui Tian hong in ppel-Yang, Semiotic Warfare, .
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., .
. Ibid.
. See Liu ilin, ed., Zhongguo meishu nianjian 1949 – 1989 Yearbook of Chinese Art, Nanning:
uang i ine Arts ublishing House, , . ne an suppose that the of ial yearbook does not
re ord all symposia.
. The e hibition of the graduation works of the Si huan ine Arts Institute was held in the National Art
allery in Bei ing on anuary , . The symposium organi ed by Meishu [ Art ] took pla e shortly after
the opening. The one organi ed by the Si huan ine Arts Institute was held in Chong ing on Mar h ,
. See: Liu ilin, Zhongguo meishu nianjian, . See also ppel-Yang, Semiotic Warfare, hap. . .
. Young and middle generation are terms used by Chinese art historians to des ribe artists born in the
s and in the s.
. See ao Minglu, Zhongguo dangdai meishushi, .
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., .
. These four slides had been hosen out of entries.
. Inter iew with Shui Tian hong in ppel-Yang, Semiotic Warfare, .
. Ibid., and Zhongguo meishu bao [ Fine Arts in China no. .
ublished in Martina ppel-Yang, Semiotic Warfare: The Chinese Avant-Garde, 1979 – 1989, A Semiotic
Analysis Hong ong: Time one 8, 2003 , 51 57.
’85 ART NEW WAVE
51
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N umerous unofficial art groups appeared spontaneously from 1984 to 1986,
lending the name ’85 Art New Wave to this exuberant period in the history
of modern Chinese art. According to one statistic, more than eighty such groups,
all of which emerged during this period, were scattered across twenty-three prov-
inces and major cities.1 Their members were mostly in their twenties; a consider-
able number of them had just graduated from or were still studying in art schools.
No coherent artistic ideals or theoretical approaches united these groups or col-
lectives, and their members also favored diverse art mediums and styles. Some of
the groups, such as the Northern Art Group (Beifang yishu qunti ) and the Pond
Society (Chi she), had steady membership and articulated a set of guiding principles,
while others were event-based, loosely organized collectives. A few groups, such
as the Xiamen Dada, developed a radical approach toward art that verged on icon-
oclasm, while others continued to explore the potential of painting in expressing
the artists’ visions of the universe and mankind. But, generally speaking, compared
with the unofficial artists of the late 1970s, experimental artists of the 1980s were
more knowledgeable about recent developments in Western art, and they viewed
themselves as participants in a historical struggle to revolutionize Chinese art.
Although the contemporary critics held different opinions about the nature
and merits of the ’85 Art New Wave,2 most of them theorized it as a delayed
modernization movement, which aimed to reintroduce humanism and rational-
ism into the nation’s consciousness.3 When they called avant-garde Chinese
artists of the 1980s “modern” ( xiandai ), they identified them as participants in a
broad historical movement that started in the early twentieth century but was
interrupted in China from the 1940s to the 1970s. According to these critics, to
regain the spirit of a genuine cultural revolution, artists should not only uphold
humanism as their fundamental ideology, but also take upon themselves the role
of cultural critic, “reexamining the relationship between art and society, religion,
and philosophy in all possible ways.”4 This explains why avant-garde Chinese
artists of the 1980s saw themselves as direct followers of great modernist philos-
ophers and artists in the West. A historian of Western contemporary art may be
surprised to find that among the most influential figures for these artists were
Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Sigmund Freud, Carl
Jung, Albert Camus, and T. S. Eliot.5 But it makes perfect sense if we understand
these artists’ longing to rediscover their modernist roots.
This section consists of two groups of documents selected from a vast body
of materials.6 Those in the first group outline the ’85 Art New Wave or critique
this movement from different perspectives. The second group contains writings
by members of six avant-garde groups located in China’s northeast ( Northern Art
Group ), southeast ( Pond Society ), southwest ( Southwest Art Research Group
[ Xi’nan yishu yanjiu qunti ] ), mid-south ( Red Brigade [ Hongse lü ] ), lower southeast
[ Xiamen Dada ], and south ( Southern Artists Salon [ Nanfang yishujia shalong ] ).
Often employing philosophical language and charged with a sense of mission,
these manifestos, position statements, and pronouncements of art projects con-
vey a feeling of fervent artistic experimentation. Members of these groups
include Wang Guangyi, Huang Yong Ping, Zhang Xiaogang, Zhang Peili, Wang
Du, and many others. These texts thus signal the coming of age of a new genera-
tion of Chinese artists who would eventually expand their careers into the inter-
national sphere.
52
Notes
. The most detailed a ount of this art mo ement is pro ided in ao Minglu, Zhongguo dangdai meishushi,
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1985 – 1986 [ Contemporary Chinese Art, 1985 – 1986 Shanghai: Shanghai eople s ublishing House,
.
. See the translation below of Li ianting s hongyao de bushi yishu, The Signi an e Is Not the Art, in
whi h he argues that the Art New Wa e is essentially an ideologi al mo ement, not a modern art
mo ement.
. or e ample, ao Minglu, a key organi er of the a ant-garde mo ement in the s, des ribes this
mo ement in humanist terms. See his Zhongguo dangdai meishushi, 1985 – 1986.
. L eng and Yi an, Zhongguo xiandai yishu shi, 1979 – 1989 [ A History of Modern Chinese Art: 1979 – 1989 ]
Hunan: Hunan ine Arts ublishing House, , uotation from .
. L eng and Yi an, Zhongguo xiandai yishu shi, 1979 – 1989, .
. Some of these materials ha e been published in Chinese ompilations su h as ao Minglu, ed., 85 Meishu
yundong lishi ziliao huibian The Art Mo ement: An Anthology of Histori al Sour es , ols. uilin:
uang i Normal ni ersity ress, ei awei, ed., ’85 Xinchao dang’an Ar hi es of New Wa e
Shanghai: Shanghai eople s ublishing House, .
General Discussions
THE ’85 ART MOVEMENT ( 1986 )

By Gao Minglu
( 1 ) i i
The ultural history of humankind is a ourse of onstant self-liberation. It is only through
a ti ities of ultural produ tion that people an be ome genuine human beings, and
it s only through su h a ti ities that people an a hie e true freedom. Moreo er, these
a ti ities of ultural produ tion are manifested within ontinuous and progressi e
degrees of ultural mo ements. In 1985, years after the May ourth New Culture
Mo ement, yet another ulturally transformati e mo ement took shape throughout
mainland China.
In the world of painting, an art mo ement arose bringing together the funda-
mental hara teristi s and prin ipal issues of the 85 ultural mo ement. It was an
integral omponent of the ultural ollision between China and the West taking pla e
that year.
enerally speaking, mo ements always possess a ertain onfrontational and
dire ted nature. The fo us of the 85 Art Mo ement was aimed at the impa t of
Western ulture following China s opening and reform. It also re onsidered tradition
and e amined the pre ious period of artisti reation the former mo ement . Its
dire ti e was the moderni ation of Chinese art. The mo ement also e hibited its own
distin ti e hara teristi s, namely, theoreti al purposefulness and partisan pra ti es.
Theoreti ally, in one ery short year, it reena ted the basi ontent and three phases of
the May ourth Mo ement s struggle between China and the West, and between
an ient and modern. The three phases ould be des ribed as, the pros and ons of
China and the West, the similarities between China and the West, and the ultural
trends of China and the West. The ontents of the mo ement were di ided along the
lines of national essen e, foreign affairs, and the oming together of China and the
West. They interse ted at issues of nationalism and internationalism, tradition and
modernism, et ., and offered different options and understandings of ea h of these
on erns. In pra ti e, the dominant trend was toward indis riminate borrowing.
Within the brief spa e of a year or so, throngs of styles and te hni ues from arious
s hools of Western modernism in luding a se tion of postmodernism all sprang forth
in great numbers. The fero iousness of its for e ould mat h that of the impa t of
Western art during the May ourth Mo ement. And, sin e young artists omprised
the ma ority of the members of this mo ement, the 85 Art Mo ement ould also be
53
onsidered a young artists mo ement.
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‘85 ART NEW WAVE
How an we e aluate and understand this mo ement We must rst fa e it head-
on, and then analy e and disse t it. We must grasp and understand it at deeper le els,
su h as through the so ial transformations in ontemporary China and the world and
through the hanging psy hologi al stru tures of the Chinese people. By positioning it
within the history of modern Chinese ultural de elopment, we an use omparati e
studies to shed light on its true nature and signi an e.
In so doing, we an raise some issues that merit deep ontemplation. When we
simply riti i e the mo ement as a repetition of its prede essors or an imitation of the
West, we fail to re ogni e that the entire history of modern Chinese ulture we an
go so far as to say of the entire East is a history of ontinuously admitting and inte-
grating with Western ulture in luding the thirty years following the founding of the
nation . When we iew prede essors like Lin engmian 1900 1991 and u Beihong
1895 1953 in a positi e light for ourageously drawing upon foreign ulture, we must
remember that they were regarded negati ely at the time. We should think about the
ob e t and out ome of their artisti absorption, and the degrees of differen e between
then and now. We should also think about whether the parti ular goals that they ini-
tially struggled for were ultimately a hie ed. And, e en if they a hie ed their goals, is
it an in ariable pattern for the future
In truth, the momentous May ourth Mo ement prematurely on luded its his-
tori al mission and left its onerous histori al tasks for later generations to resol e. Years
later, we ha e yet to rethink, to a signi ant degree, the past and present of human
ulture and furthermore use this introspe tion to build the future. Instead, more
attention has been paid to spe i ultural omponents and ertain ultural spheres.
This has aused the self-regulation of our art to only de elop within a narrow s ope.
The desire to re e t on ulture and tradition has been e eedingly weak. The produ -
tion of ulture is pre isely based on rebellious re e tion, whi h in turn is grounded in
the udgment of sub e ti e, man-made ontemporary ultural de elopments.
Therefore, different ultural periods and intelle tual ir les are founded upon different
prin iples, and naturally ea h makes distin t ultural sele tions. egardless of whether
these are omplementary ollaborations or redundant similarities, all ha e their spe-
i needs and dire ti es.
Sin e the May ourth Mo ement, through more than half a entury of ast
hanges, ma or s hools of modern Chinese art su h as u Beihong s s hool of paint-
ing guided by Western s ienti realism in luding ussian riti al realism, whi h was
a tually a s hool of ideali ed realism , the painting s hools of Lin engmian and Liu
Haisu 189 1994 whi h sought to de elop the uni ue sentiments of Chinese
e pression through the integration of China and the West, and the painting s hools of
Huang Binhong 18 5 1955 , i Baishi 18 3 1957 , and an Tianshou 1897 1971
whi h sought the re i al of a national essen e all nd their pla es within a general
ategory of traditional literati painting that promotes a re ned temperament. These
s hools went through ups and downs during the rst few years of the new era, and all
fa ed an intense hallenge in the mid-1980s. In this sense, they ha e again appeared to
be rea hing the same pla e through different paths.
After S ar Art, Aestheti ism, Current of Life, Mannerism, and other small
artisti mo ements, the Sixth National Fine Arts Exhibition ( Diliujie quanguo meishu
zuopin zhanlan the largest e hibition in China in thirty years took pla e to show-
ase these new painting trends alongside long-established realist styles. The re on ili-
ation between the different styles seemed to embody the pluralism of modern Chinese
art. The Sixth National Fine Arts Exhibition basi ally pro ided an o erar hing summary
54
and broad o er iew. egardless of whether or not the e perien e itself was positi e, it
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was of profound signi an e. Stimulating the imagination of Chinese ontemporary

painters, this e hibition was one of the dire t auses of the 85 Art Mo ement.
The ongoing, theatri al repetition of history, ombined with ontemporary so io-
e onomi material onditions, prompted a areful e amination of ulture. These
aspe ts represented the limate and soil that ulti ated the 85 Art Mo ement.
(2)
A prominent feature of this mo ement has been the rise of numerous group e hibi-
tions. After the Sixth National Fine Arts Exhibition, do ens of art e hibitions emerged on
different s ales in arious lo ales. The o erwhelming ma ority of these were spontane-
ously initiated by groups of young artists, with a few organi ed as a ti ities for the
International Year of Youth. There were e en e hibitions by groups of middle-aged art-
ists, su h as the Half Generation Painting Exhibition ( Banjiezi huazhan , whi h were par-
ti ularly onspi uous due to their taking pla e among the lamor of the young artists.
or the most part, the e hibitions did not last long, at most ust a few days. In Shen hen,
street e hibitions also emerged and made a onsiderable impression. The e hibitions
were uite ontro ersial and se eral were prematurely shut down. This kind of ubi ui-
tous enthusiasm for e hibitions throughout the ountry was rarely seen in pre ious
years and undoubtedly marked a rare and positi e phenomenon for the new era.
rom the ob e ti es, group slogans, and artisti perspe ti es guiding the reation
of the works, the trends of these e hibitions an be di ided roughly into the following
three tenden ies:
1. i i i i
The Northern Art roup Beifang yishu qunti , the ’85 New Space e hibition
( 85 Xin kongjian in he iang, and iangsu Youth Art Week s Modern Art Exhibition
( Daxing xiandai yishuzhan all demonstrate this trend. Their reations were guided
by ruminations o er spe i theoreti al ideas. Consider the Northern Art roup:
this was the spontaneous organi ation of ten or so young people who spe iali ed
in painting, literature, so ial s ien es, and the natural s ien es. They established
artisti positions using on epts of Culture of the ost-Ar ti and Culture of
the North. Culture of the ost-Ar ti was a symboli on ept that onfronted
two trends: the northward shift in global ulture and the present ultural stru -
ture entered on the temperate one. The Northern Art roup belie ed that on-
temporary ulture in both the East and the West was fa ing unpre edented
dif ulties. In this moment, their desire for a rational, sublime, digni ed, and sol-
emn art form ga e rise to the Culture of the North. They reated a series of works
for this purpose, whi h attempted to demonstrate the glorious, eternal, and
immortal nature of the world without assuming a superstitious spirit or blind faith.
Their works on erned the mo ement of the world and the rapid shifting of its
stru tures, and positioned these on epts amid a spa e of astness and oldness
as represented by the northern polar regions . In so doing, they displayed their
ideas in grand solemnity and fro en sublimity.
A group of young painters in he iang also ad o ated a rationalist spirit.
Howe er, their rationalism o urred in the pro ess of ontemplation prior to
artisti e pression, while the reati e pro ess itself stressed intuition. or instan e,
Wenda u belie ed that rationality was histori al and linear, and intuition was
paramount to reation. He used reud s id and ego to resol e the onne tion
between these two tenden ies. He belie ed art to be isual e pressions of the
55
human spirit, with its realm bordering on the theory of man s integration with
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‘85 ART NEW WAVE
nature. He opposed self-e pression, belie ing it to be too indi idual. Instead, one
needs to sublimate se ular sentiments. Trans ending the worldly re uired a
ertain kind of spirit, a spirit that doesn t rely on the isual e perien e, and instead
is obtained by dedu ing spiritual forms outside of the isual. Stri tly speaking,
Wenda u a tually should not be lassi ed in a s hool of rationality but in a
s hool of spirituality. He should be situated between rationality and intuition,
similar to en ian from the Northern Art roup.
The a erage age of parti ipants in the ’85 New Space e hibition in he iang
was 27. or the most part, it was ondu ted by the So iety of Young Artists, whi h,
in turn, was organi ed by graduates of the he iang A ademy of ine Arts. Their
works igorously a oided the idylli sentiments of pastoral poetry, yet also differed
from the Current of Life painting style that had been fashionable in pre ious years.
Instead, these artists e a ated a modern ons iousness from within e eryday
s enes in urban life, pursuing honest, rigorous, and still ompositions. They adopted
the te hni ues of the New ealist S hool. Based on their own interests, they also
studied ant, Heidegger, Sartre, and Wittgenstein, although not in an in-depth way.
They adored South Ameri an no els and worshipped Mar . or e ample, eng
ianyi s Haircut No. 4 (Lifa sihao deliberately ompli ated a mundane title by
on ating it with a seemingly e traterrestrial gure. It was humorous, yet also
e oked ertain philosophi al asso iations for people. r, perhaps in uen ed by
aestheti s, the artists emphasi ed the parti ipation of sub e ti e appre iation.
uring the pro ess of reation, they paid attention to the iewer s thoughts and
imagination as omponents to omplete the work. This strengthened the untrans-
latable elements in the image. Sin e artists pursued the isual e perien e of both
modern produ tion and urban i ili ation, they abandoned the natural and poeti
sentiments found in an agri ultural e onomy. They attended to systemati ation
and orderliness, wherein ma hinery and ar hite ture onspired with geometri
de oration to produ e stati effe ts through old, indifferent, and lonely e teri-
ors. After the e hibition, these kinds of works stimulated intense debate. Some
riti i ed the artists by saying, The hara ters in the images are so numb, so
e entri is reality really like this, or is this the artist s old treatment of reality
Like the ’85 New Space e hibition, the iangsu Youth Art Week s Modern Art
Exhibition also began with a rethinking of Current of Life painting. The differen e
is that this group of artists fo used more on humanity and employed a dia hroni
perspe ti e that ompared dynami trends, while ’85 New Space painters
ompared stati trends from a syn hroni perspe ti e. Naturally, we annot use
this hara teristi to summari e the entire e hibition. In terms of the more impor-
tant and more representati e works, it is lear that the artists attempted to unfold
the s enes, images, and ompositions within a ertain ultural onte t. The s enes
and images ser ed only as symbols of underlying spiritual impli ations. Moreo er,
the ultural onte t was an interwo en web of tradition and modernity, East and
West. Within this spe i time and spa e, they sought to position both indi idu-
als and this generation of people, and they sear hed for grounds for making udg-
ments. They belie ed that Current of Life paintings did not truly engage in the
introspe tion of man himself, but rather demonstrated resentment and grie -
an es, without any spirit of repentan e. As a result, they abandoned any theatri-
al nature or appeal, and instead proposed realism and rationali ation. They
suffered from a la k of theoreti al guidan e and, at times, the artists themsel es
had to ful ll the duties of the theoreti ian. Although theory has enri hed painters
56
minds, they are still troubled by how to ob e tify their own ideas. Nonetheless,
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this kind of an iety was a positi e phenomenon, be ause it showed a self-

ons iousness toward the deliberate integration of oneself into the torrent of ul-
tural de elopment.
In Shanghai, there was also a group of young and middle-aged painters who
followed the path of rationalism. They diligently perused Eastern and Western
philosophy, anthropology, and modern physi s, and belie ed that tradition should
be dis ussed from the perspe ti e of all of humanity. iewed in this way, regard-
less of whether a painting was Chinese, Western, an ient, or present-day, it only
e pressed the human. hang ian un s Humanity and Their Clocks ( Renlei yu
tamen de zhong positioned people of different ra es in outer spa e, in erted
time, and as the stars shifted, re ealed that humans un easingly assault their own
ogniti e abilities by seeking thoughts that surpass knowledge. Li Shan similarly
re ounted the eternal on ept as it has passed from an ient to modern that
e isten e and nothingness engender ea h other as demonstrated through the
ontinuity of his tangible yet indeterminate ir le.
A trend toward nationalism in 1985 originated during the International Youth
Year art e hibition Progressive Young Chinese Artists Exhibition ( Qianjin zhong de
Zhongguo qingnian huazhan . Works in that e hibition, su h as In the New Era:
Enlightenment of Adam and Eve ( Zai xinshidai: Yadang Xiawa de qishi , Longing for
Peace ( Kewang heping , Studio ( Huashi , and Spring Has Come ( Chuntian laile ,
emphasi ed a on eptual framework that abandoned aestheti ally determined
ompositional styles. The partitioning and pla ement of things in the pi ture
plane mostly a orded to ideas of sub e ti e reation, and mu h less to life s
temperaments or realisti s enes. Nonetheless, ompared with the trend of
nationalism in the 85 Art Mo ement, the rational spirit in this show only re e ted
a stage of awakening it pla ed more emphasis on rethinking painting styles and
indi iduality. Although it implied ultural re e tions, this was by no means its pri-
mary ob e ti e.
Shortly after the International Young Artists Exhibition ( Guoji qingnian mei-
zhan , artwork by graduates of the he iang A ademy of ine Arts propelled this
trend forward. They shared the basi aim of the former but used different means.
Howe er, their works gradually and in reasingly on eyed a religious atmosphere
with a gra e, mysti al o ertone.
This urrent of rationality also spread throughout e hibitions of artist groups
from all o er China . or e ample, some artists in the Anhui ro in ial il
ainting esear h Asso iation sought to on eptuali e the omposition by
disassembling its theme into arious on eptual elements. Then, adhering to
some kind of image or plot, they would be pie ed together while retaining a frag-
mentary feeling. Additionally, the Second Young Artists Exhibition ( Di er jie qing-
nian meizhan in iang i and the group e hibition of the ero art group in Hunan
had similar reati e pursuits, but some artists had already shifted toward a ertain
degree of ultural re onsideration. Although e hibitions were often isolated in a
lo ality or region, when we iew them o erall and in relation to ea h other, ea h
appears as part of an organi whole.
Along with this interest in rationality, a new attention to religious spirit and
atmosphere also emerged. Be ause rational paintings mostly employ still omposi-
tions and orderly arrangements, and be ause the images and s enes emphasi e
symboli fun tions, they su eed in on eying the uiet and forlorn atmosphere of
Surrealism. This kind of atmosphere ts perfe tly with their grand ob e ti es of re-
57
ating sublime and eternal sub e ts. It also oin ides with their ad o ating
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‘85 ART NEW WAVE
ontemplation, negation, and the ourage to rebel in their sear h for e eptional
determination. Thus, their pursuit of spirituality and religious tone was a tually not
about religious belief. or e ample, one young iangsu painter said, China has
ne er had religion and it has no ons iousness about original sin or repentan e
these are the most honored aspe ts of religion. We an see in this artist s remarks
about spirituality a orrelation to re onsiderations of ulture and tradition. In fa t,
the spirituality that most painters des ribe on erns a non-spe i spirit. To them,
spirituality in this ase is only an outpouring of unpuri ed se ular emotions self-
e pression or a rebellion against the persisten e of romanti ism and poeti re ela-
tions to e plain reality. The surreal, superego, and super-human elements in their
works this idea of surmounting the se ular and real is identi al to the ore of
religious do trines. Thus, all the terms used to des ribe the e ternal form of reli-
gion deta hment, loneliness, mysteriousness, numbness, and so on an also be
used to riti ue these paintings appearan e. Howe er, real analysis must penetrate
into the le el of their philosophy, psy hology, and so ial ons iousness only then
an we unra el the nature of their fas ination with religion.
2. i i i i
This tenden y gured rather prominently in e hibitions su h as Bei ing s November
Painting Exhibition ( Shiyi yue huazhan , the New Figurative Exhibition ( Xin juxiang
huazhan in Shanghai and Yunnan, the Zero Exhibition ( Lingzhan in Shen hen, the
Shanxi Modern Art Exhibition ( Shanxi xiandai yishuzhan , et . Howe er, it also
e isted in other e hibitions, e en in those where rationalist tenden ies were rela-
ti ely strong. ust like the tide of rationalism, it didn t ust e ist in a few e hibi-
tions, but rather was a uni ersal phenomenon.
The belief in intuitionism didn t ust appear in re ent years it ourished along
with the slogans of self-e pression. n the one hand, the 85 Art Mo ement
eered toward e treme rationalism on the other, it also strengthened elements of
intuition, and mo ed from emotions to impulse, from being gentle to oarse, and
e en introdu ed the s ent of blood and disorder through masses of lines and ol-
ors. or e ample, in paintings by Song Yongping, Wang iping, et al. at the Shanxi
Modern Art Exhibition, the thi kness and intensity of olor and the brutal lash
between lines and olor aused the works to gush forth with a primiti e and wild
nature. The artists de lared that they sought to pursue the straightforward nature
of the northwestern people and should be distinguished from the mild spirit of
the iangnan region. The prefa e to the New Figurative Exhibition in Shanghai and
Yunnan stated, It seeks rst to shake people s soul, not entertain their eyes. It s
not a game of olor and omposition. They emphasi ed truth and a return to
hildhood, e en going ba k to the beginnings of life the origin of being pl. 8 .
The artist Li in of Tian in reated a group of paintings of people and animals alled
Impressions of Tibet ( Xizang yinxiang . In his works, animals and people were
treated as e ual spe ies. Humans had lost their nobility and gra e, while animals
had been assigned intelligen e. Humans had be ome animalisti and animals had
been humani ed. This re e ts these artists philosophies on life. In the New
Figurative Exhibition, the artist Mao uhui of Yunnan and his ompanions painted
with mo ement to apture ariations and e pansions in olume. As Mao uhui
saw it, this was simply the instin t and ourage of man it was synonymous with
life. He re alled the words of I an Aleksee it h Bunin 1870 1953 : Art is the
prayer, musi , and song of man s soul. Thus, they were self- on dent and belie ed
58
that art is the soul s own mo ement and that all e ternal forms were marks of the
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soul the reali ation of the soul.

Wang Chuan and other young artists at the Zero Exhibition in Shen hen reated
works su h as Hanging Coffins (Xuanguan , Rubbings (Ta , and Infinite Time and Space
(Wuxian de shikong , whi h on eyed a kind of restless temperament. Through
these works they intended to unearth a ons iousness of life within the y li al
struggles between life and death, in humans, nations, and e en the animal world.
The November Painting Exhibition in Bei ing was mu h milder in omparison.
Here, the artists e pressions were based on ertain notions of deta hment. They
ad o ated pure art and re e ted so ietal in uen e. This was ontrary to the New
Figurative Exhibition in Shanghai and Yunnan, the Zero Exhibition in Shen hen, the
Shanxi Modern Art Exhibition, and others, all of whi h opposed deta hment from
so iety and instead upheld the notion that art should tou h on life and do as
ladimir Mayako sky 1893 1930 wrote in A Slap in the Face of Public Taste.
Meanwhile, the painters of the November Painting Exhibition in Bei ing further
emphasi ed onsummation of the self. They stressed inner puri ation and opposed
outward emanation. Cao Li was guided by true sentiments that ould not be
e pressed erbally. ia iaowan sought his own position and indi idual will, and
tried to on ert these notions into religious terrain. His paintings thus all embodied
a mysti al tone. rom hea en, earth, sun, and moon to humans and demons, they
all grew in reasingly spiritual. Shi Benming s series of sket hes seemed as if he was
narrating a fragment of a lo e story from deep within his own mind. The artist
noted that the work arose from a ertain inner demand and unintentionally re ealed
the emotional and psy hologi al depths that he was e perien ing at that moment
in time. Thus, the work is not dire ted at a so ial meaning, and so iety naturally
ould also reply with omplete indifferen e. ing in stressed the intuiti e relation-
ship between musi al rhythm and a painting s lines and olors. f ourse, there was
also a ertain restlessness at the works ore, as in Ma Lu s painting, whi h used
abstra t blo ks of olor he des ribed them as symbols to portray ontradi tions in
the so ial psy hology of so iety and destroy notions of diffusion and medio rity.
Among young painters, therefore, it was not only the trends of rationality
and intuitionism that formed differen es in reati e ob e ti es. Within the s hool
of intuitionism and antirationalism, there was disagreement about the ultimate
reasons for the e isten e of painting. These perspe ti es ame together under the
banners of self-e pression and anti self-e pression, indi iduality and anti-indi-
iduality. The former emphasi ed e a ating the indi idual s soul and returning to
the primiti e nai et that e ists within the sub ons ious. This fo used on the
indi idual. They rst attended to the nature of art and painting, emphasi ing har-
mony between methods and the mind. The latter belie ed that e pressing the
intelligen e and a tions of humans and their li es was the ultimate reason for
artisti reation. This was anti-indi idual, and moreo er they were sentiments
that trans ended humans and the se ular world. Through form, they manifested
their restlessness and the outward e pansion and distortion of for e to embra e
and integrate into an e en greater spiritual meaning. The artworks trans en-
den e and e tent of for e seemed to demonstrate the enormity of their meaning.
Thus, ompared with the former s spiritual intuition, they had more thoughts and
ideas about intuition. The former belie ed that the latter in luding the rationalist
s hool had o erstepped the ategory of art, while the latter belie ed that the
former was too playful and la ked spiritual substan e.
The Half Generation Painting Exhibition in 1985 was a representati e e hibi-
59
tion. Although this kind of e hibition of middle-aged artists was rather uni ue,
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‘85 ART NEW WAVE
the mentalities, reati e ob e ti es, and aestheti on epts of the ten painters
represented the ma ority of middle-aged painters. After ha ing undergone the
ideologi al leansing by the left, they pri ed truth to the e tent that they should
probably be ategori ed as a s hool of soul and intuition. Howe er, the appear-
an e of their works differed signi antly from that of the young artists, sin e they
emphasi ed artisti te hni ue and raftsmanship. Compared with the young art-
ists, they seemed mu h more omfortable and at ease this is the ease that fol-
lows arduous hardships. uang un s paintings seemed almost like a humorous
game, while Wu iao hang sought a natural and ontent mode of e pression.
Cheng Yanan sear hed for simpli ity and profundity, while han Hong hang pur-
sued an interest in the inno en e of folk life.
There is still another ategory of interest in intuitionism that e plores and
aptures apparitions between disappearan e and emergen e, but without the
absurdity of al s style or reud s interpretations of dreams. This kind of faint
apparition onforms to isual prototypes, but its uest is not a narration of some
philosophy on life or the dire t e pression of personal se rets like se ual desire .
Instead, it e presses some aspe t of the reator s temperament. erhaps it is a
distaste for former symboli and literary modes, and is unearthing the appeal of
these little mysteries ta itly understood by the indi idual.
espite the differen es among the arious types of intuitionism, they all
present a sense of mystery and awe. This is be ause, rst, most of them employ
unde ipherable abstra t forms, and se ond, they are similar in representing emo-
tional onditions, thoughts, and spiritual substan e. Whether these apply to the
indi idual, to humanity, or to the uni erse, all are founded upon some unknow-
able premise. E en if they ha e intense ob e ti es and an ultimate form, it is e en
more dif ult for the iewer to grasp the sub e t s intentions be ause of the
emphasis on trans enden e during the reati e pro ess. Both indi idual mi ro-
osms and the greater uni erse appear within a state of disasso iation and ambi-
guity. This kind of intera tion, a ording to re eption theory, should take shape as
di tated by the iewer. This unders ores the fa t that there is no way, and no
need, to return to the original intention behind the reation of the work. In real-
ity, the reati e work itself annot ne essarily return to its original ondition. As a
young painter from Anhui said, I only want to draw out my e pression, and hope
it is enough to see myself. Although I ha e appeared, the work seems to be
la king something. She is looking at me with an ious udgment, as if anti ipating
that I will pursue it on e more. But, it s already past. This uote is similar to what
Comte said, All the obser ations of the so- alled mind whi h has been regarded
as independent, unrestrained, and innate are all pure delusion. Therefore,
despite e erything that we often say about needing to e press oneself, we must
re ogni e that sub e ti e ons iousness is not the emotions or ons iousness of
an indi idual, but rather should be a uni ersal sub e t. Humanity should not be
e plained through people rather people should be e plained through humanity.
Thus, pure indi idual ualities one s real sentiments don t e ist. What e ists is
only the histori al and ultural e tension of humanity. rom this perspe ti e, we
should onsider the reasoning and alue of the iewpoint held by many young
artists today who oppose self-e pression, belie ing it to be indi idual and se -
ular emotions, and instead ad o ate e pressing the e a ation of the eternal
ow of the human spirit.
3. vi i
60
1985 was the most strident year of the slogan, renewal of artisti on epts.
|
Chinese art, fa ed with Western styles, ontemplated how to mo e toward

modernity. It rst emerged in the world of theory and riti ism and then
painters young, middle-aged, and elderly alike all be ame apti ated by it.
Howe er, these on epts were initially a manifestation of the ogniti e standards
of a spe i intelle tual ir le. When dis ussions of these on epts did not rea h
the le els of ulture and history, onfusion and misunderstanding naturally arose
regarding the ultural onte t, meaning, and dire ted fo us of the on epts. In
so doing, they easily de ol ed into a generali ed, hollow swell of ultural dis us-
sions about tradition and ulture.
Howe er, as for those who pra ti e these ideas, in parti ular for the young
painters, the renewal of on epts still had enormous appeal.
In the reation of art, this renewal rst emerged as an attempt to shatter our
former isual models. It omprises the following aspe ts:
1. i v i
v i i i iv
By weakening the emphasis on the independent artwork and its indi id-
ual apa ity, they approa h the work as a spe i and partial method of a
reati e purpose and not as the ultimate goal or out ome. As a result, one
e hibition onsisting of works by se eral people ould be onsidered a single
work, with the paintings and s ulptures positioned in the e hibition hall or
room ser ing only as its integral elements, not as independent works them-
sel es. Therefore, the arrangement of the e hibition hall be ame e en more
important than the rendering of the works, sin e it manifests the o erall oli-
tion. In an e hibition hall, material ob e ts are heaped together and pie es of
op art ow in, one after another, all with the help of a ousti s, ideo re ord-
ings, lighting, et . rominent e amples of this in lude the Exhibition of Three
People ( Sanren zhan at the Central ni ersity for Nationalities, the Shanxi
Modern Art Exhibition, and the group e hibition of the ero art group in Hunan.
urthermore, many young painters made series of works that also seemed to
harbor these intentions. These artists belie ed that it was ery dif ult to
depend on a single painting to a hie e a large apa ity of thoughts.
2. vi i
ue to these on epts of manual work, artists ame to belie e that the
pro ess of making art was more important than its result, and that the work s
ambien e was more important than the work itself. Moreo er, it was as if the
out ome was already anti ipated early on, su h that the result was in ad an e
of its reati e reasoning. This in ersion of ause and effe t was ertainly a
mode of beha iorism, but it differs from ollo k s a tion art whose ultimate
goal was still the artwork. Nonetheless, e hibitions of this kind of beha ior-
ism would often re ei e the anti ipated effe t. Thus, this type of renewal of
on epts ould a tually be des ribed as a kind of destru tion of on epts. But,
it was also belie ed that renewal was not possible without destru tion. A tion
and demeanor were therefore attributed the greatest importan e. Sin e this
kind of performan e ould be uite pro o ati e, most of these e hibitions
met an early end. E en so, on some le el, this was also the result that the art-
ists sought. ndoubtedly, these e hibitions pro ided an e treme demonstra-
tion of re erse psy hology they were dire ted assaults. Whether or not they
61
were for so ial appro al, they all produ ed a psy hologi al impa t.
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‘85 ART NEW WAVE
3.
The most pro o ati e foreign e hibition in re ent years was the
aus henberg e hibition at the National Art allery at the end of last year.
No matter whether one responded to his work with the anger brought on by
humiliation or sighs of admiration, one ould not help but respe t the artist s
e pansi e breadth of thought. And, in turn, one ould ne er again onsider
this s hool of modern art irrele ant. At a time when Chinese painters strenu-
ously sear hed for new ideas within a pitifully narrow spa e for thought, this
e hibition was undoubtedly a breath of fresh air. Although in the West it was
an old thing that had appeared in the 19 0s, it was still new to China.
Subse uently, in e ery region, groups of little aus henbergs soon emerged,
who were by no means ashamed of this designation. An artist at the Shanxi
Modern Art Exhibition said, We are opying aus henberg and, as for opy-
ing, who an a oid it A tually, in the year or two prior to the aus henberg
e hibition, similar material ollages and assemblages had already begun to
appear in arious regions. It seemed ine itable that this stage would be
rea hed, and the aus henberg e hibition was only a random atalyst.
Some people sought a renewal of traditional modeling styles and ompo-
sitional patterns to transform the monotony and de ien ies of the language,
while others belie ed that it was this so- alled language that needed renewal.
It is su h that while the former dis ussed the many ways of omposing a
ase and a hie ing the desired results, the latter proposed repla ing the ase
with a urinal. As for artists with the latter perspe ti e, the issue was no longer
lo ated in the style of the ase or the urinal, but in the a tion of e hanging it.
Young artists who were deeply ommitted to op art followed these same
lines they did not ne essarily understand that the string, ardboard, paper
artons, and loth urtains were all things long ago e hausted by others.
Howe er, they saw that ountless painters still used oil paint e eryday.
Whether or not the string, ardboard, paper artons, and loth urtains were
e hausted materials thus depended on the art s narrati e needs in a spe-
i ultural onte t. This seemed to be their original intention.
The phenomena that I ha e summari ed abo e still annot fully illustrate the om-
pli ated and abundant differen es among the di erse regions and art groups, or e en
among artists. Sometimes, these fa tors an in ltrate into or drift free from ea h other,
as if there were no barriers to speak of. It also seems as if there are some e eptions,
su h as the Miyang Painting Society Exhibition ( Miyang huashezhan in Hebei that
fo used on dis repan ies between the Chinese ultural literati tradition and the folk
traditions. Within this relationship, they attempted to determine their own alue and
reati e dire tion. Looking at it from this angle, it seems to ha e o er owed beyond
the urrent of the ontemporary young artists mo ement. But generally speaking,
deep down it still shared the spirit of the mo ement.
E erpted from a te t originally published as 85 Meishu yundong in Meishujia tongxun [ Artists

Newsletter no. 4 198 . eprinted in ao Minglu, Zhongguo qianwei yishu [ Chinese Avant-Garde Art ]
iangsu: iangsu Art ublishing, 1997 , 107 25. Translated by risten Loring.
THE SIGNIFICANCE IS NOT THE ART ( 1986 )
62
By Li Jiatun [ pseud. Li Xianting ]

|
The 85 Art Mo ement is not an art mo ement.

The reason for this is be ause China basi ally la ks the so ial and ultural ba kground
for modern art. Modern art e ol ed after Western humanism established a solid so ial
foundation and after the on ept of the sub e ti e ons iousness had emerged in modern
philosophy. It forged a path from two different sides. ne side strengthened the nature
of per eption by e posing the inner omple ities of the modern person, while the other
side strengthened rational nature by dis o ering man s ontologi al language in a world of
signs and information stru tures. uring the S ienti e olution, de elopments in psy-
hology and semioti s dire tly inspired modern art by drawing a relationship between
the mind and e ternal signs. Then, the Industrial e olution prompted the de elopment
of modern design, and it is pre isely design ons iousness that is the kernel of the lan-
guage of modern art. The transformation of different alue systems brought a series of
distin tions into the aestheti ons iousness of both modern and traditional art. These
pre edents pro ided the onditions for the birth of modern art. Howe er, whether it s
be ause China la ks the feudal tradition of humanism or be ause of interferen e by the
far left sin e the epubli an era, the re o ery of Chinese art was laun hed within a politi-
al limate, and ulled from the haos of low-le el philosophy and e onomi s.
urthermore, the innate laws go erning the de elopment of Chinese art do not
demonstrate trends of modern art produ tion. After the enaissan e in the West, real-
ism be ame a kind of linguisti model and rea hed a enith with its ombined fun -
tions, alues, et . Conse uently, the sear h for uni ue alue in isual art itself be ame
the symbol of modern art. This is a time of analysis, a period in whi h linguisti models
are being onstru ted anew. In the last entury of modern art, artists ha e set foot in
nearly e ery eld of modeling and possibility for e pression, in luding form, olor, line,
the reati e pro ess, materials, et . As for the ba kground of Chinese art, on the one
hand, it emphasi es poeti gra e, the e pression of sub e ti e ons iousness, the
drawing pro ess, et . n the other hand, it has been in uen ed by the So iet nion,
emphasi ing re- reated s enes, literary a or, and the so ial fun tion of art in ontem-
porary ir umstan es. While the former shares ertain similarities with Western mod-
ern art, it was simply not possible that a trend e ui alent to modern art ould emerge
from this ounterde elopment. In fa t, in modern times, it was u Beihong
1895 1953 who introdu ed realism into the Chinese artisti tradition, a tradition
that rea hed the e tremes of ounterde elopment. Be ause its appearan e was realis-
ti , it melded with the Chinese artisti tradition into a single artisti state during the
epubli an era. So, the urrent situation is hara teri ed by the synthesis of su h
trends. Ne ertheless, realism was ne er ompletely absorbed into the artisti ondi-
tion, so our primary task in the re o ery of art is simply to bring realism into the artisti
ondition rather than transforming realism itself or using it as a kind of linguisti model.
Its degree of realisti portrayal, its syntheti ability, and its aestheti hara teristi s still
ha e yet to mat h those that pre eded Western modernism.
Thus, the re o ery of art is by no means the engaging of art itself in the re olution
of linguisti models, but rather is a mo ement of ideologi al liberation. or instan e, a
group of Si huan artists laun hed S ar Art in their stan e against the red-bright-
brilliant painting style and the ustom of singing praises to the authorities, while Chen
an ing populari ed Current of Life art in his riti ue of false, grand, and empty
words and important themes. The Bei ing airport mural, highlighting de orati e
fashion, rea ted against the subordination of art to politi s and the hampioning of
ontent. All of these trends arose from a kind of re erse psy hology. So ial ons ious-
63
ness, politi s, and utility are at the heart of hange.
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‘85 ART NEW WAVE
The 85 Art Mo ement is the deepening of this ideologi al liberation mo ement
and not a nas ent modern art mo ement. Indi idual ons iousness is an important
hara teristi of modern art. But, the things whi h ha e emerged during the 85 New
Wa e from spiritual ons iousness to the language of painting are surprisingly
similar. The strident appeals in pre ious years for self-e pression throughout the art
world are abandoned here, be ause artists no longer want to e press their indi idual
moods. Instead, they yearn to e press the sentiments of an entire generation. A tually,
from the moment that the idea of self-e pression was raised, the art world has ne er
ompletely engaged in this trend toward true indi idual ons iousness. Artists inter-
ests in the olle ti e so ial ons iousness ine itably ause their work to appear rather
uniform. The substan e of this slogan is no more than a rea tion against falsity and an
emphasis on sin erity. That is all. Modern art belongs to an analyti al period during
whi h new linguisti models are onstru ted it is therefore not purely spiritual, but is
open, multilayered, and pluralisti . Howe er, the 85 New Wa e takes pla e in ondi-
tions that la k the so ial ba kground of modern s ien e, and the parti ipating artists
also la k knowledge about a ariety of dis iplines. They borrow the e ternal fa ade of
Western modern art, to harbor their own weak and ner ous pure spirit. Therefore,
work from the 85 Art Mo ement is basi ally either Surrealist or in the style of
aus henberg, be ause these two artisti languages are most suitable for transmitting
the artists philosophi al sentiments. Throughout numerous works, we an see the art-
ists an ieties and ignoran e amid their re onsiderations of on epts of human alue.
This makes them en oy Western modern philosophy e en more. They lo e to write
essays, and, furthermore, they like the obs urity of abstra t e pression. Their interests
re eal that this ideologi al liberation mo ement has begun to penetrate the layers of
philosophy. But, it is not a modern art mo ement itself at best, it is a stage of ideolog-
i al preparation. The ba kwardness of s ien e and e onomi s has prompted artists
further migration toward the salons amid the po erty of philosophy, and has made it
so they annot help but mas uerade as philosophers. The po erty of thought has
made it so that their artworks annot help but bear the responsibility of their weighty
thoughts. This is pre isely the pride of Chinese ontemporary art and, at the same
time, it is also the pity of Chinese ontemporary art.
riginally published as hongyao de bushi yishu in Zhongguo meishu bao [ Fine Arts in China , uly 14,
198 no. 28 , 1 2. Translated by risten Loring.
A SUMMARY OF EVALUATIONS OF THE ’85 ART MOVEMENT ( 1986 )

Compiled by Gao Minglu
The art world has followed the 85 Art Mo ement with in reasing interest. At present,
newspapers and ournals ha e yet to gather and systemati ally dis uss this topi ,
howe er many different opinions ha e already emerged about it. They are summed up
in the following:
i. i “’85” “ v ”
. Bringing up mo ements easily gi es people the impression of politi al mo ements.
. It s uns ienti . This kind of thinking has been around for a few years.
. It s not omprehensi e. annot be summed up stri tly by these young artists
groups. There are also many middle-aged and older painters who are engaged in artisti
64
in estigations. And, among the young people, there are many different hannels of
|
e ploration.
. The Art Mo ement is a tually an a ademi mo ement limited within the on nes
of art theory. It only has meaning within publi opinion and la ks pra ti al signi an e.
ian Shi, Shenyang
The Art Mo ement is a on ept that was posed by ao Minglu. Before this, Fine
Arts in China ( Zhongguo meishu bao referred to it as a youth mo ement.
ao Minglu and others belie ed:

. Cultural mo ements are ommon o urren es in history. It is a mis on eption that
they are the same as politi al mo ements.
. It is a temporal on ept, and also has idiosyn rati hara teristi s. It is important to
note that the abrupt hanges brought about by the emergen e of art mo ements in
re ent years on erged in .
. In , artwork by young artists undoubtedly onstituted an aggressi e trend. ther,
pre iously e isting types and le els of e ploration, pursuit, and reation were all of
se ondary importan e that year.
ii. v i i i i i i
. Most people onsider this mo ement to be a positi e phenomenon emerging out of
the opening and reform mo ement . They belie e that its essen e lies in awakening
people, deepening le els of thinking, and transforming alue systems. They iew it as a
histori al ne essity. egardless of whether or not one a knowledges this, it already
o upies a page in history and has be ome a part of tradition.
. A minority opinion ontends that this is not a positi e phenomenon. They belie e
that it plagiari es and indis riminately opies from the West, and e en signi es an
opportunisti means of easily be oming a great master artist . It is distant from the
ultural standards of so ialism.
. There are those who appro e of the phenomenon, but belie e that it is di or ed from
reality and deta hed from life, that it has a old and aloof tone, and la ks both enthu-
siasm and a sense of so ial responsibility.
A ontrary belief is that the young people s pursuits to awaken the rational spirit dem-
onstrate a self-e amination of so iety and life, and as su h possess a ery profound
sense of mission.
iii. v i iv
. Some uphold the belief that this is a pro ess of omplete Westerni ation e en more
absolute than Taiwan s that draws us loser to the West and farther away from
China. It la ks a distin t national position. It is a kind of na e imitation. or Chinese
art to ha e genuine alue, it should possess national hara teristi s.
. This is a repetition of tragedy. In the s, many from that older generation already
engaged with these modernist s hools. When we look at their work now, it is still e el-
lent. Young people today are shallow. They don t understand this period of history, and
don t regard these histori al repetitions as meaningful. r, they only per ei e their sig-
ni an e in terms of their so iopoliti al atta ks, and not for its artisti alue. See Ba
Huang, Chongfu yu bei u epeat and Tragedy in Zhongguo meishu bao [ Fine Arts
in China , uly , no. .
The opposite of the abo e opinion:
65
. The so- alled omplete Westerni ation is a ons ious hoi e. A ording to some, this
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‘85 ART NEW WAVE
is a hoi e made by ourageous people, to a ept hallenges and make sa ri es. It is
prompted by a sense of disparity in position and time. The tragi ons iousness
indu ed by this way of thinking has alue. It is a ne essary step in the mar h toward
modernity. See Hong ai in, Yonggan de isheng Sa ri e of the Courageous , in
Zhongguo meishu bao, May , no. .
. The so- alled repetition is a repetition on a different le el. There are differen es in
what the artists ha e borrowed and sele ted. In the s, there was on ordan e
between the nature of their e pression and their atta hment to emotional sentiments.
Contemporary art is hara teri ed by polarity, old deta hment, and restless mo e-
ment. The differen es are rooted in artists di ergent ways of thinking. See Lang
Shao un s spee h at uanguo meishu lilunhui National Art Theory Conferen e ,
in iandai yinru ifang meishu de lishi ingyan rawing Histori al Lessons of
Western Art in Modern Times .
iv. i i i i i
Some people belie e that the 85 Art Mo ement is not a modern art mo ement.
. They belie e this be ause presently China still doesn t ha e the so ial and ultural
ba kground for modern art. This ba kground should in lude: philosophi al systems of
intuition and reason, the enlightenment of modern art and a orresponding linguisti
stru ture and spirit, ons iousness toward modern design, and transformations in
alue systems. resently, China s so ial and ultural ba kground la ks a humanist tra-
dition. Instead, it is in uen ed by an ultraleftist ideology. Thus, all artisti a ti ities
deri e from the politi al atmosphere, and attempts to bring order out of this haos are
based in low le els of philosophy and e onomy. Thus, the present series of art re olu-
tions and re i als are not re olutions in linguisti models, that is, transformations in
artisti language. It is only a mo ement of ideologi al liberation. The Art Mo ement
is only a deepening of this mo ement of ideologi al liberation, and not a new mo e-
ment of modern art. See Li iatun pseud. Li ianting , hongyao de bushi yishu
The Signi an e Is Not the Art in Zhongguo meishu bao, uly , no.
Translated abo e Ed. .
. Without indi idual ons iousness, there is an alarming similarity in artisti language,
basi ally following Surrealism and aus henberg s style. What is e pressed is no longer
an indi idual s sentiment, but the thoughts of an entire generation.
. Con eptual art alienates art from itself it is o erloaded. It e essi ely prose utes phil-
osophi al theory, on epts, and knowledge. This is a new kind of unilateral philosoph-
i al analysis.
. Some belie e that those who uphold intuition, parti ularly those with a iolent, san-
guinary o ertone, bring in haos. They are in iolation of harmony and against aes-
theti rules, to the point of being against so iety. See Ma Nan hi s writing in Meishu
[ Art , no. .
There are also disputes among the parti ipants of the mo ement between those who
ad o ate reason and those who ad o ate intuition. Their spe i points of interse -
tion are: a sense of mission ersus aestheti play, one s true feelings ersus for ed on-
s iousness, the intelligen e of artisti e pression and depth of spiritual meaning, et .
See essays in Meishu and Zhongguo meishu bao by Wenda u, Shu un, Li Luming,
ing ang, hang un, Ma ang, et al.
The opposite of the abo e e aluations:
66
. The Art Mo ement is an art mo ement, and also marks the beginning of Chinese
|
modern art. If we iew this kind of modern art as a glass half full, then we should
en ourage it be ause this means we already ha e half a glass. We shouldn t belittle it
for its emptiness. See the essays by hu ingsheng and Wang iao ian in Zhongguo
meishu bao, September , no. .
. Being o erly riti al about the art mo ement e pe ting it to be identi al to Western
modern art and oi ing disdain and mo kery at any dis repan ies is utterly un usti-
able. We shouldn t use the Western modern art mo ement as a yardsti k for making
demands on China s art mo ement. urthermore, artists an t ust sit ba k and wait
for a modern so ial en ironment and ultural ba kground to de elop. See the letter
from a student studying abroad in apan in Zhongguo meishu bao, September ,
no. .
. eople who take an appro ing attitude toward the Art Mo ement s two e tremes
of ad o ating reason and intuition belie e that by e panding our former unilateral
artisti thinking, we an transform nationalism. hilosophi al theory, philosophi al
thinking, ons iousness, and on epts an all enter into the eld of artisti e pression.
See ao Minglu, uanyu li ing huihua Con erning ational ainting in Meishu
, no.
riginally published as ui 85 meishu yundong de ping ia ongshu in Zhongguo meishu bao [ Fine Arts
in China , No ember 24, 198 no. 47 , 2. Translated by eggy Wang.
APPENDIX
THE LANDSCAPE OF CHINA’S MODERN ART MOVEMENT ( 1991 )
By Tong Dian
In this se tion of a histori al sur ey book , we e amine ontemporary art using so io-
logi al methodology. This e amination will further pro e that modern art be ame a
ma or trend in 1985 and 198 . As su h, we will also be ondu ting an in estigation of
the de elopment of China s modern art mo ement o er the past de ade.
Here, we need to e plain: What is Chinese modern art i en that it is Chinese
modern art, it annot be ompletely dependent on Western modern art as a frame of
referen e. But, at the same time, it annot be independent of the many on epts and
styles that Western modern art offers. This dilemma was determined by the ultural
hara teristi s of the time period. Chinese modern art here is not an abstra t on ept,
but rather a real artisti phenomenon that has already happened and a on ept that
integrates both the spe i ity of the time and artisti iewpoints. More spe i ally,
modern art refers to all those who ha e proposed new on epts or re ealed them in
their artwork distin t from past artisti phenomena in China, and formed trends and
mo ements in art ir les. or e ample, o er the past de ade in the Chinese art world,
Luo hongli s Father ( Fuqin , Chen an ing s Tibetan paintings series, the debate ini-
tiated by Wu uan hong s arti le ormalist Aestheti s in ainting, and the mural in
the Bei ing Capital airport an all be seen as part and par el of the de elopment of
Chinese modern art. Howe er, after 1985 and 198 they were no longer regarded as
modern art. By then, Luo and Chen s Nati e Soil naturalism was already pass , and
Wu uan hong s formalist aestheti s had be ome institutionali ed as part of the a ad-
emy, set in opposition against another new, formidable trend of thought. Hen e, the
de nition of Chinese modern art possesses different meanings and impli ations during
different time periods. The same holds true for a ademi art, whi h generally refers to
67
an artisti phenomenon that is stable, neutral, has a purist tenden y, and neither inter-
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‘85 ART NEW WAVE
enes in nor strongly opposes ideologi al trends. Its de nition, although relati ely
simple ompared with that of modern art, also hanges a ording to the times.
In pre ious hapters, we ha e seen the in rease in the in uen e of the modern art
mo ement in art ir les. As it started to attra t a great deal of attention, artists were om-
pelled to turn their interests toward modern art. Therefore, to e amine this mo ement
we ha e to in estigate the ir umstan es surrounding rst, the shift in interest toward
modern art among ne art ir les, and, se ond, the gathering of modern art a ti ities.
i. i i i i i 1977 1986
. i i 1977 1986
irst, we need to e aluate the rise of modern art from a demographi standpoint.
Through an e amination of an artist s a ti ities, artwork, and opinions e pressed
in his writings, we an make determinations about his modern art tenden ies. If
an artist had modern art ideas, but didn t publi i e them in any form, then we
ha e no way of making any e aluations about them. Thus, our statisti s for the
number of people who on erted to modern art in a gi en year are based on al-
ulations by organi ers of modern art a ti ities in luding e hibitions, symposia,
onferen es, workshops, publi ations, important do uments, et .
Sour e materials:
a. The ma ority of information is deri ed from empiri al in estigation and numbers
submitted by artist groups.
b. A portion is from published reports about the modern art mo ement in publi ly
ir ulated periodi als. It is important to note that our study fo uses on ases of
Chinese domesti artists a ti e in China. oreign artists a ti ities in China are not
in luded in our statisti s.
Chart 1. arti ipants in modern art a ti ities, 1977 198
rom Chart 1, we an see:

a. The total number of parti ipants in modern art o er the past de ade is 4,817. The
annual a erage 4817 10 481.7, whi h means that there was an a erage of 481.7
parti ipants per year in modern art a ti ities.
68
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ig. 1. Changes in number of parti ipants in modern art a ti ities, 1977 198
b. 198 was the year with the most parti ipants: 3,475 in total. Also, between 1985
and 198 , there was a total of 4,401 parti ipants in modern art a ti ities, onsti-
tuting 91.4 of the sum total of parti ipants during the de ade. This means that
most artists shifted their artisti leanings during these two years.
. The number of parti ipants in modern art u tuated ontinually throughout the
de ade until the last two years, when it showed a steady rise. igure 1 shows ero
total parti ipants in 1977 and 1978. Within the short period of one year, it rises to
o er 20, but then falls again to below 20 in 1984. 1980 sees the rst peak before
1985, while 1984 marks the lowest point. 1985 signals the turning point when the
numbers start to rise again, rea hing the de ade s highest point in 198 .
d. The age distribution of parti ipants in
modern art an be seen in igure 2. We
di ided all of the parti ipants into three
age groups: elderly o er 55 , middle-aged
3 54 , and young below 35 . The results
show that there were only 102 elderly par-
ti ipants, making up 2.1 of the total 253
middle-aged parti ipants, making up 5.3
while young parti ipants, boasting a sum
of 4,4 2, laim 92. . These gures and
harts show ery learly the onstituen y
of the mo ement: young artists dominated,
while elderly and middle-aged parti ipants
together make up less than 10 of the
total. igure 3 shows that the elderly and
the middle-aged groups shared the same
rate of de elopment and similar numbers.
The two groups together seldom surpass
e en half of the total. Throughout the
de ade, their in ol ement saw only a small
surge in 1980, 1981, and 1983. But, in all of
the other years, they did not e eed 10
of the total. ig. 2. Age distribution of parti ipants
69
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‘85 ART NEW WAVE
ig. 3. roportion of artists who are elderly, middle-aged, and young
. i i i 1977 1986
Artists gradual gra itation toward modern art and the in rease in parti ipants in
modern art a ti ities all indi ate that the general shift in interest in art ir les was
already taking pla e. The following is an in estigation of the ir umstan es sur-
rounding this shift in interest. We use Art ( Meishu as a primary resour e, atego-
ri ing all of the arti les published in this ournal in the past de ade. rom this, we
an illustrate the general hange in interest in the art s ene by mapping the pro-
portional hanges of ea h ategory. The indi ation of interest is obtained by di id-
ing the number of arti les in a ertain ategory in a ertain year by the total number
of arti les published in the same year. Art is a nationally ir ulating ournal as well
as the of ial publi ation of the Chinese Artists Asso iation. It has re ords of all of
the most important e ents in art ir les throughout the nation and offers detailed
reports and dis ussions about the s holarly de elopments in the ne arts as well.
That is why we hose Art as our basi sour e instead of other lo al ournals, whi h
an e hibit parti ular biases. Here, it is ne essary to note: 1 the statisti s do not
in lude news briefs, and instead fo us on theoreti al arti les and artists notes writ-
ten from a de nite artisti iewpoint 2 we di ide all of the arti les into se en at-
egories: a ademi art please refer to its de nition earlier in this se tion politi al
art spe i ally refers to arti les whi h argue that art ser es politi s te hni ues
are writings only on painting te hni ues modern art please see de nition earlier
in the se tion o erseas refers to arti les that translate or introdu e foreign art
an ient Chinese art refers to studies of Chinese art history prior to the May
ourth Mo ement in 1919 Chinese folk art refers to all studies of folk art other
refers to writings that belong to none of the abo e ategories and are not ournalis-
ti reports for e ample, the regulations of the Chinese Artists Asso iation .
The bottom row in Chart 2 shows that o er the past de ade, most arti les
ha e been written about a ademi art, totaling 7 . Ne t is the Chinese modern
art ategory, with 295 arti les. In third is the politi al art ategory, with 220 arti les.
Meanwhile, there ha e been 135 arti les introdu ing modern art from o erseas.
70
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Chart 2. Change in interests in the art world
Chart 3. Change in interests in the art world
If we add up all arti les about modern art, in luding both original writings and
translations, and di ide by the sum total of arti les, the ratio is 295 135 1780
21.2 . By the same token, the a ademi art ategory has a ratio of 7 1780 38 ,
politi al art 220 1780 12.4 , folk art 11 1780 .5 . This is a general iew of the
interests in art ir les o er the past de ade see ig. 4 . We ha e yet to ondu t a
year-by-year analysis of ea h ategory, but we an tell that in the past de ade art
ir les showed the most interest in a ademi art, then modern art, politi al art,
folk art, an ient Chinese art, te hni ues, and foreign lassi al art, in that order.
igure 5 maps out the hanges in interest in the past de ade. The four lines
represent four different ategories. enerally speaking, there has been a rise in
interest in modern art and a ademi art, but a de line in interest in politi al art.
To further illustrate this point, we made an ad ustment to the pre ious ategories:
we ombined the ategories about arti les regarding domesti and foreign mod-
ern art see Chart 4 . The usti ation for doing so is that Chinese modern art an
be seen as ha ing established itself on e perien es drawn from foreign modern
art. It is fair to say that introdu ing foreign art a ti ities also indi ates Chinese
art s interest in modern art.
71
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‘85 ART NEW WAVE
ig. 4. i ision of interests in art
ig. 5. Changes in interests in art
Chart 4. i ision of interests in art

udging from the hanges in interests through the de ade, the interest in a a-
72
demi art remained at a position of steady dominan e sin e its rise in 1979.
|
Although it e perien ed a slight drop after 1980, it rose again in 1984, peaked and
onstituted more than half of the interest shown in national ne art ir les.
Starting in 1985, howe er, it de lined dramati ally and in 198 rea hed its lowest
point sin e 1979. The interest in politi al art o upied more than half of the total
interest at the end of the 1970s, but after 1980 it plummeted, and within a year it
rea hed its rst low point, only laiming 1.5 of the national interest. After that, it
had a minor rise and rea hed a small peak in 1983 with 10 , but that still repre-
sents the least amount of interest ompared with the other ategories. It ontin-
ued to fall after 1983, and within three years it omprised less than 1 of the
national interest artists interests in ser ing politi s was redu ed to a minimum.
In omparison, the interest in modern art started off at almost ero, rose to 11 in
1979, rea hed its rst small peak in 1981, but progressi ely de lined at an annual
rate of 10 between 1982 and 1984 and fell to its lowest point sin e 1979 in 1984.
1985 sees a dramati turn toward modern art, when its number doubled that of
1984 and more or less returned to the le els en oyed in 1981. In 198 , it ontinued
to rise and rea hed its se ond peak, also the highest point of the de ade, onsti-
tuting more than half of the national interest.
If we ompare the u tuation of interest in the three ategories, we nd that
a ademi art and modern art shared a similar trend before 1984, although mod-
ern art still lagged behind a ademi art. After 1984, the two di erged and rea hed
their highest and lowest points, respe ti ely: 1984 was the peak year for a ademi
art but the lowest point for modern art, while 198 was the opposite. Thus, start-
ing in 1984, a ademi art and modern art began to ri al ea h other. The interest in
politi al art, howe er, followed a different dire tion: if the pre ious two atego-
ries saw a rise, then politi al art ne essarily saw a fall, and i e ersa, e ept in
1984. They seem to ha e a on erse relationship, whi h also suggests that the
re itali ation and de elopment of the two former ategories depend on the es-
sation and diminishing of the latter.
A ross-se tional iew of 1977, 1981, 1984, and 198 shows the starting, end-
ing, highest, and lowest points of the de ade see ig. . In 1984 and 198 , a a-
demi art and modern art swit hed their leads, and in 1977 and 198 the
beginning and end points of the de ade under in estigation there was also a
trade-off in dominan e between modern art and politi al art. In the middle of the
de ade, howe er, a ademi art always remained in the lead.
rom these statisti s we an see:
a. There has been a stable rise in interest in a ademi art, while interest in modern
art has not been stable, and interest in politi al art has seen a stable de line.
b. The in rease in interest in modern art seems to ha e met some dif ulties and
e perien ed substantial u tuations. Its rapid growth and stabili ation only
o urred in the nal two years.
. A ademi art en oyed the ma ority of interest in the past de ade, making up an
a erage of 33.8 , while modern art o upied only 14.3 .
d. In Chinese art ir les, 1980 81 and 1984 85 marked the two turning points in
interest when all of the ategories e perien ed large u tuations.
e. 1983 84 saw a de line of interest in all ategories e ept for a ademi art. ne of
the reasons for this seems to be the Anti Spiritual ollution Campaign laun hed
in the same year. All ategories e ept politi al art peaked in 1980 81, during the
two years onsidered to be the rst opening-up period after the Third lenary
73
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‘85 ART NEW WAVE
ig. . roportions of interests in art
Session of the 11th Chinese Communist arty Central Committee. We an suppose

that u tuations in the orientation of artisti alue are losely orrelated with
hanges in China s politi al limate.
ii. i i ivi i 1977 1986
. “ x i i i ” ivi i
E hibition rate is ust a on enient term be ause in the art world the most om-
mon form of artisti a ti ity is an e hibition. But, modern art has already broken
this on ention and e plored many other forms, for e ample, in ol ing audien e
parti ipation in outdoor spa es, performan es, and all kinds of workshops and sym-
posia. We use the term e hibition rate to represent the fre uen y of modern art
a ti ities staged. We draw statisti s from the same sour e as those of the demo-
graphi studies abo e. Howe er, we need to note that there ha e been many
e ents all o er the ountry assuming different forms and styles, and sometimes
multiple e ents were simultaneously ondu ted in different ities at a number of
enues as a result there are possible omissions in our statisti s see Chart 5 .
In the past de ade, modern art a ti ities were mostly on entrated in 1985
and 198 , totaling 149 and laiming 79.7 of the total a ti ities in the de ade.
The year with the most a ti ities was 198 , with a tally of 110. The a erage annual
e hibition rate was 18.7 a ti ities per year , whi h means that e ery year there
were nearly 19 modern art a ti ities, whi h is not a low number. There are also
u tuations in fre uen y during different times see ig. 7 .
The u tuations in the e hibition rate are ery similar to those shown by
interests in art. Any dis repan ies between the two o ur only within the span of
74
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Chart 5. ate of modern art e hibitions
ig. 7. Modern art e hibitions
a year, whi h also suggests that theoreti al interest perhaps often de elops later
than art pra ti es. But, there are times when theory and pra ti e ompletely o er-
lap: in 1984, modern art e hibitions and writings fell to their lowest points sin e
1979 and again skyro keted in 1985. The ualitati e hange in 1985 seems to be
the result of the pre ious eight years in ubation of numerous artisti e ents.
Enough time had passed for modern art to lay its groundwork.
. i i i : i
i
In the abo e analyses, we ha e shown that more and more artists began to be
in ol ed in modern art, and by 198 their numbers were upwards of 4,000. These
were representati es of new artisti on epts, and their so ial ommuni ation
was a hie ed through small groups. Thus, studying these groups an help us ana-
ly e the ir umstan es surrounding artists gatherings in the past de ade see
Chart . ur sour e materials in lude: a eld in estigation, statisti s submitted
by artists groups b art ournals. The same note applies here that there must be
omissions in these statisti s, too.
Between 1982 and 198 there were 79
75
young artists groups with arying artisti
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‘85 ART NEW WAVE
ob e ti es, s attered in appro imately 23
pro in es, ities, and autonomous regions.
They held 97 art e ents of arious si es
with 2,250 dire t parti ipants, making up
4 .7 of the total parti ipants in modern
art a ross the entire nation. This suggests
that these groups make up almost half of
the modern art population, ser ing as the
ba kbone of the whole modern art mo e-
ment and ardent promoters of modern art
throughout the nation. Hubei, Bei ing, and
iangsu had the largest numbers of groups,
while iangsu, Bei ing, and Hubei had the
most members respe ti ely. It is worth
noting that artists groups e en emerged in
remote western and southwestern regions
su h as Tibet, Inner Mongolia, inghai,
and ansu, whi h is a telling sign of the
popularity of the small group format.
. i

Chart 7 is from data supplied by art our-
nals, art groups own re ords, and the Chart . Art groups nationwide
internal do uments of the Chinese Artists
Asso iation. We ha e re orded here all the pro in es, ities, and autonomous
regions that ha e held modern art e ents, in luding e hibitions, symposia, work-
shops, and others. We also re orded the fre uen y of the e ents see Chart 7 .
This hart tells us that 25 pro in es, ities, and autonomous regions in lud-
ing Spe ial E onomi ones su h as Shen hen and huhai that is, 83.3 of
Chinese pro in es e luding Taiwan ha e held modern art e ents. The geo-
graphi spread is ast, e en rea hing o erseas. In fa t, the in iang region also
had artists who held modern art e hibitions in other areas. The Xinjiang Art
Academy Exhibition ( Xinjiang huayuan zuopinzhan in Bei ing in August 198 dem-
onstrated modern styles. It is worth noting that modern art e hibitions rea hed
soaring heights, su h as when the renowned Ameri an modern artist obert
aus henberg had his solo e hibition there in Bei ing . It was truly a rare o a-
sion with international signi an e. Also, among the 187 modern art e ents in the
nation there were 17 important foreign artists e hibitions, laiming 9 of the
total of national e hibitions. These e hibitions by famous modern artists dire tly
in uen ed the de elopment of the modern art mo ement in China.
The following are detailed analyses of the spread of modern art in China see
Chart 8 and Chart 9 . It seems that the areas with the most on entrated artisti
a ti ities are entral China, northern China, and eastern China. Taking a look at the
spe i pro in es and ities, we an see that modern art a ti ities tended to on en-
trate in areas that are more e onomi ally and ulturally de eloped and e uipped
with on enient transportation. They also tend to be areas that ha e opened up ear-
lier and more rapidly with regard to the moderni ation pro ess see ig. 8 .
76
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Chart 7. Nationwide e pansion of modern art a ti ities
Chart 8. istribution of modern art a ti ities
Chart 9. Number of modern art a ti ities
The emergen e of modern art a ti ities spread further throughout the ountry
with the passage of time see ig. 9, whi h was drawn based on Chart 7 . Similar
diagrams ha e already appeared se eral times earlier in the se tion. It shows that
the spread of modern art has been in syn with the general interest in modern art,
the parti ipants demographi hanges, and the fre uen y of a ti ities. The year
with most geographi o erage sin e 1979 was 198 , when modern art rea hed 20
pro in es the year with least o erage was 1984, when there was only one pro -
77
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‘85 ART NEW WAVE
ig. 8. eographi e pansion of modern art a ti ities
ig. 9. eographi di ision of modern art a ti ities
in e, the remote ansu pro in e, that had an e ent. Also, the o erall spread in the
past de ade has not been a steady and ontinuous rise, but has seen two si able
u tuations.
So far, we ha e e amined modern art from the perspe ti es of artists demo-
graphi s, shifts in interest, geographi spread, and fre uen y of a ti ities. We
ha e rea hed the following on lusion: Chinese modern art had a breakthrough
in 1985 and 198 , rising to dominan e in art ir les after ten years of e ploration
and artists efforts. These two years not only mark a peak in modern art a ti ities,
but also a turning point in Chinese art. After 198 , an era of one do trine, one
s hool, and one guiding thought ended, while a new prospe t of pluralism and
stylisti di ersity was ushered in. We ha e to ask: Why did su h a modern trend
appear in Chinese art only after the Cultural e olution Why did the general
shift in interest among artists happen in the 1980s instead of the 1930s There
were artists who ad o ated modern art in the 1930s, but they failed to make a
lasting so ial impa t and, in the end, disappeared from the s ene. Why did the
interest in modern art peak in 1985 and 198
We all know that the de ade after the Cultural e olution was the ountry s
78
most open period in e ery respe t. ur so iety and ulture underwent tremendous
|
transformations. The hanges in these so io ultural fa tors undoubtedly ga e rise

to the modern art mo ement. Thus, we posit that the hanges in so ial and ul-
tural alues led to interest in the modern art mo ement, while the so ial and ultural
ba kground prepared the ground for its growth. Therefore, modern art did not appear
in China by a ident, but rather ne essarily possesses a deep so ial foundation. We
ought to nd the so ial and ultural agents that moti ated its rise and de elopment.
Notes
. See the rst se tion in Chapter in ao Minglu, Zhongguo dangdai meishushi, 1985 – 1986 [ Contemporary
Chinese Art, 1985 – 1986 Shanghai: Shanghai eople s ublishing House, .
. Addendum: due to delays in re ei ing information and statisti al omissions, we failed to in lude the
Ning ia region s i h Soil il ainting esear h Asso iation Houtu youhua yan iuhui and its Yitai
Exhibition ( Yitai huazhan in uang i, and ui hou ro in e s e hibitions of Yin uang hong, Wang ing,
and others. Therefore, ounting in iang, the modern art mo ement rea hed pro in es and regions
in China.
riginally published as hongguo iandai meishu yundong hi ingguan in ao Minglu, Zhongguo

dangdai meishushi, 1985 – 1986 [ Contemporary Chinese Art, 1985 – 1986 Shanghai: Shanghai eople s
ublishing House, 1991 , 0 27. Translated by Yin ing Liu.
Writings by Members of Selected Art Groups
WE — PARTICIPANTS OF THE “’85 ART MOVEMENT” ( 1986 )

By Wang Guangyi pl. 9
Life s inner dri e the underlying power of ulture today has arri ed at its supreme
moment We thirst for and happily embra e all forms of life by gi ing rise to a new,
more humanisti spiritual model, to bring order to the e olutionary pro ess of life. To
this end, we only oppose those morbid, ro o o styles of art as well as all things
unhealthy and detrimental to the e olution of life. Sin e these arts abet man s weak-
nesses, they ause people to be far from health and far from life. As we see it today,
the ideas of art ha e already e eeded its traditional on eptual de nitions. Although
Con eptual art is regarded as art s alienation from itself, before a new ulture of art
arri es, we an only a ept this kind of alienation. In this way, we an use the alien-
ation of art to e press the on ept of antialienation.
It is e a tly in this sense that the parti ipants of the 85 Art Mo ement are not
engaged in reating art for art s sake, but rather in ad an ing a pro ess of arti ulation
and beha ior that is not merely the philosophy of a philosophi al on ept. This is simi-
lar to the pe uliar ualities of un ertainty found in art at the beginning of the European
enaissan e. The reason that enaissan e art has histori al alue is not be ause it per-
fe ted artisti models, but rather be ause it on eyed the re elatory e pression of non-
philosophi al philosophy and ga e rise to humanist thought. This, in turn, prompted
Europe to depart from the dif ult onditions of the Middle Ages, to dis o er human-
ity and the alue of human nature.
It is pre isely this signi an e that the 85 Art Mo ement shares with the earlier
enaissan e. Howe er, the differen e is that the importan e of enaissan e art lies in
its dis o ery and awakening of human nature, while the 85 Art Mo ement is grounded
in the onte t of modern i ili ation and is intent on ele ating humankind s sublimity
and health.
We oppose spe ulation o er so- alled pure artisti forms be ause e essi e dis-
79
ussion of these kinds of uestions will lead to the un he ked spread of a morbid state
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‘85 ART NEW WAVE
of formalism. This will then ause humanity to forget its own dif ult onditions.
Therefore, we on e again propose the an ient proposition, ontent determines form.
What our images arti ulate is not art They prophesy a new ulture, the Culture of the
North. The reason that we hoose painting as the medium for transmitting our predi -
tions is be ause the a t of painting itself possesses an unknowability in its deeply lay-
ered semanti s that approa hes the ultimate essen e of e isten e.
riginally published as Women 85 Meishu yundong de anyu he in Zhongguo meishu bao [ Fine
Arts in China , September 8, 198 no. 3 , 1. Translated by risten Loring.
AN EXPLANATION OF THE NORTHERN ART GROUP ( 1987 )

By Shu Qun
The essay The Spirit of the Northern Art roup ser ed as a manifesto for this group
see Zhongguo meishu bao ( Fine Arts in China , No ember 23, 1985 no. 18 . The alue
of a roup lies in the fa t that ea h member s ultural orientation belongs to a om-
pletely new domain. In other words, in ontrast to the olle ti ity of all the rest of
humanity, these must be people who stride forth at the forefront of history. They are
people who ha e aught a glimpse of a new ulture that is more ideal than the urrent
ultural models a epted by the masses. But, if we wish to larify the intuiti e images
of this new ulture emerging in ea h person s mind, then we all must ome together
to dis uss and debate it. Be ause of this, the a ti ities of the roup will appear all
the more ne essary and aluable. ur pra ti e has pro en that the new ulture as it
was initially formed in our minds was ambiguous. nly through dis ussion, debate,
and e perimentation with the reation of artisti s hema did this be ome learer.
ltimately, differing opinions were gradually brought together, yet this did not mean
that a single indi idual s ideas simply supplanted other people s thinking rather, ea h
indi idual s ideas repeatedly ollided, dissol ed, and eri ed the on lusions on whi h
the group ultimately agreed. Su h a relati ely ideal on lusion ne essarily represents
the rystalli ation of the wisdom of the roup it ould not possibly be reali ed by a
single person. i en this, the hypotheti al on ept of a Culture of the North or a
Culture of the ost-Ar ti should de nitely not be seen as some random person s
groundless imagination run wild instead, they are the loftiest ideas and images to per-
meate the urrent age, summaries and on lusions that a ute people ha e per ei ed
and mutually identi ed. The signi an e of the roup thus lies in the fa t that when
people identify with one another, they sense that they aren t alone, onse uently
assuring ea h person that their own thinking has alue. At the same time, upon this
foundation of mutual self-identi ation, the group is able to eliminate falsehoods and
preser e truths through riti ism, ounter riti ism, argument, and debate, ultimately
bringing forth a type of ultural model that is uni ersally effe ti e for all of human ul-
ture. This is the new ultural model: the Culture of the North or the Culture of the
ost-Ar ti .
It was pre isely through these arious methods that we were able to better de ne
our artisti stan es larifying what we needed namely, to re i e the reason of the
Middle Ages and the passions of the primeval period. But, in art, we ha e tended more
toward reason. eelings of solemnity, loftiness, deta hment, and stillness will onsti-
tute the meaning that we stri e to e press in our art, for the origin of these feelings lies
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Shu un. Absolute Principle No. 1. 1985. il on an as, 78 3 200 1 0 m.

ri ate olle tion
in a re eren e and yearning for the world on the far shore. When apti ated by this
sort of emotion, people e perien e a sa rosan t, lofty spiritual outlook in whi h man
and nature be ome a single unity. This is pre isely the kind of so ial life on whi h
humankind relies in order to ele ate itself, to transform aimless human e isten e into
a so iety hara teri ed by the ommon, ultimate goal of stri ing toward the far shore,
and to transform the unspiritual people of today into a fundamental site for spirituality.
Indeed, within all of humankind, those who are truly able to appre iate and per ei e
this spiritual outlook are rare. arti ularly at the present moment, in an era that is spir-
itually bankrupt, su h people are espe ially few. But it is pre isely this sort of histori al
ir umstan e that has aused irtuous artists to feel a sense of responsibility and mis-
sion to awaken human rationality and to en ourage the pious, earnest, kindhearted,
haste, and good-natured hara ter of the medie al period to return on e again to
humankind. f ourse, although we are learly pointing out that we are striving to
revive the spirit of reason of the Middle Ages, we are hoping that the reader will not
mistake us as promoting some sort of regression. or today, espe ially in China, the
spirit of the Middle Ages that we propose to re i e means something ery different
from the spirit of reason typi al of the mer iless slaughters undertaken by the
Christian hur h in medie al Europe. Indeed, the darkness of the European medie al
period lies in its ha ing been a time when di inity was raised to soar o er a founda-
tion of radi ally de alued humanity today, howe er, the spirit of reason that we are
proposing is one that raises di inity to soar o er a foundation of af rmed humanity.
This is a fundamental sign of the differen e between the new ulture a healthy ul-
ture and the old ultures of any time period. The reeds upheld by the radi al, big-
oted, si kly so iety of the Middle Ages were long ago shattered by the so ial
re olutions fomented from the enaissan e onward. rom that moment, the West
es aped from that age of reason and promoted an instin tual spirit of prime al
wildness. All traditional ultural models were impa ted. eople were no longer willing
to handle affairs a ording to any random redo. Humanity, as well as the basest force
animality within humanity, both long repressed, nally burst forth. This energy and
passion aused Western so iety to de elop igorously and healthily, but now that is,
81
at this late moment in apitalist so iety this liberation has be ome un ontrollable.
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‘85 ART NEW WAVE
erhaps this is be ause the Middle Ages oppressed this downward for e too se erely.
The post- enaissan e West ertainly did not de elop based on a stable relationship
between reason and instin t, intelle t and emotion rather, the West has ontinued to
de line, ultimately rea hing the state in whi h it e ists today, a state in whi h spirit is
uni ersally la king and in whi h material goods are o erabundant. The pursuit of
materialism has be ome skewed, it has transformed the indi idual into a sla e ruled by
his relationship to goods, and aused him to lose all power o er himself.
This is the plight of the ontemporary West. Howe er, the dif ulties that China
fa es are impa ted from two sides: the rst is spiritual po erty, the se ond is material
po erty. Contemporary China has been assaulted by materialism, a phenomenon that
is not unrelated to the super ial tenden ies of the ontemporary West. But, like the
small number of philosophi al thinkers in ontemporary China, wise Westerners are
also arduously working to resurre t the spirit of reason of the Middle Ages. Su h efforts
are not fruitless. When these few wise people established their on in ing theories, the
number of people who identi ed with these ideas in reased, and gradually they formed
in uential philosophi al s hools, like New Thomism, Christian Spiritualism, et . And
lo e of religious philosophy and belief in New Thomism are urrently be oming an
indispensable part of many Westerners ultural li es. rom this one an see that the
reestablishment of the spirit of reason is not only a problem for China but also a global
hallenge. Facing the feeble tradition of rationality in our nation, we are all the more
obliged to promote and build su h a spirit, for only in so doing will our li es be ome
brighter, loftier, more haste, and more spiritual. f ourse, at the same time we are
also promoting intuition and primiti e passion and making our itality more igorous
and passionate. This is the foundation on whi h spiritual produ tion depends. It is pre-
isely in order to ad an e humanity s spirituality and originary nature that we ha e put
forth this artisti prin iple of building a Ci ili ation of the North. The Culture of the
North or Culture of the ost-Ar ti are, in fa t, simply symboli terms for a rational
ulture. Moreo er, we ha e also proposed a ultural de elopment model ointly depen-
dent on reason and intuition, a model in whi h priority is gi en to the spirit of reason
and in whi h intuition is seen as supplementary. This is to say that at the same time
that we are building a Culture of the North, we are also promoting a orresponding
de elopment for a Culture of the South a symboli term for intuition . We seek to
use them as a repla ement for traditional ulture and its unhealthy la k of both reason
and intuition. It is pre isely based on these two needs uni ue to humans of our era that
we are alling this an age of ollaboration between the Cultures of the North and
South. We are using this on ept to rid oursel es of the in reasingly frail, orrupt ethos
of the ultures of the East and West ultures of the temperate ones . or this, we
ad o ate that in the present era we ought to de elop toward the two poles as mu h as
possible that is, we ought to de elop simultaneously toward a high degree of reason
and a high degree of intuition. This is ust as Niet s he said: Let the loftiest powers and
the basest powers of humankind olle t together and ow swiftly from a single foun-
tainhead. This is, on the one hand, to reinfor e humanity s spirituality, and on the
other hand, to strengthen humankind s physi ality physiologi al needs . Thus, in our
artisti reations, we try to eliminate all tender, weak, and diseased art forms. Instead,
we try to build a lofty, stately, healthy ultural model, and we try to make people here
feel the insigni an e of the indi idual and the greatness of the human spirit. In our
li es, we ha e hosen a lifestyle that is dedi ated more to humanity and health and that
is go erned by free will. A self- on dent personality and an enthusiasti sense of reason
are the riteria that de ne the new man that we seek. nly in this manner an people
82
newly re i e the spirituality of the Middle Ages and the health and might of an ient
|
ree e and ome.

Indeed, all of these ideals that we hold are perhaps merely built on the utopia
of the far shore. But the effort that we e pend on behalf of this goal is ne essary for
in doing this, although we annot e pe t that e ery member of humankind will
be ome an ideal, healthy person a paragon , at the ery least we an make oursel es
mo e more toward being healthy. The whole meaning and alue of human life lies
pre isely in this pro ess of ghting toward health and perfe tion. In one s ontinual
e ertion in the pursuit of perfe tion, one dis o ers beauty one gains spirit and
strength. Moreo er, if we look at all of this from the perspe ti e of so ial reality, we
will see that to promote the struggle for su h spirit is a key to ad an ing the uality of
our nation. erhaps the efforts of our generation will bear no fruit for us that is, in
our lifetime, we won t be able to witness the emergen e of an ideal so ial order , but
we annot say that this kind of effort will not build for later people a foundation
somewhat better than that whi h e isted in the past. Thus, those people who on-
tinue our work will further de elop our progressi e thinking one day, they may e en
de elop this into an ideal uni ersally pursued by all humankind, as well as a ne tradi-
tion among our own nation.
The ultimate reali ation of this sort of so ietal ideal depends on the umulati e
efforts of humanity. In order to a hie e this, we are determined to o er ome the faulty,
deep-rooted idea of turning our hopes to the future generation. ur prede essors
always lung to su h ideas, and they ontinually pushed the troubles of one genera-
tion onto the ne t, up to today. Thus, we resolutely oppose this sort of es apist men-
tality. A person with this mentality does not trans end others rather, he is owardly
and indolent, and his base tenden y to o et omfort and pleasure dominates his soul.
A irtuous person, a person lled with reason, would spurn this sort of base feeling
and this wormlike soul that makes a pretense of deta hment from the world This is
ust as Niet s he said: I lo e those who do not rst seek a reason beyond the stars for
going down and being sa ri es, but sa ri e themsel es to the earth, that the earth
of the Superman may hereafter arri e. In order to make human so iety healthier, loft-
ier, more ideal, and more igorous, we will e pend all of our energy in dedi ating our-
sel es to a new civilization — to building a “Civilization of the North.” We transform the
earth of humankind into a Land of the Hyperboreans,” a land of Supermen!
Notes
. Here, we an only simply e plain the images that it represents within the realm of isual ulture we
annot tou h upon its produ tion and origins.
. i inity: refers to humankind s a priori reason or highest reason. In this essay, reason always holds this
meaning. It is distin t from typi al reason, for it is an in ariable spiritual prin iple, whereas typi al
reason refers to the pro ess and approa h leading toward this prin iple.
. ownward for e and basest for e mean the same thing namely, the physi al for e of the human
body.
. The phrase “Land of the Hyperboreans” omes from Niet s he s book The Anti-Christ. It means: the place in
which the Supermen live.
riginally published as Wei Beifang yishu unti hanshi in Meishu sichao [ The Trend of Art Thought ,
1987: no. 1, 3 39. Translated by hillip Bloom.
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‘85 ART NEW WAVE
ond So iety. Work No. 2: Walker in Green Space. 198 . Installation and performan e
ON NEW SPACE AND THE POND SOCIETY ( 1987 )

By Shi Jiu
We an still re all the kind of oy and e itement in our hearts that was sparked by the
e hibition ’85 New Space ( 85 Xin kongjian . We re ei ed a tremendous satisfa tion
from undertaking su h an important e periment for the rst time. ne year later, for
us New Space is already a thing of the past. uring the following e olution and re e -
tion, we ontinued to dis o er meaning in new a tions, hen e the ontinued sense of
ful llment and satisfa tion.
rom New Space to the ond So iety Chi she , it was a pro ess of o er oming
our own onstraints and s rutini ing oursel es. This pro ess ompelled us to seek
out a brand-new meaning of art, and thus ree aluate and re tify formerly established
prin iples.
It was a positi e trans enden e of the self.
The ’85 New Space e hibition was, in some sense, e perimental. It was based on an
impetus, that is, a desire for self-awakening through a tion. The in itation letter stated:
The alue of life lies in the o upation of spa e. It was also founded on a dis ontent,
an e treme disgust and a ersion toward the dominant fad. We attempted to promul-
gate, through an apposite approa h, an aestheti alue that runs ounter to the fad.
Most of the artists featured in New Space graduated from the he iang A ademy of
ine Arts. They all had, to arying degrees, some knowledge about the thought of Sartre,
Heidegger, and Wittgenstein, among others. Therefore, they had a ertain af nity and
shared a kind of ta it agreement among themsel es. Stri tly speaking, howe er, their
ideas were di ergent, whi h was more than e iden ed in their di erse indi idual interests
toward the arious aspe ts of modern art. In terms of the way they worked with forms,
the disparity was all the more pronoun ed. But the important part was to reali e the
alue, and the most powerful approa h to reali ing the alue was to unite.
The ’85 New Space e hibition started on e ember 2, 1985. The audien e response
was parti ularly fer ent.
The publi s general impression of New Space was that it featured a sort of aloof
transparen y. Howe er, di erse opinions e ist as to the parti ular responses and e alua-
tions of the e hibition. What we re ei ed were these: rst, more latitudinal o erage
and less longitudinal pursuit se ond, more in uen e from op art and less from Nati e
84
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eng ianyi. Haircut No. 3:

Another Shaved Head
of Summer 1985. 1985.
il on an as
Soil art third, more des ripti e elements and less philosophi al insights fourth, more
old treatment and less warm treatment fth, a tenden y toward homogeneity. Some
audien e members reported that the paintings were too opa ue others e pressed a er-
sion to the oldness of the e hibition yet others, who were more sensiti e, belie ed
that the basi tone of the e hibition was not ery healthy and in need of orre t guid-
an e. lans to tra el the e hibition outside the pro in e were also stri ken down
be ause it was less than perfe t and in need of impro ement.
In 198 , media su h as Art ( Meishu ol. 218 no. 2 and Fine Arts in China
( Zhongguo meishu bao May 5, 198 no. 18 introdu ed the ’85 New Space e hibi-
tion. They featured the arti les Sa ri e of the Courageous Yonggan de isheng
by riti Hong ai in, We and ur Works Women i women de huang uo and
esponses to the E hibition ’85 New Space uanyu 85 Xin kongjian hua han de
fanying by Bao ianfei, and also published the most ontro ersial artworks of New
Space, su h as Haircut No. 3: Another Shaved Head of Summer 1985 ( Lifa sanhao: 1985
nian xiaji de you yige guangtou and Adagio of Symphony No. 5, Second Movement
( Diwu jiaoxiangyue dier yuezhang kaitou de rouban . Through these publi ations, the
in uen e of the New Space e hibition rea hed e ery orner of the ountry.
enerally speaking, the tenden ies of the New Space e hibition were so ially on-
s ious and humanisti . Many works re e ted ontemporary people s psy hologi al
states and the relationship between people and the spa e of their habitats, all posi-
tioned against the ba kdrop of ontemporary so iety. Notable works abounded, su h
as the Hair ut series by eng ianyi Midsummer Swimmers ( Zhongxia de yongzhe
pl. 10 , Pause ( Xiuzhi yinfu , and Please Help Yourself to Some Jazz ( Qingni xinshang
jueshiyue by hang eili White Tube ( Baise guandao and Human Tube ( Ren guandao
by Song Ling Adagio of Symphony No. 5, Second Movement and Amateur Painter ( Yeyu
huajia by Wang iang the New Spa e series by Bao ianfei Rejecting Perspective
( Jujue toushi by Cao uelei 12:00 a.m. ( Lingdian and Dialogue ( Duihua by u in. To a
large degree, these works determined the basi tone of the e hibition. Artists seemed
to be trying to publi ly and unabashedly position routine and e eryday phenomena
under the pur iew of art. E en so, their paintings were all markedly at, no brushwork
and no gloss, bearing some resemblan e to ad ertisements. No wonder audien e
members would referen e the des ripti eness and the in uen e of op art. igures in
85
eng ianyi s Hair ut series are tightly tted into the omposition, appearing to be
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‘85 ART NEW WAVE
olossal in stature. These gures are like robots sub e t to e ternal onstraints, om-
pletely la king autonomy, and thus transforming a familiar s ene into something dif-
ferent and strange. We an read a profound mo kery and eiled derision in the topi s
of eng ianyi s works, their ompositions, the olor, and the omponent forms. The
four works by hang eili depi t s enes whi h people usually onsider oyful yet
within an ambien e that is solemn, ated, and de oid of life, they re eal a faint sense
of tragedy. The gures are stiff, and e ery one of them looks gra ely ahead, as if in
anti ipation of something. Song Ling seems to be more interested in industrial s enes.
His paintings are usually done in ink, but they don t ha e the te hni ues or spirit on-
sonan e on entionally related to traditional ink paintings. They feature a stark on-
trast between light and dark, like a paper- ut silhouette. Coupled with the ontrast
between giganti industrial tubes and human gures, his paintings appear mysterious
and frightening. The printed New Spa e series by Bao ianfei and Cao uelei s oil
painting Rejecting Perspective are more fo used on symboli languages. The New Spa e
series onsists of four prints, produ ed with materials of arious te tures, su h as lm,
iron wire, and plywood. The works are distin t due to the artist s e ellent ontrol of
the materials in representing the mysterious relationship between human and spa e.
Cao uelei s works stri e to appro imate Surrealism, yet their omponent parts betray
some tra es of reality. His paintings emanate a ertain modern wildness. Adagio of
Symphony No. 5, Second Movement is one of Wang iang s e s ulptures, but it is the
most ontro ersial one. The e works are different in form, gi ing the sense that the
artist intended to show ase the omprehensi eness and effe ti eness of his s ulptural
te hni ues. Yet, Adagio of Symphony No. 5, Second Movement stands out from the
other four. It is a oppy plaster body ast from a li e model. Be ause it is without head
and limbs, iewers an see the inside of the shell through the openings. Instead of the
sense of eternity ommon to s ulptures with su h olume, it is more reminis ent of a
pie e of dis arded waste. Meti ulously en ased in an e uisite huge glass display ase,
it also looks like a spe imen. Its tongue-twisting title also adds to iewers onfusion.
ther works su h as Liberal Melody ( Ziyou xuanlü and Photographer ( Sheyingzhe also
ontributed to the impa t of the New Space e hibition.
All in all, in terms of te hni ue, the abo e-mentioned artists ontinued and de el-
oped the indi idual styles and interests that took shape while they were in s hool.
Con eptually, they were in uen ed by modern philosophies and aestheti alues.
Thus, some members of the audien e dete ted a student a or in their work.
The idea for the ’85 New Space e hibition originated a year before. In uly 1984,
hang eili and ha Li dis erned a sign of deterioration in the Sixth National Fine Arts
Exhibition ( Diliujie quanguo meishu zuopin zhanlan , despite its seemingly o erwhelm-
ing s ale. They predi ted that a new wa e of art would riti ally hallenge the Chinese
ultural establishment in the near future. An age of onfrontation, rebellion, and
re onstru tion was imminent. They belie ed that the best way to promote the emer-
gen e of the new art would be to form an organi ed art olle ti e. Thereafter, Bao
ianfei, Song Ling, Wang iang, and u in su essi ely oined the debate. They held
impromptu meetings to further the dis ussion. The rst formal gathering was held at
ushan the Lonely Hill in Hang hou in tober.
Among the dissatisfa tion and reprobation e pressed against the Sixth National
Fine Arts Exhibition, the authoritati e establishment in the art world started to pay
attention to young artists. The he iang hapter of the Chinese Artists Asso iation
took the initiati e to onta t them, e pressing its intention to hold an unof ial
e hibition of young artists, to be sponsored by the Chinese Artists Asso iation.
86
Thereafter, hang eili, Song Ling, and ha Li solidi ed the details of the e hibition
|
during a working lun h and named it the ’85 New Space e hibition. In the meantime,
they de ided to found an asso iation alled the So iety of Young Artists Qingnian
chuangzaoshe .
In e ember, the he iang Artists Asso iation paid to rent two residential houses
on the outskirts of the ity and pro ided art supplies, su h as frames, paint, an as,
et ., . . . for the So iety of Young Artists.
At the end of ebruary 1985, other young artists ontinued to oin the So iety of
Young Artists. In Mar h, the rst plenary meeting was held at the of e of the he iang
Artists Asso iation, where artists dis ussed the mission and plan for the ’85 New Space
e hibition and a s hedule of e ents for the So iety of Young Artists. The meeting
appointed Song Ling, ha Li, and hang eili as the organi ers for the e hibition.
Be ause of disagreements within the So iety of Young Artists with regard to ideas,
methods, and preferen es, ha Li, hang eili, and others lari ed a prin iple, that is,
the entral dire tion of the ’85 New Space e hibition would be to on ey the sense of
modern through strengthening formal languages and restri ting e pli it e pression.
The rst newsletter on New Space was also printed soon after.
In May, ha Li enrolled in the o erseas graduate studies program at the he iang
A ademy of ine Arts and gradually withdrew from a ti ities.
In uly, eng ianyi graduated from the he iang A ademy, oined the So iety of
Young Artists, and took park in preparations for the New Space e hibition. His pres-
en e added a sense of wholeness to the e hibition.
In one of its e e uti e meetings, the he iang hapter of the Chinese Artists
Asso iation listed New Space as one of the programs on its agenda for the year, mark-
ing a transformation in the he iang Artists Asso iation s work.
In tober, some e hibition items were already nished. At the end of No ember,
organi ers of New Space did a round of s reening of these works. ire tors from the
Chinese Artists Asso iation then inspe ted the e hibition during the pre iew.
After a whole year of preparation, the ’85 New Space e hibition nally opened as
s heduled, under the o-sponsorship of the So iety of Young Artists and the he iang
hapter of the Chinese Artists Asso iation.
Nonetheless, from an ob e ti e standpoint, at the ery moment that New Space
took shape, the seed for its future fra turing was already sown.
The alue of New Space lies in its e perimentalism and pragmatism. In terms of its
e perimentalism, different reati e ideas were tested despite the la k of a uni ed
theme or theory. In terms of its pragmatism, New Space offered artists an opportunity
to take part in and to oin hands in showing their itality. Howe er, pre isely be ause
of this, it ould ne er be a neatly formed and sustainable team of artisti reation. Its
e entual rupturing and ending were ine itable. Howe er, as part of the new ultural
wa e, it offered an opportunity for others to impro e and de elop.
After the e hibition, besides the riti al attention from the media, the New Space
parti ipants themsel es also started to almly re e t on it.
In 1985, arious regional art groups mushroomed throughout the ountry, on-
tributing to a new rop of a ant-garde works that started to fundamentally hange the
stru ture of the art world in China. Su h a losed and monotonous situation no longer
e isted. This is what later ame to be known as the 85 Art New Wa e. a ed with
reality, we, as parti ipants of the 85 Art New Wa e, had the responsibility to re on-
sider our work in light of so ial and ultural e olution. In addition, out of the need for
impro ement and de elopment, we also understood that ’85 New Space arose from
dis ontent dire ted at ertain so ial phenomena. This dis ontent was produ ti e at
87
that parti ular stage. Howe er, if we only rely on this sentiment, then we annot make
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‘85 ART NEW WAVE
meaningful ontributions with our artisti a ti ities. This kind of a reati e a ti ity
ould only be reali ed with an understanding of its essen e, yet, at the same time, we
gradually grew tired of the aestheti attitude and formal elements that were per asi e
throughout New Space. Its e essi e and hea y-handed hermeneuti s also started to
ba k re and make us un omfortable.
Then and there, olish dramatist r ys tof ieslowski s Toward the Austere
Theater pro ided us with signi ant inspiration, that is, after on uering the obsta les
imposed by the world and by the self, the sub e t enters an in oluntary and medita-
ti e e perien e, whi h is a sort of into i ation miles away from norms and the pursuit
of material bene ts. At su h a moment, an a tor is ompelled to a t in a parti ular
way, e en if he does not intend to do so. ieslowski pointed to su h a model for the
purpose of not allowing artists to gratify their tenden y toward self-aggrandi ement.
n the ontrary, he intended to promote a genuine art to ombat the growing epi-
demi of prostitution art. He belie ed that the artist should be on an e ual footing
with the iewer in a sin ere dialogue, instead of the singular relationship between
the appre iator and the appre iated. Art should be a solemn and sublime a ti ity
instead of a de oration for poseurs. An artist s te hni ues are meaningful only when
they help the artist parti ipate in a dialogue. rom our perspe ti e, prostitution art
is the sign of the alienation of art and the alienation of the human being. The reason
for su h alienation lies in the many bene ts that art brings to artists, the inherent
glamour and sedu tion of te hni ues, or alternati ely, the self- on eit an artist is
lled with on e he masters the te hni ues. All in all, a whole ariety of in enti es
e entually en ourages the artist to forget about the original mission of art. In feudal
so iety, art was a ser ant to politi s. As su h, one of our long-term agendas, an agenda
of profound signi an e, is to hange and eradi ate the unhealthy phenomena in
artisti life.
In April 198 , hang eili, as a delegate from he iang, parti ipated in the
Symposium on il ainting Youhua yishu taolunhui held in Bei ing. A preliminary
idea about establishing the ond So iety started to form. In fa t, after New Space, the
So iety of Young Artists had already begun to lose its original momentum. It was nei-
ther possible nor ne essary to reorgani e the so iety, so it be ame imperati e to estab-
lish a new art organi ation.
In mid-May, hang eili, eng ianyi, Song Ling, Bao ianfei, and Wang iang,
among others, met se eral times to talk about the possibility and ne essity of restru tur-
ing the So iety of Young Artists. After heated debate, a rough agreement was rea hed.
Thereafter, hang eili drafted, while the rest dis ussed and re ised the manifesto
for the ond So iety. The manifesto emphasi ed the purity and solemnity of art and
the signi an e of immersion. The meaning of pond gi es a nod to the notion of
immersion, the only way through whi h true meaning an be reali ed for both the
sub e t of the artisti reation as well as the parti ipants. We also attempted to use
pond to indi ate the unknowable nature of art itself. The ond So iety ga e up the
mastery of te hni ues as an ob e ti e. Easel painting, whi h we on entionally take as
sa rosan t, is not the only medium for ommuni ating ideas. We stro e to break down
the boundaries between languages, and proposed instead an unde ned form, an e it-
ing artisti a ti ity that ould mo e people. Here, painting, performan e, photogra-
phy, and en ironment these are the ategories of forms in our minds , and so on and
so forth, are to ointly onstru t an organi and systemi relationship through the
uni ue hara teristi s of isual language.
n une 1, the ond So iety s rst bulletin was printed, and it was distributed
88
a ross the ountry along with the manifesto. At that moment, the ond So iety pro-
|
noun ed itself formally founded. Its members at the time in luded hang eili, eng
ianyi, Song Ling, Bao ianfei, Wang iang, and Wu Ying.
n une 2, the ond So iety held its rst e ent following its of ial establishment.
It was a group e ent, titled Work No. 1: Yang-Style Taichi Series ( Zuopin yihao: Yangshi
taiji xilie . hase one of the work was arried out in a gymnasium at a middle s hool.
rom 9 a.m. to p.m., a group of twel e gures, ea h three meters high, was om-
pleted. They were a ollage of re y led newspapers. At 2:00 a.m. the ne t day, eng
ianfei sic.: ianyi , Song Ling, hang eili, and Wang iang put up the ollage on a
bri k wall si ty meters long and four meters high near the he iang A ademy. The dis-
play was ontinued until 4:30. This e ent was full of tension and passion from begin-
ning to end. It was solemn but it was also asual. The work drew different imagined
asso iations among the audien e. Some took it as part of the natural en ironment
others belie ed it was a type of esoteri and eerie symbol. The work was damaged
two days later, and gradually disappeared.
The se ond bulletin of the ond So iety brie y introdu ed this e ent, and was dis-
tributed a ross the ountry together with reprodu tions of photographs of the work.
hu ingsheng from the epartment of Art History at the Central A ademy of
ine Arts thoroughly re orded his feelings and thoughts as a parti ipant of the a ti ity.
This letter was later published in the maga ine Art 227, no. 11 198 , 5 . Fine Arts in
China also reported the e ent.
After September, the ond So iety entered a new phase. atherings among mem-
bers started to be held on a weekly basis. We had the opportunity to larify a few mis-
understandings through heated debate and andid on ersations.
We belie ed that the key to strengthening the ond So iety was to make up for its
inade ua y in theories. Theories are part of the immersion, an effort at rea hing the
nebulous state of arousing passion. It wasn t ne essary to stri e for larity in narration
and e pression, be ause the most important narrati e is on eyed through the isual.
We are not afraid of fa ing the tragi thinking that has followed the slippery slope
of relati ism in our alue systems. Mankind has passed the point where a return to the
heroi age an still be ob e ti ely feasible. Moreo er, due to the restri tions that man-
kind has imposed on itself, it is impossible to build an ideal paradise by oursel es. Thus,
we don t want to turn our art into a tool for promoting idealism. What we want to do
is this: on the one hand, we should ontrol the e erything-goes attitude and self- on-
eit on the other hand, we ought to prote t oursel es against do trines that might
lead to self- onstraint. The fun tion of ideals is to dull pain and to hypnoti e, to gi e
us ourage to li e when we are lost. We should not abuse the use of ideals. ur art
should gi e su h effe ts to oursel es and to others: to inspire people to establish a
new perspe ti e and to fa e the world in an ob e ti e and apropos manner. Thus, we
need to free oursel es from our in eterate biases and keep distant from ingrained
pre udi e. We despise the e perimental and the art play, but also disappro e of
sub e ting art as subordinate to philosophy. We stri e to uphold a type of art that is
between philosophi al and non-philosophi al, between religious and non-religious,
between artisti and non-artisti , and between ommonpla e and ideal. It does not
matter whether this art is of a rational or emotional, or e en neutral, nature.
n No ember 2 and 4, the se ond olle ti e work was ompleted, Work No. 2:
Walker in Green Space ( Zuopin erhao: Lüse kongjian zhong de xingzhe by eng ianyi,
hang eili, Song Ling, and Bao ianfei. This pie e bears a resemblan e to the Yang-Style
Taichi Series in that it was also prefabri ated and installed at a predetermined lo ation.
What is different is that Walker in Green Space suspended nine gures ut out of ard-
89
board, ea h measuring three meters, in a forest. All the gures were identi al, but sus-
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‘85 ART NEW WAVE
pended from different heights, thus gi ing rise to a sense of spa e. After the work was
nished, fewer than ten iewers ame, all of whom had been in ited to see the result.
At present, members of the ond So iety are all working on their new series.
These series are both independent and mutually inter onne ted as a whole.
The history of New Space to the ond So iety has already spanned two years, and
our efforts ontinue. Like other art groups, we fre uently nd oursel es bogged down,
both from within and without. But the pro ess of o er oming obsta les itself is where
the meaning of life lies. Therefore, today, we are adopting a self- on dent outlook for
treating the unpredi table future.
riginally published as uanyu Xin kongjian he Chi she in Meishu sichao [ The Trend of Art Thought ,
1987: no. 1, 1 21. Translated by ela Shang.
NEW FIGURATIVE: MANIFESTATION AND TRANSCENDENCE IN

FIGURATIVE PATTERNS OF LIFE ( 1987 )
By Mao Xuhui pl. 11
. i i i
uring une and uly of 1985, the New Figurative Exhibition ( Xin juxiang huazhan was
held in Shanghai and Nan ing. The e hibition foreword states:
Art noun is the material manifestation of man s great, powerful, and intimate
spiritual a ti ities.
New igurati e Art an also be alled organi . It denies all those mas uerading as art.
Its main feature is a ombination of sin erity, passion, and prowess.
It seeks rst to shake people s soul, not entertain their eyes. It is not a game of
olor and omposition.
Wisdom, olor, pi tured ob e ts, titles, words. . . . These are all tools and ser ants
ser ants of our great emotion and rationality.
New igurati e Art has tremendous apa ity.
Art is ne er abstra t. rafted by Hou Wenyi
The term New igurati e attained its real signi an e through the New Figurative
Exhibition. It is no longer a ague notion. Like the terms ada, au ism, and New
ealism, it possesses parti ular signi an e and meaning.
New igurati e proposes to redire t art away from being a tool of ulgar
so iology and away from its subse uent monotonous and arti ial mode and so ial
taste and instead turn art to art itself. It intends to liberate artists from their subsid-
iary and subser ient status and restore their lofty ontologi al status as human beings.
New igurati e, rst of all, refers to today s art and aestheti iews. It makes
known the e isten e of modern Chinese art. It rises from the ba kdrop of the dilapi-
dated ultural s ene in the aftermath of the ang of our, and from the e stasy, bewil-
derment, self- ons iousness, introspe tion, and sense of disparity brought on by the
saturation of information following the pen oor poli y. ending for oursel es to
ombat emptiness and ignoran e, we a ti ely take part in resol ing ontemporary
problems, onstru ting a athedral of intelle tual i ili ation to get rid of spiritual
deterioration, and fostering an art whi h is truly so ial, pra ti al, and humanisti .
. i iv i
90
Life is the original sour e of reati ity and spirit. nly when pro eeding from its spe-
|
i spatiotemporal onte t, and arried out through mo ement, an art on erse

with the world and possess the potential to transform it. In this sense, art, as a syn-
onym for life and reati ity, must be free from any utilitarian and fun tionalist pur-
poses other than itself. When it emerges from an indi idual s life, and safeguards that
life, it an unfurl and spread its wings. nly when it nds itself an it nd the possibil-
ity to trans end itself. When it sin erely and passionately e presses its emotions and
oluntarily e poses its inner ore, it will undoubtedly tou h upon the publi s se ret,
that is, mankind s se ret. Be ause what art mo es is the innate part of our life, not
the part a uired after birth art is our instin t for happiness and surprise . . . it on eys
our ompassion and suffering, and onne ts us with all li ing things, along with the
unfathomable and in in ible belief that we share in ea h other s oys and sorrows. It is
this ery belief that brings ountless souls together. . . . It makes human beings insepa-
rable the dead and the ali e, the ali e and those to be born.
At this moment, art is no longer a self-se luded mind, it is no longer pri ate prop-
erty. It breaks out from the womb and starts to li e independently, be oming man-
kind s ne essary spiritual desire and reali ation. What it betrays is a profound re elation
of mankind itself, a self-eman ipation of the human spirit. rom the perspe ti e of
modern philosophy and anthropology, man is both part of humankind as well as indi-
idualisti . New igurati e follows this e a t prin iple for breaking into the ore of
that dark and haoti world of the inner image. Thus begins its ad enture to in e t its
organi and open system into the entire ourse of life. We attempt to gi e form to
those things e isting in the murky limbo, wel oming them into an artisti semioti sys-
tem that is orrespondingly pre ise, lu id, and ogent. We an all it the gurati e pat-
tern of life the sense of on reteness in life.
The gurati e e ists in the isual, and the light of this pattern re e ts its origins.
Through this kind of man-made release and regulation, one s spirit e ol es and ontin-
ues. Life is nite after all, suppressed by the ultimate oid of death. or e ery indi id-
ual e isten e, death is e entually ine itable. Through the reati e a ti ity of art the
unfolding of gurati e patterns fear is eradi ated hang iaogang , one is fear-
less when onfronted with death Hou Wenyi . It is retaliation against death and a
rebellion against destiny. sing the gurati e representation of life as a ehi le, man-
kind e tends itself into a ast and e pansi e eternity the in essant generation and
e olution of human life. Here, we dis ern man s ommon destiny, the timeless prin i-
ples of the past, the present, and the future. Here, the human ra e shows its unity. It is
no longer an isolated, singular, and paro hial phenomenon. It eradi ates the uneasi-
ness and fear. It engenders mankind s warmest, most honest, most natural, and most
sublime feelings. This is mankind s mutual faith, understanding, and ompassion.
Could we summari e it in the sa red word: lo e Here, art re eals its omplete moral
irtue, and it is only at this un ture that art an be said to be returning to itself, to be
reali ing itself. In this sense, we an say that art does not originate from art. Art also
does not e ist for the sake of art. Art is not art itself. New igurati e, as the gurati e
pattern of life, will faithfully return to the re esses of the heart, to the origin of life. In
the world, where it is at on e the origin and the ob e t, and within the uni ersal
e pansion of the self, it seeks to re o er the appearan e of man and attend to
man s uestions. It brings art into e ery orner and e ery blind spot. New igurati e
is thus the reassuran e of heart and life.
. i i i i i iv i
91
The spe i per eption and manifestation of New igurati e is ompli ated and dia-
|
‘85 ART NEW WAVE
le ti al. rom rational empiri ism to intuiti e impulse from metaphysi al meditation
to un ons ious atharsis from lassi al sublimity to adaist yni ism from drawing
upon modern design to admiring primiti e art, it embra es a whole ariety of inter-
ests and ontains omple signi an e and impli ations. It possesses a uiet, sol-
emn osmi spirit that spreads in a dream it allows one to fantasi e in front of a
hair, a window, a light bulb, or a wall. It may de elop a pen hant for garbage and
refuse it an also indefatigably depi t one s own fa e a hundred times, lo ating
e ery slight mo e of the nostril and the lips, seeking out the different shades and
e pression of the eyes. When enraged, it an distort life into a monster and e apo-
rate it into a ball of gas it e pands, rolls, and negates e ery e uilibrium and open
spa e on the an as, ridi uling all laws and rules. When it is alm, it embarks on a
oyage, like a pirate or a agrant setting out on risky business it an dismember itself
like a toy and be aged in a oo for others amusement. It onfronts death on the
an as, or rather memoriali es death, ere ting a monument in the name of death.
When it feels elated by life, it gallops like a wild horse, hasing after louds in the
sky it pays homage to Henry Moore, sprinkling water down from the blue sky it
witnesses a id s and enus s han e en ounter on the street it runs into a blue-
fa ed demon on its way home. It thus pra ti es alligraphy on the an as, adds illus-
trations to musi , keeps a diary for the soul.
Yes, art is the rst step toward sa ing oneself in a pit h-dark night. I pi ked up my
brush perhaps to relie e my loneliness. Here, I nd my own language a language
apable of ommuni ating between the inner world and the outer world a spa e of
the self hang iaping . rom despair begins the soul s intake, this tension is what
painting is about. Not ust representation, not ust a release, but instead a kind of on-
trol, a riti ism, a moral uality, a dire tion, and a state of mind Hou Wenyi . When
this innate power e plodes from the origin of life, it is as if a heated desire from out-
side of life holds up it wakes us up to do, and not ust to merely think about doing. It
ompels the mind to strike the strongest note within the remote, nebulous distur-
ban e. When you are onfronted with a an as, what you feel is the stimulation and
hallenge against life, a ght to the death, a moment to pro e yourself, a point in time
to ompel yourself, to struggle to think, and stri e to do. What is imperati e is to do,
to a t, and a t an ehai . ollowing this strong impetus, replete with all the olors
in life, art as ends to the world stage, a kind of spontaneous a t that makes us take
part in life and so iety hang uping .
To e ist and to prosper, mankind needs to ontinuously present itself and its
potential. It endea ors to pursue the human ra e as a whole, it must talk to mankind
as a whole, and must adapt to this ri h and homogenous whole, this monotonous
multipli ity. When re elations ontinue to emerge from itself onto this great tree
that we all New igurati e, we see the on rete manifestations of the reality of the
human spirit all the enti ing images from the gurati e patterns of life. It seems to
be too naked and too primiti e. It a identally be omes its own tou hstone and
slaughterer. It relentlessly e poses the fragments of a spinning life. That spear of in i-
si e intuition ontinues to target the future and ignoran e. Like a poet re alling his
life, to speak out what is beyond des ription yet li ing among us. Thus, it a iden-
tally be omes a traitor of reality, per ei ed by people as a demented lunati , or a ra y
man. This is destiny. It must pro ide a lear- ut image for the age. It must awaken and
strengthen people s aestheti ons iousness through a superhuman and non-human
approa h of genuine isuality. This museum of signs of life pro ides people with new
e iden e and frames of referen e for their ery e isten e. It has be ome an important
92
enue for mankind to approa h the truth and the future. As William Butler Yeats put it,
|
people annot understand truth, but they an embody truth.
. i iv : i i i i
As for the uestion of form, New igurati e takes mankind s history of art as an e ol -
ing history of the spirit. It is a history of the per eption of human nature, a on rete
representation of spiritual reality. It is not a history of te hni ues and raftsmanship. In
the greatest artworks, we see the soul s stirring words and the sudden re elation of
the mind. Through the so- alled form, we see the profound mysteries of our own
minds, the inner truths to be distinguished from the outer world, the spe ters that
drift behind us like shadows. In this sense, form and ontent are one and the same.
orm is ontent, and ontent is form. rom our perspe ti e, form is the gurati e
s heme of life, be ause only the su essful e pressions an e ist, and su essful
e pressions are the manifestation of life itself. It is reation embedded in reality. It is
reality, and nothing else outside of reality.
New igurati e asserts that this is a fun tionalist age, whi h e ists in an o ean of
information. It is also a omprehensi e and relati ist age. If gurati e painting appears
insin ere and full of de eit, then abstra t painting s e essi e pursuit of purity leads to
oldness and indifferen e. Where gurati e painting s lifelike images often tire iewers
with their tenden y to be illustrati e, e planatory, des ripti e, abstra t painting also
de e ts tentati e e ploration into the mind through its e essi e sub e ti ity and
o erly physi al stimulation to the retina. New igurati e endea ors to represent the
world more fully a reality riss rossed, per olated, mispla ed through intera tion
between the sub e ti e and the ob e ti e. It appro imates today s di ersified
world it an no longer be e pressed through on entional logi . New igurati e
shows ast potential. It is like a large ontainer, whi h from the outset does not re e t
any a hie ements from any histori al period, regardless of whether it is from the East
or the West. We will use any a hie ement so long as it ts our purpose. We are re ep-
ti e to a m lange, a fusion, and then we use the mi ture of ategories to shatter those
ategories boundaries, and from there we a hie e a new typology Li Hongyun . This
new type embodies the on oluted relationship between the ob e ti e and the sub-
e ti e. Here, Classi ism and omanti ism, the abstra t and the gurati e, are all in
rapport with ea h other in the New igurati e kit hen, en oying e ual pri ileges. This
is akin to the a enue of pragmatism. In this art, there is no absolute truth, and paths
leading to the other shore present themsel es in e ery orner of the world. E ery part
and e ery unit is full of hope, full of possibility and unpredi tability. They are all seeds
leading to the future.
. i iv : i i i i x i
Today, New igurati e is peppered with a strong regionalist a or yet it is not a mouth-
pie e or post ard for the region . It ame from the South s profound natural ons ious-
ness, the mystery of heat, and the obsession with ommotion. Sharp, ealous, and
purely intuiti e, it es apes the prison of rationalism and di es deep into the haoti
inner image of the unknown world, ompletely engaging itself in the phantasmal
spa e, emanating all signs of life dis o ery, that is. The union of mankind and the uni-
erse, the ommuni ation between people and things is a hie ed through this sponta-
neous and a entuated release and representation. When all power, all organi ational
ompositions, lu id or murky, breathe freely, e pand, sele t, and ompete, the world
en oys an integrated, pluralisti , and rational oe isten e. It sal ages the world from
the misery of isolation and onstri tion. It alle iates the world from the pain arising
93
from misunderstanding and separation. It restores the healthy progress of the spirit and
|
‘85 ART NEW WAVE
leads mankind to generosity and toleran e. When it offers to people a series of gura-
ti e patterns of life the prototype of gurati e patterns of the world this is by no
means an arbitrary or arefree emotional release or demonstration of insanity. It
attempts to enlist more people to seek out the meaning of life and the world.
New igurati e is synonymous with today s art, today s life, and today s humanity.
It sends art ba k to people. It e ists as a ompanion to people. When art materiali es
as spa es of feelings, spa es of the mind, spa es of the inner image world, spa es of
the uni erse, spa es of the unknown, it is the New igurati e spa e. When it om-
prises arious types, arious ompositional elements, multiple languages, multiple
stru tures and dimensions, it is the New igurati e type. When all kinds of elements
intera t and riss ross, e lude and in lude, when they are uni ue yet omprehensi e,
and when they are New igurati e, it is more of an apo alypse ommuni ating knowl-
edge from different elds and onne ting polari ed human hara teristi s su h as
intuition and rationality, and haos and order.
. i iv : i
New igurati e is foremost a life attitude and a ons iousness of a tion. Mankind is
the sub e t of the world, as well as the sub e t of oursel es. Mankind is the inner
ore, the bottom of all mysteries, ant s Noumenon, lato s Idea, Hegel s Absolute
Idea. Things de elop, and New igurati e is a de elopmental on ept, a marathon and
ompetition against death. It on uers death and wins eternal alue for life. It is more
interested in the pro ess than the result, e perien es are more meaningful than out-
omes. An era is a pro ess, not a result. The pro ess is eternal. Continuous a tion will
open up new territories. When it is persistent but not e treme, in lusi e and not
e lusi e, the world be omes all the more lu id. In this sense, as New igurati e is
being reali ed, it is at the same time o erwhelmed by an e pansi e mindset. Here, we
ne er doubt the alue of our own e isten e. At this point, we e amine the alue of
our paintings relati e to the world of art on a higher le el, what we offer to the e plo-
ration of our ommon issues, su h as the alue of life and the di ersity of the people
and the world art, is omparable to ontemporary masters endea ors an ehai .
The foreword of the Third New Figurative e hibition says: eternity is to be
a hie ed by the whole human ra e, not any indi idual. The world ought to be restored
to its original ondition. E ery age features parti ular styles. If you fail to reali e that
the ape of life is a tion, then you annot a t better. When art is e ternali ed from our
li es, life is ontinued at its highest le el, when life itself is forgotten. Therefore: a tion,
e pression, and trans enden e.
Notes
. Saul Bellow, Herzog, uoting oseph Conrad .
. hu uang ian, Meixue shisui ji leaner of Aestheti s , . sic uoting oethe .
. Words of i ente Alei andre.
. Herbert ead, A Concise History of Modern Painting, .
riginally published as in iang shengming iang tushi de heng ian he haoyue in Meishu
sichao [ The Trend of Art Thought , 1987: no. 1, 25 28. Translated by ela Shang.
RED BRIGADE PRECEPT ( 1987 ) 1
94
By Ding Fang pl. 12

|
In the solemnity of self-sa ri e, we nd ommon points of support.

We thirst to re- reate life in the depths of our hearts.
In the ourse of our ourney to the other shore, we rea h the sublime.
When we ollide with eternity, we sense the all to mystery.
n that mountaintop, while the flame propelled us to ontinue on the path

toward rebirth, it also ne er eased in di erting our steel hammer to the ro ks.
ne an on ei e of how wise and intelligent the Earth is within the ni erse
but at the same time, one an also imagine its loneliness. or humans, this loneliness is
innate, for, in the end, there is nothing that an engage with it in a nal dialogue.
E eryone on Earth is shrouded in loneliness. Be ause of this la k of a possibility
for a nal dialogue, history an only be ome a pro ess. In the eternity of spa e and
time, they these pro esses of history a umulate and regenerate, without begin-
ning and without end.
When we pursue the sublime, we feel the aforementioned a umulation. This
not only indi ates to us the paths of human reati ity that ha e already been laid out
in this infinite time and spa e, but also makes lear our mission in this eternal
e isten e.
The arious things des ribed abo e a umulate in the deepest rea hes of our spirit
and ohere in a tragi ons iousness. This ons iousness not only en ompasses the
spe i temporal and ultural orbits in whi h we nd oursel es, but also embra es
those feelings of differen e between ultures, times, and pla es that are ne essarily
produ ed when we en ounter another great ultural formation. Conse uently, long
before performing an a tion, we reali e, a priori, the meaninglessness of that a tion
within history itself.
This sense of tragedy is also manifested as a tragi ons iousness in painting. It
in ol es not only our on ern for the fate of ommon people, but also a profound
on ern for their orbiting, without beginning or end, as destined through this eternal
e isten e. It makes isible this kind of fate. E en life, whi h seems so permanent, is
also a mere pro ess, for it eternally la ks a goal. Its ourse merely in ol es a ertain
superposition o er the tra ks of past ourses thus, any of its essential meaning that
might seem to onstitute an ad an e forward is in a tuality a superposition of
the ommon, great dreams shared a ross dissimilar spa e-times.
ur astonishing imagination today is also a ame that re alls the originary
ame. This is a soul that roams fore er in nighttime musings. It is like an intense
wind that blows a ross the lowlands, hasing a brillian e than an ne er be attained.
In spite of this, our innate will still hooses to push ro ks up the mountain. 2 Su h
an a tion originates in this kind of hope in the hope that one ga es up to from the
abysses of despair.
The essen e of this a t of limbing the mountain ould be des ribed as using
art forms to rebuild a ital reation. Be ause of the light that it gi es off when it is
being omposed, it also be omes a new religion. At the same time, this great ital
reation is ne essarily stru tured from e ery angle. It is not that one s hoi e an be
free but that it must be free. Be ause the fate of people s reati e beha ior is a
refusal of the will of e isting gods, when he is reborn like a phoeni from the ashes
of history, a new god is also born following him and he says: You must raise up the
newly born will of the newly born man.
We tread along our ourney, and in the darkness we thirst for the brillian e of re.
95
When it burns brightest, we une pe tedly dis o er that this ame is a tually oursel es.
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‘85 ART NEW WAVE
That olor like blood is smeared on the emergent will in the re of the self.3
Notes
. ed Brigade the ourney of life, that is, our appre iation of the ourse of history, ulture, and life.
. The story of Sisyphus s pushing the ro k up the mountain is found in The Myth of Sisyphus Albert
Camus : Sisyphus met with the punishment of hea en: the gods ordered him to push a boulder up a
mountain day and night. When he rea hed the mountain peak, be ause of the boulder s own weight, it
would roll down again. He would again summon all his body s strength to roll the boulder, and his fa e
pressed against it, he would begin again to push. At the end of that long tra ail, he would rea h his goal.
Howe er, Sisyphus would then again look on helplessly as the boulder rolled ba k down the mountain
with the ui kness of lightning he would again ha e to start from the bottom and push upwards, stri ing
toward the peak. He repeatedly returned to the limitless ountryside at the mountain s bottom. Whene er
he left the mountaintop and walked alone toward the residen e of the gods, he trans ended his fate.
This onstituted the lu idity in his torture, yet it also ga e his rown of i tory.
. After iangsu Youth Art Week s Modern Art Exhibition ( Daxing xiandai yishuzhan , the primary parti ipants
founded a Surrealist roup based on their painting style and alled it the ed Brigade. Now there
are se en members: ing ang Nan ing Arts Institute , Yang hilin Nan ing Normal ni ersity , Shen in
Chinese ainting Institute of iangsu , Cao iaodong Chang hou , Chai iaogang Lianyungang City ,
u Lei Chinese ainting Institute of iangsu , u Yihui Nan ing Arts Institute , uan Ce Nan ing , and
Yang Yingsheng studying abroad in England .
riginally published as Hongse l henyan in Meishu sichao [ The Trend of Art Thought , 1987: no. 1,
14 15. Translated by hillip Bloom.
STATEMENT ON BURNING ( 1986 )

By Huang Yong Ping
The works shown in the e hibition held from September 28 to tober 5, 198 , were
burned on the afternoon of No ember 23 at the new iamen Art Museum pla a.
The e hibition no longer e ists. Any praise, support, doubt, or riti ism toward it
has lost meaning.
We ould not de ide whether the works in the e hibition were in their final
forms they ould be impro ed or be ome worse. We also ould not de ide where
these works e entually should be stored to a oid human or natural damage. or these
reasons we de ided to arry out a pro e t to onse uti ely re onstru t, destroy, and
burn the e hibited items. All of these a ti ities were photographed and ideotaped.
It is always belie ed that works of art are the fruit of artists painstaking labor and
thinking. n e a work is reated, the artist always takes great are to prote t it from
iamen ada. Burning

Works. 198 . roup
performan e, iamen Art
Museum, u ian, China,
No ember 23, 198 .
hotograph by Wu Yi Ming
any possible damage. nly through their works an artists demonstrate their te hni al
96
irtuosity and greatness. eople ask us, Let s ha e a look at your works. And we say,
|
They ha e been burned.

Colle ting art does not e ist in China, and this may be a good thing, be ause art-
ists an do whate er they like with their own works and do not ha e to be areful with
them. The attitude an artist has toward his works indi ates the e tent to whi h he an
liberate himself. He may pay them no parti ular attention or may e en treat them in
un on entional ways.
Works of art are for the artist what opium is for men.
Before art is destroyed, life is ne er pea eful.
ada has died. Beware of the re.
iamen ada
No ember 24, 198
Te t from enshou shengming, types ript opies distributed by iamen ada. Translated by Wu Hung.
INTRODUCTION TO THE EVENTS EXHIBITION THAT TOOK PLACE AT THE

EXHIBITION HALL OF THE FUJIAN ART MUSEUM ( 1986 )
By Huang Yong Ping
What is shown here onsists of no painting or s ulpture it is an e hibition of an art

e ent hara teri ed by self-de nition, offensi eness, and ontinuity. All works on dis-
play must ome from the arious materials sto ked in the open air around the museum.
These materials are not used as art mediums to be de orated or onstru ted from,
but are simply displa ed to the e hibition hall. Lying on the oor or standing erti ally,
leaning against walls, or piled up, they are ust as they were in the outdoor spa e. The
differen e is that these materials are now treated in the same way as works of art
found in pre ious e hibitions furnished with labels, isited by an audien e, sup-
ported by art theories, and ompleted by artists. Moreo er, sin e the entire pro e t
takes pla e in an art museum, it an be alled an art e ent. That these materials sud-
denly were rushed into the e hibition hall generates a sense of assault. This assault,
howe er, is not aimed at the isitors, but at their iews of art. Similarly, the target of
the atta k is the e hibition hall as a model of the art system, not the e hibition hall
itself. This art e ent ontinues the iamen ada e hibition in tober and the re on-
stru tion, destru tion, and burning of the e hibition items in No ember. It implies a
ertain radi ally hanged on ept, as well as the urgen y to put this on ept into pra -
ti e. Whether works formally shown in an art gallery are automati ally works of art,
the parti ipants of this e ent onsider this an unne essary uestion. They feel that it is
meaningless to label the e hibition items as works of art.
In this e hibition, we ome empty-handed and return empty-handed. This is an
art e hibition without works of art.
e ember 198
rom te t posted in the e hibition hall. Translated by Wu Hung.

TOWARD A PHYSICAL STATE OF CONTEMPORARY ART ITSELF ( 1986 )
97
By Wang Du
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‘85 ART NEW WAVE
When the term modern art was still featured as a hot topi in ournals, the First
Experimental Exhibition of the Southern Artists Salon Nanfang yishujia shalong used
the physi al state of the new plasti arts to re eal their re e tions on ontemporary art
pl. 13 .
Today, it seems that art neither represents spiritual life in its entirety nor neutral-
i es material life. ather, it is a ontinuous reati e pro ess that enables the puri a-
tion of all human life. It goes beyond the spiritual and the orporeal it af rms the
sublime realms of life and death. This is the essential spirit of art.
The new plasti arts embody this kind of spirit. They belie e that artisti reation is
ne essary for life, a ne essity that one annot help but pursue. Many types of artwork
from the past annot be substituted be ause they are histori al fa ts. Certain types
of artisti o abularies ha e e hausted their era ity to the e tent that they ha e
be ome no different from a skill, a ontinuation of a kind of handiwork. ne must see
the limitations of this type of language. The primary impetus behind the new plasti
arts is to rethink the entire meaning of art and e tri ate it from all limiting frameworks.
When one be omes a ustomed to a knowledging labels, one in ariably loses
the apa ity for understanding. The new plasti arts regard reason and emotion as
ommonpla e the former has be ome restri ted to semanti interpretation, while the
latter has be ome a super ial sign de oid of ontent. nly the reali ation gained
from the omplete, ollaborati e use of the head and the body an allow art to attain
real alue.
The new plasti arts seek to dis o er the worldly nature of art itself, and the differ-
en es in physi al stru tures to tear down the frameworks that position East and West,
North and South, et . to seek the intera tion of hea en and earth and to dissol e
into the unbounded world of e erything and nothing.
riginally published as u iang dangdai yishu benti de wutai fangshi in Zhongguo meishu bao [ Fine
Arts in China , tober 20, 198 no. 42 , 1. Translated by hillip Bloom.
III. FROM COLLECTIVITY TO

INDIVIDUAL CREATIVITY: 1987–89
E ven during the heyday of the ’85 New Wave, some artists and critics had
99
already begun voicing their reservations about the social agenda and
|
movement / yundong mentality of this nationwide project. Yundong, which means
a large-scale political “campaign,” had been a fundamental concept and instru-
ment in modern Chinese political culture since the early twentieth century.
Especially from the 1950s to the 1970s, the Chinese Communist Party mobilized
various campaigns to realize short- or long-term plans, and to unify the “revolu-
tionary masses” against internal and external enemies. Three major characteristics
of a government-sanctioned campaign were gradually defined, including a clear
and often practical agenda, a propaganda machine which helped articulate and
spread this agenda, and an organization that aimed to forge a cohesive front of
participants. The yundong became a central element of social life and continued to
control people’s thinking even after the Cultural Revolution was over. The persis-
tence of a movement/yundong mentality was clearly visible in the ’85 New Wave:
while attacking official ideology and art policies, its advocates tried hard to galva-
nize avant-garde artists into a unified front and to develop contemporary art into
an organized “movement.” In fact, they called such collective activities a yundong.
The ’85 New Wave, however, was never a top-down, univocal political
endeavor. From the start it had multiple facets and shifting boundaries. As it con-
tinued to develop in 1986 and 1987, it also produced internal opposition: some
avant-garde artists and critics made an increasing effort to free artistic creation
from collective activities motivated by sociopolitical goals. They argued that it
was wrong to use art as a practical tool in any kind of social revolution, and that
the true value of modern art resided in its intrinsic creativity and spirituality. They
criticized the New Wave movement for its lack of artistic standards and art his-
torical vision, for its indulgence in pseudophilosophical discourses, and for its
uncritical borrowing of modern Western styles. Some critics encouraged artists
to purify artistic language; others envisioned a modern Chinese art that com-
bined Western modernism with Chinese cultural traditions.
Whereas these critics’ ideas of modern Chinese art remained vague, some indi-
vidual artists and small cooperatives initiated art projects with a more specific ori-
entation. A common tendency in these projects, as reflected in the statements
translated below, was to abandon a grand sociopolitical vision and to relocate the
meaning of art in the creative process and experience. Xu Bing compared his mak-
ing of several thousand fake Chinese characters to a madman collecting wastepaper
and washing it clean. Huang Yong Ping deepened his search for illogicality, hoping
to eliminate the artist’s subjective intervention in art production. The Analysis
(later New Measurement) group developed a system of art making based on math-
ematical measurements and calculations, to avoid emotional interference and a
predetermined conclusion. Zhang Peili and Geng Jianyi designed works to transform
viewers into images, in order to liberate art from social control. These artists found
theoretical support from Marcel Duchamp and the notion of anti-art, rejecting
conventional definitions of art but not art itself. Combining conceptual radicalism
and original artistic experimentation, their inquiries produced a group of exciting,
sophisticated works, exemplified by Xu Bing’s A Book from the Sky (Tianshu) (1987)
[ originally titled A Mirror to Analyze the World — Fin de Siècle Book ( Xi shi jian —
Shijimo juan ) ], Wenda Gu and Wu Shanzhuan’s pseudo – Chinese writing ( 1985 –
1988), and Huang Yong Ping’s The History of Chinese Painting and A Concise History
of Modern Western Painting Washed in the Washing Machine for Two Minutes (1987).
The trends introduced by these and other works were extended into the 1990s.
RETHINKING THE MOVEMENT
100
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FROM COLLECTIVITY TO INDIVIDUAL CREATIVITY
RETURNING TO ART ITSELF ( 1988 )

By Jia Fangzhou
A profound on ern for human destiny has produ ed a deep sense of an iety among
Chinese artists. But, always feeling that art should undertake something else often
weakens one s own artisti mission.
Art history pro es that in any period, the alue of art an only be truly demon-
strated through its own artisti e olution and transformation. rom painted pottery to
bron e essels, and from Classi al anti uity to modern art, there are no e eptions. Art,
as humanity s most e pli it e iden e of itself Imami hi Tomonobu , de elops in
a ordan e with humanity. Art s transformations and e pansions are a proof of self of
humankind s endless e olutions in the realm of per eption. Thus, ea h artisti e olution
is a ery signi ant e ent. n this le el of inferen e, nothing that our era anti ipates and
alls forth is a magni ent masterpie e or the great spirit s passion for life Fine Arts
in China [Zhongguo meishu bao September 12, 1988 no. 37 . ather, it is the ontinuous
e olution and e pansion of art itself, the in essant optimi ation of art benti , and the
onstant renewal of form.
As for the artist, if he is reating art not merely for fun but harbors a sense of mis-
sion, then he is ertainly ons ious of his making a ontribution to the ad an ement of
art. If he enters a ehement state of e isten e as a result of intense on erns for human
destiny, then he is in ariably trying to think of how to transform the ondition of man
into art. If he dire tly parti ipates in transforming reality as a result of his great interest
in human destiny, his hoi e is irreproa hable, but it is not related to art. I see no rela-
tionship between Courbet s status as a great master and his parti ipation in the politi-
al mo ement of the aris Commune. Thus, an artist an ne er ompletely sink into the
predi ament of humanity he needs to maintain a ertain relationship to so ial reality
while also maintaining a ertain distan e from it. therwise, it would be dif ult for him
to de ote himself to art. This is be ause art does not ha e the fundamental ability or
responsibility to transform the fate of humanity. This is ust like embrandt: although he
made many e ellent works depi ting beggars, these works had no pra ti al signi an e
to beggars. Yet as the thinker Mi hel de Montaigne said, ne writes only when one fails
in doing other things. If things are going smoothly, one would not take writing and the
arts as one s areer. This is be ause Montaigne understood that only real a tion has an
inestimable alue. If a painter has no way of e tri ating himself from an e essi ely
gra e sense of an iety and enters the i ory tower of art, then he need not waste away
his time at the an as, for the uni erse beyond the artwork is far broader than the
work itself. He an wholly throw down the brush to take part in politi s, and use so ially
transformati e, real a tion to relie e humanity s predi aments, to reate a master-
pie e that ould ri al any of embrandt s work and ha e e en more pra ti al alue.
Howe er, an artist who truly has a sense of mission should de ote himself to the
transformation of art itself, and should make its de elopment and e olution the goal of
his life. The alue of an artist lies not in whether he parti ipated in the politi al a ti ities
of so iety or whether he aspired to hange the fate of humanity. An artist s ontribu-
tions to humanity are not determined by whether he depi ts these kinds of hanges.
An artist s true mission is to hange the stagnation and fossili ation of artisti predi a-
ments, and not the predi aments of humanity. It is pre isely in light of this understand-
ing that i asso s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon possesses greater alue ompared with his
Guernica. This is be ause the former di ided modern art from lassi al art while the latter
101
only perpetuated a new language. espite the importan e of its sub e t matter, Guernica
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RETHINKING THE MOVEMENT
does not possess any parti ular signi an e to the e pansion of art itself.
In the past few de ades, our approa h to art has been ontrolled by a traditional,
fun tional mentality, always using art as a pra ti al tool, and not treating it as a symbol
of humanity s un easing e olution in the spiritual realm. Thus, o er these years,
Chinese art e isted amidst the hea y burden of fun tional use, but from this la k of
opportunity, it brought about its own hange, perfe tion, and de elopment. E en so,
for art to be a kind of ultural phenomenon with an inner dri e, it must do its utmost
to dispel the limiting barrier of fun tionality, and ause itself to rise from pure
method to unhindered goals. nly when the method rises to meet its ob e ti e, will
it most effe ti ely demonstrate its purpose u ilin, Shedding the Limiting Barrier of
un tionality in A ademia . Chinese art has not yet a hie ed progress in this dire -
tion it has not truly reali ed its ontologi al signi an e. ntil now, we ha e still been
unwilling to allow it to unload the burden of fun tionality, and to fully ulti ate or
ontemplate itself. As early as the beginning of the entury, Liang i hao 1873 1929
alled China s a ademi s areless and super ial based on the psy hologi al moti-
ation to pursue studies. He suggested that the ause of its disease lay in not taking
a ademi s as an ob e ti e but as a method. Thus, he proposed, learning for its own
sake not to supply a method beyond learning Liang i hao on the A ademi
History of the ing . Thinking ba k, does ontemporary Chinese art s situation of
arelessness and super iality not stem from the same disease Thus, artists an only
take the e olution and transformation of art itself as their ob e ti e. nly then an
they a hie e an honest nature and single-minded leadership, e en if it has little pra -
ti al use, the progress of ea h ulture must depend on this kind of person ibid. .
nly when artists also ha e this kind of s holarly hara ter to trans end utilitarian pur-
poses will they nally be able to ad an e Chinese art to a new le el.
riginally published as Huidao yishu benti shanglai in Zhongguo meishu bao [ Fine Arts in China ,
e ember 5, 1988 no. 49 , 1. Translated by risten Loring.
RETHINKING ART
Purifying Artistic Language
A FEW THOUGHTS ( 1988 )

By Zhu Zude and Liu Zhenggang
The Chinese modern art mo ement is at a relati ely uiet moment now as many artists
are re e ting on the past three years of e itement. Thinking about our own works,
we offer these thoughts:
1. i i i v i i v
When the rst light of modern i ili ation ame in through the ra ks of the window,
our ountry s enerable ulture, a umulated o er thousands of years, suddenly
looked de repit. Young people pi ked up modern artisti o abularies to pro e t their
oi es. They repudiated the disregard for indi idual alues and re e ted artisti mod-
els that turned art into dida ti illustrations for ulgar so iologi al purposes. But,
modern art was too new and too alien for e ery Chinese. Thus, when these young
artists hastily announ ed their on epts, they were unable to dis o er their own
102
artisti language. Artwork from this period often took abstra t signs as substitutes for
|
true emotions, turning art into a mere ehi le for the artists so iologi al on epts.
Some works were not only lumsy and unbalan ed but also unknowingly stumbled
into a realm that they had owed to steer lear of art as illustrations for politi al
indo trination. A ordingly, purifying artisti language and ele ating aestheti alues
are among our highest priorities today.
2. i

er our se eral thousand years of history, almost e ery generation has made impor-
tant ommentaries on the philosophi al theories in our traditional ulture. In this way,
the same sage has a uired e tremely aried appearan es. In this sense, history is
always ontemporary, that is, the shape of history is always altered and adapted for the
purposes of any gi en age. The earliest and most profound philosophi al ideas in a tra-
ditional ulture were formed at the moment when people e ited the primiti e age,
when they made suppositions and reali ations about myriad things in the uni erse. The
ore of su h philosophy refused logi al dedu tion. There were also so many ague areas
that later generations were free to ll in the gaps. Therefore, traditional ulture is to
be distinguished from ultural tradition. The former is an e isting reality, whereas the
latter is an e olutionary pro ess. The uestion does not lie in whether traditional ul-
ture is good or bad, whi h has been debated o er hundreds of years, but rather in what
has ompelled Chinese people from different ages to make different hoi es. We still
annot e plain this me hanism of ultural sele tion, this ultural tradition whi h has
made spe i sele tions from hundreds of Chinese philosophi al systems and the ri h
tea hings under ea h philosophy. n the one hand, it is e a tly this me hanism that
ga e rise to the glorious Han and Tang. n the other hand, it brought about the atas-
trophes at the end of the ing and the epubli an period.
We belie e that the ob e ti e in understanding Eastern and Western ultural par-
adigms is to know how to hoose for oneself. We should adopt whate er ts our
needs. It s pointless to segregate the hoi es along geopoliti al lines. We are drawn to
the humanisti aspe t of the Western ulture that respe ts indi idual alues, and we
are enamored with the elegant philosophi al thinking in the Eastern ulture. A better
way is to e er ise pragmatism in hoosing between the two ultures. While fond of
modern abstra t art, we also lo e the Eastern philosophi al spirit, be ause as Chinese
people we annot possibly be isolated from the in uen e of Eastern philosophies. In
this day and age, howe er, we annot follow the deliberate pa e of hanting erses
and pi king hrysanthemums under the Eastern fen e. Through abstra t art, we an
understand the mysterious uni erse by ulti ating our spiritual sel es, and e press the
great sense of awe e perien ed by people within the uni erse.
3. i i i
Einstein on e said that there are three kinds of people in the pantheon of s ien e. The
rst type onsists of those who engage in the profession for the ommon good. The
se ond type wanders into it due to personal interest. The third type is in it for sel sh
purposes. Einstein belie ed that the se ond type was losest to being a pure s ientist.
Art is ust like this. Artisti reation is an a ti ity of e perien ing. What is impor-
tant is the pro ess itself. uring this pro ess, artists integrate their inner imagination
with the e ternal world at the moment that they are inspired. At this moment they lay
bare their essential nature as they refra t the radiating glow of the uni erse through
their representations of an austere and pedestrian reality. At the same time, artists are
103
ontinually pursuing more liberating and dynami languages. Art is an earnest pursuit
|
of life. It is life itself. Artists e plore the inner reality and the inner spirit through intu-
RETHINKING ART
ition. If one does not ondu t his artisti a ti ities in this fashion, he is not a pure artist.
He is playing some other role.
I paint be ause I want to paint. I paint the way I do be ause I lo e to paint this way.
There is nothing else. When e ery artist has truthfully re ealed his throbbing heart and
honors his own intuiti e feelings in his works, then a healthy artisti spa e will ome into
e isten e, in due ourse.
riginally published as idian iangfa in Zhongguo meishu bao [ Fine Arts in China , August 13, 1988
no. 33 , 1. Translated by ela Shang.
Absurdity and Irrationality
NON-EXPRESSIVE PAINTINGS ( 1986 )

By Huang Yong Ping
rom Mar h to April 1985, I worked on paintings that were arried out using a pro e-
dure determined by me and yet were unrelated to me non-e pressi e . I meti u-
lously hose a medium whose appli ation, howe er, would render meti ulousness
and hoi e null through han e and randomness. When I surrendered the power
to make de isions to randomness, I wasn t doing this to ser e my own needs, nor was
this out of a need to obey ertain so- alled rules that trans end the indi idual. When I
limited de ision-making to randomness, this negated to a large degree the e isten e
of things that had been de ided. Attributing all de isions to han e made the de i-
sion to rely on han e e en more natural.
I rst sele ted the medium, whi h to a ertain e tent ould repla e myself: I made a
roulette wheel e uipped with bearings and di ided it into eight fan-shaped se tions.
I then drew eight se tions on a an as that potentially orresponded to those on
the roulette wheel.
I numbered e ery pigment found in my studio: green oating paint : 1 emerald
green mi ture of olored powder and resin : 2
sienna mi ture of olored powder and resin : 3
green ink : 4 red mi ture of olored powder
and resin : 5 bla k mi ture of olored powder
and resin : red mi ture of olored powder
and resin : 7 medium yellow mi ture of ol-
ored powder and resin : 8 bla k ink : 9 ultra-
marine mi ture of olored powder and resin :
10 re-engine red ink : 11 light yellow oating
Huang Yong ing with his

Roulette Wheel: Four Paintings
Created According to Random
Instructions detail . 1985.
Artwork: wood, paint oil on
an as roulette 3 3 3
91.4 91.4 91.4 m
ea h painting 84 0
213.4 152.4 m . Colle tion
Annie Wong oundation
paint : 12 bla k nitro ellulose la uer : 13 blue oil paint : 14 white oil paint : 15 yel-
104
low ink : 1 red a ryli paint : 17 used brush leaner: 18 used brush leaner: 19 dark
|
blue a ryli paint : 20 red o her ink : 21 orange-yellow a ryli paint : 22 white ink :
23 white oating paint : 24 white mi ture of olored powder and resin : 25. The num-
bers of these pigments were all assigned in a random way.
Then I made twenty- e di e, ea h with a number that orresponded to a pigment:
pigment 1 di e 1 .
I used the roulette wheel to de ide how to de elop the omposition of the painting.
And I hose the numbered pigment by tossing di e.
In all, I turned the roulette wheel si ty-four times that is, eight times eight to
omplete the omposition and thus resol ed the problem of when to stop working on
a painting that is, to omplete it . The number si ty-four was de ided entirely by me:
there was nothing absolute about it.
sing this random method to sele t pigments and omposition, and to determine
the nal look of a work of art allowed me to deal e lusi ely with numbers, whi h are
non- isual and non-aestheti , and thus enabled me to get away from personal prefer-
en es for ertain olors and ompositions, to regard all pigments as being one and the
same regardless of the different olors, warm or old, oil- or water-based and to
onsider all ompositions as good, that is, to make no distin tion between good and
bad ompositions. Both olor and omposition thus lost their meaning.
or e ample, han e led me to the following orders:
Numbered odes A : 9 13 18 20, and a tual pigments B : bla k
ink bla k nitro ellulose la uer used brush leaner green a ryli paint . The
odes in the A se uen e don t show any ontradi tions, nor do they pertain to any
sense of good or bad or re e t any preferen e. When I thought in terms of the B
se uen e, howe er, I started wondering whether it was really ne essary to put bla k
on top of bla k whether it would be dif ult to add a water-based paint on top of an
oil-based one whether an oil-based nitro ellulose paint being smeared onto normal
ink would ause ra king, blistering, and peeling of the paint or whether it was not
going to be unsightly to paint the green olor onto the dirty used brush leaner.
Thinking about B resulted in a painting pro ess full of psy hologi al obsta les in
ontrast, thinking about A allowed me to use a parti ular red without onsidering it as
that parti ular red and to paint without seeing it as painting.
The numbers randomly appointed by the roulette wheel when it stopped spinning
would di tate the potential omposition of the an as. They also let me o erlap oats
of paint in the bottom right se tion of the an as:
: order of spinning
: numbers on the roulette wheel
: orresponding numbers on the an as
All on epts of harmony, ariation, oid, and unity the formal rules of omposi-
tion ompletely disappear. The aestheti ons iousness a person normally has when
working on a painting is redu ed to su h a great e tent that painting is now onsid-
ered a natural thing to be arried out.
In the pro ess of making a painting, the oded numbers for the omposition and
olor photographs 1, 2, 3, 4 not illustrated hosen by the roulette table were
re orded in a table. These re orded numbers and the nal produ t an be said to ha e
the same alue. This is be ause ultimately the result isn t what s important to me.
What s important is how this nal result ame about.
enerally speaking, when al ulating probabilities using a roulette wheel one usually
harbors some sort of e pe tation. amblers pla e their hopes and e pe tations into a
roulette wheel. When I use the roulette wheel, howe er, I don t ha e any e pe tations,
105
be ause all of the numbers that the needle ould possibly land on signal my hope for get-
|
ting some kind of a de niti e answer, regardless of what that answer may a tually be.
RETHINKING ART
This randomness makes me shift toward a kind of intangible, non-baro ue, non-
symboli , unapplied, non-te hni al, simple, non-indi idualisti reality, e en if this
reality makes people un omfortable.
What propels me to produ e this kind of idea is partly due to inspiration from
ohn Cage partly due to the e perien e that the tenets of pure, abstra t form ha e
in reasingly be ome restri ting dogmas and partly due to a deep suspi ion toward
the possibility that indi iduals an freely and independently ontrol painting. What
kind of inspiration an ohn Cage gi e us Cage is to musi what u hamp is to paint-
ing they both adopted han e as their primary prin iple. They were the rst to see
through artists who, in the name of art, said that they were reating new worlds, but
were in fa t destroying the e isten e of nature. ather than saying that artists ha e
spe ial talents, it would be more a urate to say that this kind of talent auses art to
degenerate. An effort to eliminate the pursuit of profundity and inno ation, as well as
artisti interests and aestheti emotions, will ause art to naturally appear and disap-
pear in a state of disregarding meaning and result, ust like life itself.
riginally published as ei biaoda de huihua in Meishu sichao [ The Trend of Art Thought , 198 : no.
4, 2 4. E erpts translated as aintings Made ollowing a ro edure etermined by Me and Yet
nrelated to Me None pressi e by Yu Hsiao Hwei in House of Oracles: A Huang Yong Ping Retrospective,
ed. hilippe ergne and oryun Chong Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2005 , 5 . emaining se -
tions translated by eggy Wang.
Art as Process
LOOKING FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT IN A QUIET PLACE ( 1989 )

By Xu Bing
or more than a year I easelessly in ented, ar ed, and printed a set of twel e ol-
umes of A Mirror to Analyze of the World — Fin de Siècle Book ( Xi shi jian — Shijimo
juan pl. 14 , whi h no one in this world an understand. The unbelie able amount of
work threw its audien e into onfusion.
ne of my painter friends on e told me about a ra y guy in his home illage,
who always went out to olle t wastepaper at a ertain hour, washing these papers in
a ri er, arefully mounting them pie e by pie e, and then storing them under his bed
after they had be ome dry and at. I thought uite a long time about this person s
beha ior. inally I reali ed that it was a kind of qigong a kind of ulti ation of the Tao.
It was indeed a ery powerful kind of qigong. It e empli es an Eastern way of a hie -
ing true knowledge obtaining sudden enlightenment and orresponden e with
Nature by endlessly e perien ing a ed point. . . .
Nowadays the art world has be ome an arena. What do I want from it Handing
one s work to so iety is ust like dri ing li ing animals into a slaughterhouse. The work
no longer belongs to me it has be ome the property of all the people who ha e
tou hed it. It is now on rete and lthy. I hope to depart from it, looking for something
different in a uiet pla e.
riginally published as ai pi ing hu un hao yige biede in Beijing qingnian bao [ Beijing Youth Daily ,
ebruary 10, 1989. Translated by Wu Hung.
106
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Analysis roup. Measuring Dots. 1989. Ink on paper. eprodu ed from L eng and Yi an, Zhongguo
xiandai yishushi, 1979 – 1989 Hunan: Hunan ine Arts ublishing House, 1992 , ills. 497 99
REGARDING “ANALYSIS” ( 1989 )

By Chen Shaoping
The distin ti e trait of using intuiti e e perien e in traditional Chinese epistemology

has paired with the irrational elements in Western modern ulture to pla e dual
restri tions on modern Chinese artists, disabling them from trans ending the alue of
their own self-e perien e and presenting them with a world that, as a whole, is unfa-
miliar and haoti . The absurdity of identity has aused Chinese modern art to enter
into an endless, re erse y le as a method of es ape.
Computers and spa e stations already onstitute the only authenti material
premise of the human spirit. Artists need to e tra t themsel es from the dif ulties of
spiritual self-e amination, and through the efforts of spiritual self-awareness make
determinations about the real world a ording to the intrinsi nature of things.
Analysis starts from the indi idual and utili es the a hie ements of all human
knowledge to form a hypotheti al premise. irst, one estimates the uantitati e rela-
tionships within ea h indi idual s material reality. Based on this, one an e tend a new
supposition that applies to the whole, thereby determining the essential signi an e
of indi idual e isten e. In its ontinual re ognition and understanding of its ob e ti e
ounterpart, the human spirit in turn adds to its own essential nature.
Analysis adopts methods of measurement as its fundamental artisti o abulary. This
eliminates any dire t emotional interferen e while also refusing to yield to any on lusions.
Instead, in this pro ess of sear hing for pre ise uantitati e relationships, it leads to
greater thought and imagination, thus logi ally approa hing the essen e of the world.
riginally published as uanyu ie i in Zhongguo meishu bao [ Fine Arts in China , Mar h 13, 1989
no. 11 , 2. Translated by eggy Wang.
CHALLENGING MODERNISM — AN INTERVIEW WITH WENDA GU ( 1986 )

Conducted by Fei Dawei
In late April, I went to Hang hou and had a on ersation with Wenda u pl. 15 in a
big studio at the he iang A ademy of ine Arts, where he answered a few of my ues-
tions. Below is an edited trans ript of the inter iew.
Fei Dawei: Can you talk about the ir umstan es surrounding how you began to learn
to paint
Wenda Gu: I made a ompletely un ons ious de ision to paint. When I was in elemen-
107
tary s hool, I would simply s ribble and draw for fun, for instan e, s enes of re olu-
|
tionary model operas. In middle s hool, I was the head of propaganda in the s hool s
RETHINKING ART
ed uard organi ation during the Cultural e olution . I learned artisti alligraphy
and also painted a little bit. I was assigned to work at a farm after graduation , and
not long after that I gained admittan e into the wood ar ing department of the
Shanghai S hool of Arts and Crafts.
Fei: So, you didn t re ei e any art edu ation before that
Gu: Yes. I ust followed my own interests. f ourse, my family en ironment might
ha e in uen ed me in one way or another. My older sister was a musi ian. My pater-
nal grandfather s eld was drama: he was a tually one of the instigators of the modern
drama mo ement and one of the earliest organi ers of modern drama in Shanghai. I
began to re ei e a more standardi ed art edu ation after I entered the Shanghai Arts
and Crafts Institute. I spe iali ed in wood ar ing, but I had no interest in it. At the
time, I met a professor who was a lands ape painter. So, I learned to paint lands apes
in the traditional style by pure han e. I didn t plan to do this.
Fei: And, at that point, you hose the areer path of a traditional painter
Gu: Absolutely. At the time, when I did lands ape painting, I primarily followed Li
eran s 1907 1989 style. But, after I entered the he iang A ademy of ine Arts, my
iew of art totally hanged. I reali ed that what I had done in the past was totally
wrong. I had been painting blindly and what I had produ ed didn t ount as real art.
After I enrolled in the a ademy, I basi ally stopped painting. I mainly read books about
Western and East Asian philosophy, aestheti s, and religion. I basi ally read all the
time and didn t paint mu h . . .
Fei: But, I heard that you showed ama ing pro ien y in traditional ink painting skills
when you were at the A ademy . . .
Gu: I was not a big fan of dire t opying when I learned traditional painting te hni ues.
I put the an ient painting to one side and then simply painted whate er I felt like
painting and borrowed whate er elements I needed. The urri ulum at the a ademy
re uired us to learn by opying an ient models. robably be ause of my personality, I
ui kly be ame bored after opying only one ro k. I would hange to a new pie e of
paper and opy another detail, but soon lost interest. uring the two years of ourse-
work, I only ompleted one opy of an an ient painting, Wang Meng s Living in
Seclusion in the Qingbian Mountains [ Beixia yinju tu . I spent most of my time reading
books and brainwashing my thoughts and ideas. In those two years, it seemed like I
turned into an entirely different person.
Fei: Whi h books in uen ed you the most
Gu: I read books in the same way that I opied paintings: I read e tensi ely and yet
without seeking to understand things thoroughly. I would read se eral books at the
same time. Niet s he s philosophy in uen ed me the most. S ienti philosophy and
analyti al philosophy seemed remo ed from real human beings. But, Niet s he s phi-
losophy is humanisti . It undoubtedly makes a strong impression upon people, and for
that reason one might nd a ertain e pansi e power embedded in my paintings. I
108
also liked books by S hopenhauer and reud. But, o erall, I didn t make sele tions
|
a ording to parti ular theories as my interests were aried and my readings were
uite di erse.
Fei: lease tell us about your study methods.
Gu: I made note ards. There were two ways of doing this. ne was taking e erpts
another was formulating my own thoughts based on others ideas. To start with, I put
together a whole bo of e erpts. But, later I found them all useless. Now I write
down my own thoughts, whi h is onstru ti e e en though my understanding an
sometimes be mistaken and immature. I go through phases of reading, sometimes I
like reading and sometimes I don t. Nowadays, I am relu tant to sit down and engage
in s holarly work, pedanti ally resear hing something. I would rather do something
intensely free, dire t, and pro o ati e. It is already uite different from my last stage
when I wrote notes on art at that time I still felt like doing some resear h. Now, I
belie e that the best method for a omplishing an artwork is through intuition. The
more my art is theoreti ally harged and te tually based, the less it e presses the pi -
torial in a isual form. In addition, I need to ght against myself. enerally speaking,
paintings are arried out until one feels satis ed with what s been done, but I for e
myself to stop working e en before I get to the point of feeling satis ed with my work.
In this way I ha e the opportunity to ask myself if there is something here that is differ-
ent from my pre ious work and if there are any new hanges. If I ontinued to paint
without su h re e tion , I would probably repeat something I e done in the past.
Therefore, nowadays I often stop painting when I rea h an un omfortable feeling
about my work. In doing so, I learn something new through self-denial.
Fei: What mediums and genres do you work in
Gu: I began working with oil painting in 1981, and ga e it up at the end of 1983.
Although I was a graduate student in traditional Chinese painting before 1981, I ame
into onta t with a lot of different aspe ts of painting. I did oil painting at the same
time as Chinese painting. I used to think it was important to grasp the materials and
medium of Chinese painting be ause they are so e eptional. No one had been able
to ompletely in ltrate Western modernism through this medium. Materials an in u-
en e artisti on epts and substan e. There is neither a hierar hy nor separation
between form and ontent. rom 1981 to 1984, I basi ally painted Western-style paint-
ings on ri e paper.
Howe er, following the Invitational Exhibition on New Works of Chinese Painting
( Guohua xinzuo yaoqing zhan that was held in Hubei in 1985 , I e perien ed a on ep-
tual shift. I re ogni ed that purely studying Western modernism might be aluable in
China, but seen from a global perspe ti e, this was still repeating the same old path
that Western art had already tra ersed. That was my se ond turning point. I reali ed
that many young artists had be ome apti es of Western modernism. I needed to
hange. Besides, I had a strong rebellious mentality and I didn t want to be ome a part
of the trend. I would es ape the modernist mo ement on e it be ame a trend. Maybe
this was a kind of ons iousness of the ounter ulture There weren t that many art-
ists in ol ed in modernism around 1980, but now it has be ome a trend. I ha e no
intention to follow it. Besides, I think that my urrent works are more signi ant than
my earlier ones. Before, I used Western ontemporary art as a referen e point to impa t
Chinese painting. Now, I feel that this is insuffi ient. My referen e system should
109
en ompass the entire world. What I painted in the past now seems worthless.
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At my re ent e hibition in i an, I presented a series of works based on Chinese
RETHINKING ART
writing. In these works, I planned to in lude artisti alligraphy, misspelled words, and
missing hara ters. I de-emphasi ed the te hni al aspe t while attempting to arry out
some essential hanges. I de onstru ted and synthesi ed Chinese hara ters, be ause
to me, hara ters an be seen as a new form of representation. When abstra t paint-
ings are ombined with hara ters, the result is abstra t in form, and yet, the hara -
ters still possess spe ifi ontent. As a result, the pi torial ontent based on this
ombination is not on eyed through natural images but through language, thus trans-
forming the on entional ways of representation. At the same time, the ontent of
this abstra t painting be omes e en more spe i .
Fei: o you think this is a way of being distin t from Western modernism
Gu: Sub e ti ely, I hope for su h a distin tion. But, formally, it is still a trial. Maybe the
result will turn out to be something neither Western nor traditionally Chinese, but
something that falls between the two. It is not ne essarily a bad thing to reate a nei-
ther nor situation. I don t want to pursue my own maturity be ause on e that stage is
rea hed, one will mo e in the opposite dire tion. Immaturity, on ersely, implies on-
tinuous de elopment. I try to position myself in a state of un ertain and ambiguous
e ploration, and let intuition lead the way. What is grasped by intuition is real and
true. easoning, meanwhile, always omes after the reati e pro ess and onstitutes
the past. I belie e in agnosti ism. Tragi ons iousness and omi ons iousness oe -
ist in me. I think the human world is fundamentally a tragedy, and it s impossible to
ultimately know the essen e of the world. The twentieth entury witnessed two great
dis o eries in physi s: Einstein s theory of relati ity and uantum me hani s. But,
e en Einstein himself onsidered his theory to be a hypothesis. I belie e that before
rea hing the ultimate truth, all knowledge is false, differing only by degree. Human
beings maintain their e isten e or spiritual e uilibrium ia hypotheses, and use on-
epts and systems to support the entire ulture. The more pre ise that s ien e
be omes, the more ine pli able things get. It seems to me that fu y numbers ha e
illustrated that fu iness an be more a urate than e a tness. In the same way, I an-
not e plain my own paintings.
Fei: It seems then that you are not stri ing for perfe tion when you paint.
Gu: ight. Through the eyes of modern people, there is some art from an ient to pres-
ent times that is right, some of it that is wrong, some of it is beautiful and some of it is
hideous. I hope to integrate the wrong and the hideous into an aggregate, and to
dis o er new aestheti on epts therein. undamentally speaking, there is no su h
thing as ugly art or in orre t art. So, why an t I e press su h things What I ha e been
e ploring thus far seems to be all parado es. I m unable to tea h be ause how do I
distinguish bad from good in tea hing In fa t, students always learn what is bad,
and reati ity is impossible to tea h.
Fei: What are your iews on religion
Gu: I ha e a strong sense of religion. f ourse this religious sense does not ne essarily
pertain to belief in any spe i religion. A religious sense is the sour e of my reati e
a ti ity. ne annot li e without belief. The further ahead you get the more you dis-
110
tan e yourself from so iety and the present, and the more you are in need of a belief
|
to remain strong and steady when fa ing dif ulties and pressures.
Fei: Can you tell us what you stri e for in your art
Gu: I seek something imposing, mysterious, unknowable, and a little bit repulsi e. I
nd myself a erse to lyri ism. Instead, I lo e grandeur and magni en e, whi h may
ha e something to do with my training in lands ape painting. By the water or atop a
mountain, I truly feel the smallness of human e isten e. Nature is eiled in mystery
E en modern s ien e annot omprehend nature s omple ity. . . . Now, I am begin-
ning to fall into the trap of agnosti ism laughs .
Fei: What is taboo in your work
Gu: That would be working in the shadow of someone else. riginality annot be
measured a ording to orre tness. Whether or not something is orre t, it an only
be de ned through a umulations in history and ulture. Howe er, when something
new is ust emerging, it is dif ult to use orre tness to e aluate it. I hope that there
is originality in ea h of my paintings. As soon as I dis o er e en the ague impression
of anyone else, I feel disgusted. f ourse, as an edu ated man, it is dif ult for me to
be ompletely free from the in uen e of others. I hope my body an ons iously pro-
du e an antibody to resist knowledge from e ternal sour es lest I be ome submerged
in the ast sea of ulture.
Fei: Howe er, e en the idea of originality has be ome outdated in the West. The so-
alled Neo-A ant- arde in southern Europe pre isely proposes the opposite of
originality.
Gu: pposing originality is also a kind of originality. What this opposes is originality
formed in the past while also approa hing originality from another perspe ti e. I think
Mar el u hamp is the greatest artist in Western ontemporary art. He was the gra edig-
ger of modern art. What I aim to a omplish right now is to push the time-honored art of
Chinese traditional painting to an e treme, su h that it is unable to mo e any further.
erhaps at that point I will stop painting. To me, this kind of work is ru ial for the future.
I ha e already shattered a number of traditional Chinese on epts of painting and allig-
raphy. f ourse, this was a omplished with the aid of ideas borrowed from the West.
Fei: o you see yourself in the shadow of u hamp
Gu: Yes, that is be ause I worship him laughs . Sin e he pushed art to its limit, it s
hard to o erthrow him. A tually, while many artists in the West try to mo e beyond
him, they are in fa t only repeating what he has done and thus praising him. To me,
China is a plot of land on whi h modern art has yet to be re laimed. In the ne t ouple
of years, I plan to fuse the distin ti e materials and medium of Chinese painting with
Western modernist on epts, and push their synthesis to an e treme.
Fei: ushing traditional Chinese painting to its limit sounds like a good idea. But, an
you mo e away from u hamp s ideas Is it possible to do this without following his
train of thought
Gu: f ourse, that would be e en better. I am ery ons ious of not using ready-
111
mades, as this would be too similar to what u hamp has a omplished and thus be
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RETHINKING ART
meaningless. It is dif ult to a oid u hamp while making modern art. I often worry
about this.
Fei: What is the most urgent problem that you fa e
Gu: I think the most important thing for me right now is not to sub ert tradition, but
rather to hallenge modernism and dig its gra e. In the past few years, I ha e used
Western modernist on epts to wage a war against Chinese tradition. But, after a
period of time, I felt that tradition had already ollapsed within me. ight now, it is
time for a re olt against modernism. There is a strange phenomenon: one borrows
Western modernism to atta k Chinese tradition, and now one needs to use Chinese
tradition to strike against Western modernism. But, there is a differen e between the
tradition that I pre iously opposed and the tradition that I now employ. It is also dif-
ferent from the tradition used by the older generation of artists to ght against mod-
ernism. While all use tradition, their angles of understanding di erge. After Western
modernism s entry into China, su h intera tion with tradition is a tually produ ti e.
Fei: How would you e aluate the re ent reati e produ tion in China
Gu: I think we are li ing in the best time for art sin e the liberation in 1949 . But, what
we are e perien ing is merely a pro ess instead of a milestone. The artwork by the
younger generation that is hallenging tradition is signi ant but ephemeral. But, this
is a ne essary pro ess to go through. It will probably take a long time before a great
master emerges, and nobody an foresee that. What happens now is only a pro ess of
reintrodu ing foreign ulture. It is an assault. Howe er, after the sho k wears off, we
will nd that the number of artists who an hold their ground in art is far too few.
Fei: The general trend is good, but the le el of the art remains low.
Gu: Yes, you are right. Those representati es of inno ati e work will go down in art
history, but not e erything written into art history is ne essarily good. rom the global
perspe ti e, we ha e not yet rea hed a high enough le el. Let s hope the art trends
ontinue.
Fei: o you think it is ne essary for Chinese art to display national hara teristi s
Gu: When ad an ing toward the world, Chinese art should embody its national har-
a ter. Howe er, this national hara ter needs to be raised to an international le el and
mar h in the front ranks of world ulture. ne annot simply assume that the le el
of the national is ne essarily e ui alent to the international. Not e ery nation s
musi and art an pass beyond its national boundaries to in uen e and e en guide the
de elopment of world ulture. It is essential for Chinese art to ha e its own national
hara teristi s when it enters the global spa e, but these annot be simple, on en-
tional national hara teristi s. It has to endure a ompli ated pro ess before Chinese
artists de elop a genuine national hara ter.
riginally published as iang iandai pai tiao han in Meishu [ Art 223, no. 7 198 : 53 5 , 3.
Translated by iayun huang.
Against the Public
112
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THE POINT OF DEPARTURE FOR ART PROJECT NO. 2 ( YISHU JIHUA DI ER

HAO ) ( 1988 / 2008 )
By Zhang Peili
Ed. note: Art Project No. 2 onsists of a nineteen-page mimeographed do ument that
pro ides on rete rules and regulations for how the pro e t is to be ondu ted. Its
numerous dire ti es assign detailed roles, onditions, restri tions, and a tions for
those in ol ed. Howe er, the artwork itself dated e ember 15, 1987 is intended
to be read as a te t by the audien e rather than a tually implemented as an e ent. ]
An artist intent on asting off all restri ti e onditions an only do so after he has lari-
ed the relationship among artisti a ti ity, artwork, and the publi . It is impossible for
him to reali e his ambition before he has sol ed this problem. The key isn t to alter
one s language or the publi s in ol ement, but rather to hange the artisti relation-
ship between iewing and being iewed. As long as the audien e remains in a arefree
and rela ed state of iewing, then, regardless of how the artist hanges his attitude or
language, there is no way for him to sub ert the audien e s sub e ti e position any-
thing gained would only be an illusion. E eryone knows that pulling a person s tooth
out, or wat hing someone else s tooth get pulled out, differs from ha ing one s own
tooth pulled. What the dentist alues is the s ienti diagnosis he doesn t need to
take the patient s e pe tations into onsideration. If the artist hopes to build a kind of
dentist-patient relationship with the publi , then he must onsider how to e oke a
ertain sense of restri tion and ompulsion for the publi through his works. Su h
restri tion should result from eliminating feelings of numbness and repulsi e pleasure,
similar to those e perien ed by onlookers wat hing another person s tooth being
pulled. In other words, artists must nd a un ture where both the art and the publi
are rele ant and mutually a ountable to their ital interests. In this kind of relation-
ship, all attempts to use art simply to deri e honor, pretentiousness, or pure amuse-
ment will be se erely punished. Any issues about language and form will be emptied
what is left is only the dire t and the essential e perien e of both parties.
Su h emphasis on onditionality is the main issue I ha e been dealing with re ently
in my art reation. This is also the starting point for my Brown Book No. 1 ( Hepi shu yi
hao , whi h I ompleted at the end of 1987. In my new work, I establish a stringent
artisti system of rules and pro edures, thus making the aspe ts of its restri ti e nature
e en more e ident. The idea of onditionality be omes e en more ob ious. Here I also
want to emphasi e that I do not think that Art Project No. 2 surpasses isual ategories
be ause it uses writings to empty a isual medium. n the ontrary, I belie e that
be ause it enables a omplete return of isual e perien e ba k to on ept, it ould be
said that the depth of the isual image is e en more real and ri her. urthermore,
be ause of this, it is no longer important to onsider whether a systemati hypothesis
in the work is ne essary or an be put into pra ti e. ne ould say that be ause there is
a kind of theory on the pre ention of tooth disease, this an lead to a series of on rete
methods of treatment. As for whether or not a patient must ha e a tooth pulled or by
whom the tooth must be pulled, this then be omes a simple problem.
f ourse, ust like any dental patient who, e en when it is ne essary, does not
gladly a ept the reality of ha ing one s tooth pulled, the publi who is used to almly
and blithely iewing art would undoubtedly feel that it is torture to be restri ted by
some new artisti form that has done away with all en oyment in iewing. They forget
113
that nothing in this world is un onditional and yet they ha en t posed a uestion
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RETHINKING ART
about this reality. Why should artists be an e eption
Now is the time for settling debts left o er from the histori al past. The days of
making art based on the audien e s rea tion or to satisfy the audien e s needs should
ha e ended long ago. Art is, rst and foremost, the artist. And, it is up to the artists to
sei e ba k the authority that they surrendered.
1988.11.20
E erpted from a te t originally titled Yishu jihua di er hao de hufadian. ublished in ao Minglu,
ed., 85 Meishu yundong 2, Lishi ziliao huibian The 85 Art Mo ement, ol. 2, An Anthology of Histori al
Sour es , uilin: uang i Normal ni ersity ress, 2008 , 214 1 . Translated by risten Loring.
THE CHINA / AVANT-GARDE EXHIBITION
T he idea of organizing a large-scale exhibition in Beijing to showcase New

Wave art first emerged in 1986, during a large conference on the state of
Chinese avant-garde art that took place in the southern city of Zhuhai in
Guangdong. The plan to hold the exhibition in 1987, however, was interrupted by
the Against Capitalist Liberalization campaign the Party mobilized that year.
When the political campaign subsided, organizers of the 1986 conference returned
to the drawing board and envisioned an even larger national exhibition to be held
in the National Art Gallery. Because of this delay, conflicting notions of the event
arose: some organizers envisioned it as a comprehensive retrospective of the New
Wave movement, whereas others considered such a review too academic and
hoped to use the opportunity to launch a new wave of avant-garde assaults
against the art establishment. Differences in approach also emerged between art-
ists who insisted on the political function of new art and those who opposed the
yundong / movement aspect of this art. Moreover, for many New Wave artists, the
prohibition of staging performances during the exhibition — a compromise
reached between the preparatory committee and the museum — seemed a step
backward from the original position of the avant-garde movement.
Despite all these limitations and internal conflicts, however, the China /Avant-
Garde exhibition in February 1989 is remembered as one of the most important
events in the history of contemporary Chinese art, not only because of its
unprecedented size and comprehensiveness in showcasing avant-garde art, but
also for its enormous social impact. In spite of the museum’s preconditions, sev-
eral artists staged challenging performances in the gallery, including a shooting
event, which instantly caused the exhibition to be suspended. The show gener-
ated a strong sense of happening. The National Art Gallery was transformed into
a solemn installation: long black banners, extending from the street to the exhi-
bition hall, bore the emblem of the exhibition — a “No U-Turn” traffic sign —
signaling “no turning back.” The feeling of tragic heroism was closely related to
the political situation of the time: three months later, student demonstrations
broke out in Tiananmen Square. Because of the radical redirection of Chinese
contemporary art in the aftermath of the demonstrations, the China /Avant-Garde
exhibition represented both the climax and the end of the avant-garde art move-
ment in 1980s China.
Two groups of documents are translated in this section. The first group
114
includes a record of the preparatory process of the exhibition by a member of the

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organizational committee, a candid reflection by a principal organizer on the

dilemmas he faced in curating the exhibition, and an eyewitness account by two
visitors. The two texts in the second group discuss the conditions and limitations
of New Wave art of the 1980s. Written in 1989, both texts announced the end of
this art movement while reconfirming its historical significance.
The Exhibition pl. 1
BACKGROUND MATERIAL ON THE CHINA /AVANT-GARDE EXHIBITION

( 1989 )
By Zhou Yan
Around 1985, numerous young people in the art world formed nearly a hundred a ant-
garde art groups throughout China and presented a great deal of e ploratory artwork
in a phenomenon that theorists all the 85 Art Mo ement. The newspaper Fine Arts
in China ( Zhongguo meishu bao and the ournals The Trend of Art Thought ( Meishu
sichao , Jiangsu Pictorial ( Jiangsu huakan , Painter ( Huajia , and Art ( Meishu ga e the
situation a tremendous push forward by pro iding publi ity and a medium for
e hange. In August 198 , Fine Arts in China and the huhai ainting Institute spon-
sored the rand Slideshow and Symposium on the Art Trends of 85 85 Meishu
si hao da ing huandeng hanlan lilun yantaohui in huhai, uangdong ro in e, in
whi h they olle ted nearly a thousand slides of New Wa e artworks from ea h
region to e hange and ompare notes. It an be said that this symposium pro ided a
thorough e amination and summary of the mo ement. Be ause of the limitations of
using slide pro e tions in lieu of artworks, se eral delegates proposed organi ing a
national modern art e hibition to show original works. This motion was immediately
passed and preparations were di ied up. After a period of preparation, plans were
underway for the Young Artists’ Academic Exchange Exhibition ( Gedi qingnian meishujia
xueshu jiaoliu zhan to be held in uly 1987 at the Bei ing Agri ulture E hibition Hall.
But, due to ertain reasons, the plans for this ran aground.
rom that moment on, New Wa e art entered into a relati ely uiet period, in
whi h both artists and theorists began to almly rethink and summari e, making e ery
effort to push the newly emerged modern Chinese art to a deeper, more mature le el.
A ompilation of related monographs and essays appeared in Contemporary Chinese
Art, 1985 – 1986 ( Zhongguo dangdai meishushi 1985 – 1986 . Comprising fty thousand
hara ters and nearly three hundred images, this book offered a relati ely omprehen-
si e and ob e ti e des ription of the onditions of the art world during this appro i-
mately two-year period.
Hen eforth, a group of young theorists and artists again proposed organi ing
China s rst large-s ale e hibition of modern artwork. Through their diligent efforts, it
was nally de ided that the rst China /Avant-Garde art e hibition Zhongguo xiandai
yishuzhan would open on ebruary 5, 1989, at the National Art allery in Bei ing.
arti ipating institutions in luded the editorial ommittee of Culture: China and
the World ( Wenhua: Zhongguo yu shijie , the Chinese National Aestheti s So iety, Art
maga ine, Fine Arts in China, Reading ( Dushu maga ine, the Bei ing Arts and Crafts
Company, and the publi ations Cityscape in China ( Zhongguo shi rongbao and Free
Forum of Literature ( Wenxue ziyou tan . To prepare for the theoreti al premises of the
e hibition, the esear h Institute of ine Arts of the Chinese National A ademy of Arts
115
and the Hefei ainting and Calligraphy Institute held the 88 Symposium on the
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THE CHINA/AVANT-GARDE EXHIBITION
Creation of Chinese Modern Art 88 hongguo iandai yishu huang uo yantaohui
in late No ember 1988 in the town of Tun i at the base of Huangshan Mount Huang ,
Anhui ro in e.
In tober 1988, the organi ational ommittee for China /Avant-Garde was estab-
lished in Bei ing with se enteen members: an Yang, hang Yao un, Liu ong, Liu
Bo hun, hang uying, Li ianting, ao Minglu, Tang ingnian, Yang Lihua, hou Yan,
an i an, Wang Ming ian, ong Chang an, ei awei, Hou Hanru, eng Chaoying,
and Liu Min. ao Minglu ser ed as the head of the ommittee. The ommittee also
in ited the following people as onsultants: u in, Li ehou, Liu ai u, Wu uoren,
Shen Changwen, Shao a hen, Tang emei, in Shangyi, e Weimo, Wang hen, Wu
u ai, and eng i ai. Ling Huitao, Wu iaolin, ao Ling, Wang Birong, Chen i i, Wu
uangyao, and in Wenna onstituted the se retarial board for the e hibition. The
painters Ling Huitao and hu Mo undertook organi ational work during the e hibition.
Through dis ussions, the ob e ti e of the China /Avant-Garde e hibition was deter-
mined to be: to offer the rst relati ely large-s ale and omprehensi e display of mod-
ern art on epts and spirit dire ted at all of so iety as well as domesti and foreign
ultural spheres. It would assemble the interests, disputes, and e aluations of the
ma or trends in artisti thought and pra ti e in re ent years. This would re eal the
alue and signi an e of modern art to the de elopment of ontemporary Chinese
ulture. The e hibition would a t as a high-le el a ti ity for the intera tion and study
of modern art while promoting the pluralisti de elopment of Chinese art.
rom the time that the rst e hibition announ ement was sent out to the domesti
art world in tober 1988, the organi ational ommittee re ei ed slides, photographs,
reati e designs, and e en originals of nearly three thousand artworks either sent or per-
sonally deli ered by artists from e ery region. f these, the ommittee arefully sele ted
about 250 works by appro imately 100 artists. Together with in ited udges, in luding
e Weimo, Shao a hen, in Shangyi, han ian un, hang iang, and Lang Shao un
ong iaoming and Shui Tian hong were in ited but unable to attend , the members
of the original organi ational ommittee onstituted an e aluation and sele tion om-
mittee to e aluate and appro e this group of works for the e hibition.
The e hibition was held in the eastern hall on the rst oor of the National Art allery
and e tended to both the se ond and third oors, spanning si e hibition halls and
o upying a total of 2,200 s uare meters appro . 23, 81 s uare feet . The e hibited
art forms in luded painting, s ulpture, installation art, photographi do umentation of
performan e art, et . The plan was to display resear h materials in the forms of ideo
re ordings and slide shows. To prompt modern art in China to stri e for a deeper and
more sophisti ated theoreti al le el, and to enhan e more effe ti e ommuni ation
among this newly emerging eld, a ademi ir les, and the general publi , the organi-
ational ommittee also planned to organi e a series of a ti ities for artists, riti s, and
the publi these in luded the China / Avant-Garde Symposium hongguo iandai
yishu yantaohui attended primarily by e hibiting artists and theoreti ians , the My
iew of Art forum Wo de yishu guan attended mainly by parti ipating artists and
theorists , and a ademi le tures gi en by young art theorists and artists .
riginally published as Shou ie Zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan bei ing ailiao in Zhongguo meishu bao
[ Fine Arts in China , ebruary , 1989 no. , 4. Translated by risten Loring.
CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA /AVANT-GARDE CURATOR ( 1989 )
116
By Li Xianting
|
After 1987, regardless of whether artists were emphasi ing the trend of ounterra-
tionality or purifying language, they all demonstrated that New Wa e art had already
mo ed on from the meanings and styles of 85. Yet, none of these tenden ies demon-
strated a de nite dire tion for future trends. Thus, I belie ed that ebruary 1989 would
not be a suitable time for the e hibition: it was too late to summari e 85, and it would
ertainly be dif ult to rea h a onsensus on sele ting a new trend. In fa t, the organi-
ational ommittee reestablished in tober 1988 essentially ontinued the 198 om-
mittee, and the thinking behind the e hibition was ust to attempt to reali e the
pre ious onferen e s un nished tasks. rom the preparation to the opening of the
e hibition, aside from establishing a standard for modern art, dis ussions among the
organi ers ne er e eeded the s ope of e hibition planning, nor did we e er really
ha e any substanti e dis ussion about the premise of the e hibition. I felt that if it was
to be a modern e hibition, then it should ha e a anguard spirit. The e hibition itself
should laun h an a ti e atta k on reality rather than ser ing as a passi e summary. This
kind of atta k is not based on groundless design, but is rather based on sensiti ity
toward emergent trends. When ao Minglu negotiated the date and onditions of the
e hibition with the National Art allery for e ample, only e months remained
until the opening when it was determined that performan e art and works with se -
ual ontent would not be permitted in the e hibition at that point, I already felt that
it would be impossible to reali e an a ant-garde approa h. Although I was on i ted
in my mind, I still felt that sin e I had oined the organi ational ommittee, I had a
responsibility toward the ommittee and so iety at large. As a result, throughout the
entire e hibition pro ess, I felt myself in an awkward predi ament.
With no way of reali ing an a ant-garde spirit, the only signi an e remaining for
the e hibition was to onfront so iety. Moreo er, sin e the 85 New Wa e ame about
within the art world, it was still unfamiliar to so iety at large. Although its meaning
fundamentally arose out of ideologi al liberation, it was unlike the early stages of the
ideologi al liberation mo ement, su h as of the Stars art group, whi h dire tly insti-
gated a strong so ial ba klash. In this sense, the e hibition ould a uire a pra ti al
angle, and orrespondingly I began to shift my inner battlefront toward so iety. So,
from the beginning, I wasn t too on erned about the indi idual works and details of
the e hibition. Instead, I attempted to build a ertain atmosphere with a sense of
freshness and pro o ation unlike that of any e hibition the general publi had e er
seen. As de ades of ultural traditions and e hibitions ha e formed the aestheti taste
of se eral generations of people, the emphasis on pro o ation has far more pra ti al
signi an e than emphasi ing s holarly a ademi ism. The transformation of these
aestheti tastes is not the same as Western omanti ism s atta k on lassi ism, whi h
was simply a hange in the aestheti eneer. In China, these kinds of aestheti tastes
are predi ated on an entire ultural alue system as well as the rm onstraints of ed
ultural mores. It is ery dif ult to dislodge the inertia of these kinds of ultural mores
without some strong pro o ation.
The abo e re e ts my basi mindset. In the rst e hibition hall, I assembled se eral
op art and installation works. I sele ted these works distin t from traditional paint-
ing styles for this spa e in order to gi e people a strong rst impression. Before the
e hibition, I followed se eral ma or works losely. ne of them was Wu Shan huan s
Big Business ( Da shengyi . Initially, based on the basi notion of a retrospe ti e, I ga e
Wu a partitioned e hibition spa e for installing his ed Humor series Hongse youmo
pl. 17 , but after fre uent long-distan e phone alls, he proposed the idea of selling
117
shrimp. Though I was not entirely lear on his idea in the beginning, I was really e ited
|
as soon as I understood. Howe er, the museum had already stated that it would not
permit performan e art in the gallery. In order to ensure that Wu s work would not
meet a premature end, I helped him de ise a series of o ert measures to mask its
appearan e as a non-performan e work and gain entry into the museum. He would
then suddenly begin the performan e. E en if he ould sell shrimp for only a minute,
he would still ha e ompleted the work. espite the fa t that some members of the
organi ational ommittee had written letters to dis ourage this pro e t and to persuade
him to still e hibit the ed Humor works, I urged him se eral times during our long-dis-
tan e alls not to de iate from his original intention, for his work would not only ha e a
for eful impa t on so iety, but also be an a ant-garde performan e for the art world. In
the ase of iamen ada s plan for Haul Away the Museum ( Tuozou meishuguan , ao
Minglu later tried to negotiate with the museum, but, ultimately, the work was not per-
mitted. Sin e that performan e would ha e been espe ially large, I also ouldn t think
of a way to hide it. I regret that this work ould not be reali ed. The ommittee did
re e t one plan for in atable s ulptures from Shandong. After I dis o ered it among the
re e ted works, I immediately sent a telegram and a letter urging that the pro e t be
ompleted, and later obtained the ommittee s appro al by presenting it as a ommis-
sioned pro e t. With regard to performan e art, I ga e my onsent behind losed
doors for works su h as ang Mu s plan of walking around the gallery and hang
Nian s pro e t of hat hing eggs. Howe er, I felt that Wang eren s performan e of s at-
tering ondoms as a form of blasphemy was an imitation of u hamp s urinal.
urthermore, sin e China is parti ularly sensiti e about issues of se uality, the use of
ondoms as the ore language of the performan e ould easily gi e way to misunder-
standing and shift the work s original intention. Thus, I wrote a letter urging Wang
eren to hange his proposal or make some re isions. erforman e art has been an
espe ially important phenomenon in re ent years, and it is absurd to keep it out of
museums. This was not the organi ational ommittee s original plan, but was rather the
ommittee s ompromise. I didn t dis uss or seek the onsent of any of the other orga-
ni ers to surreptitiously in lude performan e art , sin e on dentiality and on eal-
ment were the only means through whi h these pro e ts ould be a omplished. This
e hibition wasn t the pri ate work of our organi ational ommittee. Its ob e ti e was
to effe t hange in the aestheti standards of so iety. n e, in 1983, upon organi ing an
issue of Art ( Meishu to ad o ate dis ussions of abstra t art, I was dismissed from the
editorial of e. But, I e une pe tedly dis o ered that sin e then abstra t on epts
are no longer forbidden territory in the art world. Conse uently, I reali ed that we an-
not wait until the popula e is ready before presenting it with new on epts. In fa t,
new ideas ha e always been imposed by a small minority upon the large ma ority who
then slowly a ustom themsel es while also de eloping new powers to adapt. History
endlessly repeats this y le. In the ten years that I was an editor, I onstantly sought to
nd riti al points to impose upon so iety. Thus, my methods of introdu ing perfor-
man e art into China /Avant-Garde also arose from this on i tion.
The entral gallery on the se ond oor emphasi ed a lofty, somewhat religious
atmosphere. In the western wing were assembled the old trends of rationality and
absurdity. The eastern wing, in ontrast, emphasi ed the warmth of emotional e pres-
sion. Altogether, the layout of the three halls offered a summary of the basi artisti
trends sin e 85. In the e ember 1987 issue of Jiangsu Pictorial ( Jiangsu huakan , my
arti le, What We Need Most Is a Thoughtful Criti ue of ur Cultural alues Women
ui uyao dui min u wenhua ia hi ti i de pipan he i ing , dis ussed these three trends
in detail. These trends ontinued after 1987 and were further de eloped by some artists
118
su h as hang eili, whose artwork with late glo es is a logi al e tension of his
|
series. This pro e t demonstrates his in reasingly lose pro imity to the essen e of his
pursuit, whether by offering a re elation on the harmful effe ts on one s life brought
about by one s li ing en ironment or by engaging in the fragile internal monologue of
life. And although hang iaogang s re ent despondent and sentimental paintings are a
departure from the painful mystery and fear of 85, their yearning for life has been on-
sistent throughout. ing ang s later works show stronger e pressi e elements, but his
in lination toward religious beliefs is ust as persistent as before.
Nineteen eighty-eight witnessed a strong anti New Wa e trend, most e ident in
the effort to purify language. This trend was most pre alent among the young profes-
sors and students at art a ademies, alled by its ad o ates the New A ademi S hool
( Xin xueyuan pai . While it ad o ated the autonomy of art as a distillation of language,
this s hool is really still a produ t of a so ial trend. In Fine Arts in China ( Zhongguo mei-
shu bao , September 12, 1988 no. 37 , I published an essay analy ing the ad ersarial
mindset of this trend The Era Awaits the reat Spirit s assion for Life Shidai idai
he da linghun de shengming i ing . A tually, this phenomenon re ealed an in reas-
ing re nement in New Wa e art. It deri ed a ertain ons iousness and style from the
early stages of New Wa e art and used its e ellen e in raftsmanship to attempt a
on ersation with Western modern art. But, the work often failed to display the élan
vital of the New Wa e, and it had no way to truly a hie e the purity of Western mod-
ern art. The result appeared ontri ed, as if it were feigning ulti ation. Its effort to
ast off so iety s ideologi al trends, howe er, refle ted a ertain progression.
Throughout the past de ade, art has e ol ed through the in ltration and distillation of
e ternal fa tors. or e ample, the 1979 trend of Aestheti ism distilled serious politi al
fa tors in art, S ar Art was hea ily politi ally in uen ed, and the Current of Life was
again a distillation of politi al elements. The permeating and distilling of philosophi al
trends in 1985 again showed history repeating itself. In 1979, art rallied around its
autonomy as a slogan and banner. In the past de ade, this emphasis on artisti auton-
omy has followed in the wake of so ial and ideologi al elements, the two lines of
thinking that ha e in uen ed art. This kind of artwork was pla ed in the third- oor
e hibition hall. Be ause of its si e, u Bing s pie e was mo ed to the western wing of
the se ond oor. u Bing s work is a typi al e ample of this phenomenon of re ne-
ment in New Wa e art. His work is inspired by the New Wa e s utili ation of writing,
but disposes of the anti-imagery of New Wa e writing and its more brutal features.
Some riti s onsider it a representation of an anti- ulture phenomenon, but, a tually,
this work has taken the stylisti features of traditional woodblo k printing and
abstra ted them. It is a kind of abstra t art, fastidious about its material ta tility and in
line with abstra t painting.
The ink paintings in the eastern wing of the third oor also displayed paradigmati
styles from the past de ade. The period from the May ourth Mo ement in 1919 until
the Cultural e olution was hara teri ed by an effort to absorb the styles and on epts
of Western lassi al art, and was dominated by realisti ink painting as represented by
u Beihong 1895 1953 . After 1979, on one hand, artists re e ted on the re olution in
ink painting of the past se enty years and emphasi ed the reemergen e of traditional
urrents, su h as in New Literati painting. n the other hand, drawing lessons from
Western modernism, they surpassed u Beihong s response to Western lassi al tradi-
tions. At the same time, they re ogni ed the abstra t elements of traditional brush and
ink and reated a new form of ink painting. As I dis uss in my arti le The Logi al
e elopment of Ink ainting Shuimohua de heli fa han in the anuary 198 issue of
Art ol. 217 , the ine itable on lusion to modern ink painting is pure abstra tion. In
119
ontrast to New Literati painting, whi h still maintained a lose onne tion to tradition,
|
modern ink painting in reasingly displayed the onstraints, hardship, and restless nature
of modern people while language be ame more unrestrained and dynami . Thus, from
meaning to language, ink painting grew e en loser to ministering to the demands of
this turbulent and restless modern era.
In terms of the design and arrangement of the e hibition hall, I emphasi ed a
sense of intensity. I had asked hang hilin from Nan ing to design a symbol for the
e hibition, and when he told me that he wanted to appropriate the No -Turn traf
sign, I was thrilled. This symbol for the e hibition e eeded mere design by introdu -
ing a op art olor s heme with some unforeseen impli ations. The result was ery
striking. As Wang iong, an Weimin, and Cao Biao of the Central A ademy of Arts and
Crafts used bla k as the entral olor s heme, the red and white of the symbol took on
an e en stronger and more solemn meaning. Be ause of interferen e from the National
Art allery, howe er, the original design had to be re ised onsiderably.
Sin e we were pressed for time, we ould only rely on slides and photographs
during the initial sele tion pro ess. As a result, a onsiderable portion of the original
works that were sent to the e hibition turned out to be unsatisfa tory. Moreo er, we
underestimated the si e of the e hibition hall and found that there was no way to
sele t works from among su h a limited number. So, we pla ed our emphasis on build-
ing the atmosphere of the e hibition. Howe er, we still managed to emphasi e the
most representati e artists and works sin e 1985. It was ine itable that the newly
emerging artists and their works would be une en in artisti uality. To a ertain e tent,
this also re e ts a phenomenon that is ommon to New Wa e itself, as well as to artis-
ti trends in general.
In addition to emphasi ing the pro o ati e nature of the works, I had planned to
write e planatory te ts to a ompany the key artists and works to better ommuni ate
with the publi . nfortunately, due to time onstraints and other ir umstan es, I was
unable to reali e this idea. China s New Wa e art all along has mar hed forward amid
an e tremely dif ult en ironment, enduring the sha kles of both spiritual and mate-
rial onditions. When art authorities and lofty s holars a use New Wa e art of being
rude, ha e they e er onsidered the en ironment in whi h these works were pro-
du ed And ha e they onsidered the la k of nan ial resour es and the time on-
straints under whi h China /Avant-Garde had to be ompleted Yet perhaps it is
pre isely due to these onditions that New Wa e art and the China /Avant-Garde e hi-
bition maintained a ertain kind of dynami energy. This is the fundamental standard
upon whi h I will not wa er.
n the day of the opening, I had originally planned to use balloons to oat the
bla k fabri banner featuring the e hibition symbol and slogan. But, for unforeseen
reasons, it was laid out in the pla a instead pl. 1 . Looking at it now, I think the
effe t worked out well in the end. When laying out the bla k loth, the atmosphere
in the pla a was intense, and my mind was full of thoughts about the impa t that this
e hibition would ha e on so iety. The intensity made for an e iting, e plosi e atmo-
sphere. The two une pe ted gunshots added to the intensity. Sin e Tang Song and
iao Lu had not informed me before their performan e, they managed to on eal
their plans and it was pre isely the work s se re y that engendered its sudden sho k.
At that time, I was unaware of the ir umstan es surrounding the gun re, but it
mat hed my psy hologi al state. When the gun re o urred, I be ame immediately
ons ious of the sensiti e so ial psy hology that these gunshots embodied. After
ha ing been onstrained for so long, a new mentality yearned to be set free see my
arti le Two unshots: The Curtain Call of New Wa e Art Liang sheng iang iang:
120
in hao yishu de iemuli in Fine Arts in China, Mar h 13, 1989 no. 11 . After the
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gunshots rang out, members of the organi ational ommittee be ame e tremely an -
ious and on ened a meeting of all the parti ipating artists in Bei ing. The meeting
o urred on the se ond day of the e hibition s losing, whi h was the day of the
Chinese New Year. In the wake of the gun re, there were ast differen es between
my frame of mind and that of the other members of the organi ational ommittee. As
a result, I didn t attend this meeting. It was said that in this onferen e, key ommit-
tee members rudely admonished the artists. A tually, throughout the entire e hibi-
tion, I ouldn t bear to wat h the ommanding attitude that a few riti s on the
ommittee held o er the artists. They treated the e hibition as if it were a gift to be
gra iously bestowed on the artists, as if they were presenting them with the opportu-
nity to enter history. Thus, a few of these riti s were ustered and frustrated at the
mis hie ous performan es arried out during the e hibition they were simply too
fo used on the e hibition as a histori al a ti ity. In fa t, the e hibitions with true his-
tori al signi an e had already o urred during the early days of the New Wa e,
when the original group a ti ities took pla e. By the time they were re-e hibited as
part of this retrospe ti e, that kind of histori al originality was already past. All that
remained was an opportunity to in uen e so iety. After the e hibition was losed,
negotiations ontinued among the ubli Se urity Bureau, the museum, and the
organi ational ommittee. ne member of the ubli Se urity Bureau suggested
shutting down the entire e hibition. In response, I impulsi ely penned and displayed
the noti e, The China /Avant-Garde E hibition Is Suspended for nspe ified
easons hongguo yishu han yingu anting . I wrote this on the belief that sus-
pension would bring an e en more for eful meaning to the e hibition. Be ause of
China s ulture of re erse psy hology, shutting down the e hibition would ser e to
further pro oke so iety, and hasten their ability to fearlessly fa e fear.
Although the e hibition was suspended twi e, it was still reopened and arried
out as planned with the support from arious se tors. Interestingly, when people
attended the e hibition after the reopening, they be ame e en more attenti e to the
details, in reasing the stark ontrast between the tremendous rumors surrounding
the show and the traditional elements in many paintings. This reated some disap-
pointment on the part of the general publi . In all fairness, though, the fa t that the
e hibition was able to represent aspe ts of the past three or four years of New Wa e
art and e hibit work by some of the important artists was already a onsiderable
a hie ement. It is in omprehensible how some riti s ompare China / Avant-Garde to
the retrospe ti e The Stars: Ten Years in Hong ong and Taiwan and belittle our e hi-
bition. The Stars: Ten Years was ompletely la king in any thought. And, to borrow a
phrase that Wang eping wrote to me, Your e hibition thwarted the Stars return to
their homeland. No matter how we e aluate China / Avant-Garde, it was a milestone
for Chinese art, one that ad an ed new art to another le el and endured great hard-
ship to be a pioneer.
E erpted from a te t originally published as Wo uowei Zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan hou hanren de
igong huang in Meishu shilun [ Art History and Theory , 1989: no. 3. Translated by risten Loring.
A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF CHINA /AVANT-GARDE ( 1989 )
121
By Hang Jian and Cao Xiao’ou
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5
or many people today marks a long-awaited day.
Although ebruary 5 is Chinese New Year s E e, uite a few isitors attended.
amous gures in the literary eld arri ed, su h as Tang a heng, eng Yidai, Yuan
e ia, eng i ai, and hang angkang. Along with the people from the art world, they
brought a genuine, spirited interest to the whole s ene.
Enormous bla k ags were displayed throughout the entral e hibition hall. n
the ags was an emblem similar to a No -Turn sign, whi h was parti ularly eye-
at hing as it ontrasted starkly against the white ba kground. The olors of the
design bla k, red, and white appeared solemn and stirring, although they are also
representati e olors from Chinese tradition.
I spent some time na igating my way around the ao Brothers Inflatable
Installation ( Chongqi diaosu , iao Lu s and Tang Song s Dialogue ( Duihua , and Li
Weimin s House series Fangwu , and then stopped to hat with some friends. While
we were talking, we suddenly heard two loud bangs. Some people assumed that the
Inflatable Installation had e ploded.
We ui kly learned that iao Lu, a young female artist from Shanghai, and her
boyfriend Tang Song, had opened re and taken two shots with a real gun at their
own work Dialogue. Both bullets stru k their installation, a mirror anked by two
phone booths.
The poli e from the Bei ing ubli Se urity Bureau arri ed. The atmosphere in the
e hibition halls turned instantly from playful fun to ner ous tension. A ording to the
regulations pres ribed by the e hibition s organi ational ommittee, Con eptual art
and performan e art are prohibited on the e hibition site. As a result, not long after
the opening eremony, performan e pie es by Wu Shan huan, Wang eren, and other
artists were immediately brought to a halt.
The e hibition was temporarily suspended. The parti ipating artists and iewers
swarmed the area in front of the museum. By then, the museum s iron gates had
already been shut. While some people on the street, busy with Chinese New Year fes-
ti ities, hurriedly stopped and then left, rowds of onlookers ontinually formed out-
side of the iron gates.
In the onferen e room ne t to the entral e hibition hall, the e hibition prepara-
tory ommittee and of ials from the ubli Se urity Bureau urgently dis ussed the
iao Lu and Tang Song.

Dialogue. 1989. Installation
and performan e. Color
photograph of performan e,
ebruary 5, 1989, National
Art allery, Bei ing.
Installation 7 10 8 10 3
240 270 90 m .
Installation olle tion Taikang
Life Insuran e Company
122
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ao Brothers. Midnight
Mass. 1989. ubber in atable
installation, height 13 2
400 m
situation. oreign news reporters and ournalists were e tremely eager and ontinually
inter iewed people in the museum pla a. Chinese reporters were sensiti e to the situ-
ation as well. The assembled rowds were like a oating loud, drifting toward wher-
e er news was breaking.
Around 2 p.m., when a ar full of armed riot poli e rushed to the spot, people
were in an uproar. ournalists amera shutters ontinually li ked away and ashes
went off, and the poli e ar ui kly left the s ene. When a few independent endors
brought fruit, soda, and bread to the artists, their supporti e gestures were greeted
with heers by the artists.
The e hibition ag o ering the ground in the museum pla a had to be remo ed.
The artists seemed to ha e a premonition of things to ome, as one after another they
took photos in front of the ag as sou enirs.
or the sake of se urity, the museum was shut down for three days. By 5 p.m., the
artists began to s atter. That night, when an artist alled his wife an o erseas student
in Hamburg, ermany she immediately asked, id something happen o er there
10, x i i i
The gunshot in ident led to sensational rea tions and aused the e hibition s se ond
opening to draw e en greater rowds. The reopened China /Avant-Garde e hibition
attra ted not only ultural elites, but also ommon people. The preparatory ommit-
tee members originally planned on a retrospe ti e modern art e hibition that would
be a ademi in nature. Howe er, the state of the e hibition hanged after the two
gunshots, and the new situation rea hed far beyond the ommittee s e pe tations.
The media aspe t of the gunshot in ident drew wide publi attention.
Enthusiasti iewers spontaneously debated about what happened at the e hibition
e en before lea ing the museum. ubli per eptions were mi ed. The news media
swung into a tion immediately some dispat hed reporters to o er a ontemporary
art e hibition for the rst time, while others presented ontinuous o erage of the
e ent. As artists fa ed formidable so ial alue udgments and opportunities pro ided
by the media, they found themsel es under assault and on trial.
At the opening of the e hibition, Wu Shan huan arried out a shrimp selling a ti -
ity. He stated: Sin e the museum has be ome a ourt for udging artwork, I want to re-
ate a bla k market for art, e en though it will only last a minute. Selling out of a ertain
123
amount of shrimp, he took pleasure in laiming, I approa hed shrimp-selling at the
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museum with good intentions. I told an art riti , Before, you made me famous with

your re iews of my work. Today, you an buy my shrimp and take them home with you
Wang eren, the artist who on e did a performan e pie e abo e the snowline of
Mount E erest, s attered ondoms and oins at the opening. His a tions drew protests
from the iewers and garnered resentment from Huang Yong ing, the founder of the
iamen ada art group. Huang Yong ing, sharing the same e hibition spa e with
Wang eren, omplained that be ause his work was o ered with too many ondoms,
it was rendered almost unre ogni able. In response, Wang eren riti i ed: Huang
Yong ing is a fake adaist
ue to his impermissible performan e art a ti ity, the organi ational ommittee
re uested that Wang eren turn in a self-e amination report. Howe er, what he
wrote down was: The fa t that the ubi uitous oins-for- ondoms e hange was
repla ed by free gi e-aways showed a playful mistreatment of the artisti on ept. I
thought that playful mistreatment was a typo for playful mo kery, but I was told
that I was in orre t.
Some of the iewers today said, China is in urgent need of modern art thers
stated that they e perien ed an unspeakable feeling of disgust and an iety. Some
wrote Sa e art in the isitors book. Some shouted, We salute you And some teased
that, The lousy paintings in this e hibition are not as good as my son s s ribbles.
And, there were still others looking for nude portraits or e pe ting something
more to follow the gunshots, et .
11
A forum titled My View of Art ( Wo de yishu guan , a gathering spe i ally for the art-
ists, was held at the Central A ademy of ine Arts. arious immortals ame together
and e pressed a range of iewpoints.
The le ture hall was pa ked. E ery seat was taken and e en the aisles were lled
with people.
Before attending the forum, I read The Hundred-Word is ussion by Nine eople
iuren bai i tan , published in Beijing Youth Daily (Beijing qingnian bao . rom there, I
learned that Wang uangyi s primary ob this year is to straighten out the mess in the art
world aused by illogi al humanist enthusiasm. hang eili regards the dire t intera tion
of artwork and audien e as analogous to pulling teeth. eng ianyi sees a mouse pass-
ing right in front of him, but be ause he has no strength, he an t do anything about it.
I ha e been pu ling o er Huang Yong ing s words. He proposes that the on-
ept of reation must be baked o er and o er again. This is neither reating nor being
reated. Hen eforth, that whi h is something else is not mine. This senten e is so
mu h more dif ult to omprehend than Meng Luding s idea, We need to onfront
those ontradi tions that e artists.
After taking a seat in the le ture hall, I began to noti e that the atmosphere
seemed somewhat oppressi e. I m not sure what happened to those artists who are
normally asual and unaffe ted.
Someone passed a note to u Bing, asking him to speak.
Not long before, u Bing and his olleague at the Central A ademy of ine Arts L
Sheng hong opened an e hibition at the National Art allery. u Bing s woodblo k-
printed A Mirror to Analyze of the World — Fin de Siècle Book ( Xi shi jian — Shijimo juan
earned him high regard, and he was showered with praise by artists from both older
and younger generations.
u Bing re alled a story about a ra y person who olle ts and leans old, dis-
124
arded papers. This story is re ounted by u Bing in his Looking for Something
|
ifferent in a uiet la e on page 105 abo e. Ed.

As soon as u Bing nished talking, a man with a loth on his head and sword in
his hand stood up and said loudly, I se erely dislike u Bing s work, be ause he is too
traditional.
u Bing responded, Yes, I pursue the lassi al ideal.
Another person uestioned u Bing: In the story of olle ting and washing old
papers, the old man left the papers under his bed, and his a tions were thus onsidered by
you as an as eti e er ise. Compared with that, you e hibited your fake hara ters when
you only nished half of them. So, what le el of the spiritual realm ha e you rea hed
u Bing answered almly, I am inferior to him.
The atmosphere of the forum be ame in reasingly heated. In the audien e, the
supporters of both sides argued with ea h other.
Later, howe er, there were no more dis ussions as intense as that. ddly, some
in uential artists hose to remain silent at the forum. Why
13
The China /Avant-Garde Symposium hongguo iandai yishu yantaohui , an impor-
tant a ademi e ent asso iated with the e hibition, was held today. Art theorists and
historians from all o er the ountry ame to the symposium, in luding Wu iafeng,
Shao a hen, Li Song, Lang Shao un, ue Yongnian, Liu iao hun, hang iang, hai
Mo, i ao ian, eng e, eng ing iang, Li hengtian, Wang Lin, and Yuan Baolin.
Art riti s su h as eng hennan, Ye Tingfang, the writer Li Tuo, ong iuyu from the
Sanlian bookstore in Hong ong, and Suo ei from the iangsu ine Arts publishing
house also attended the symposium. ao Minglu presided o er the dis ussion.
Before the opening of the e hibition, I heard some of the e aluation ommittee s
opinions as they ast their eyes around. The ommittee was omposed of artists and
art riti s.
There is some progress.
While pointing at an oil painting titled My Interpretation of the Judgment of Paris (Wo
shuo jin pingguo de gushi , someone asked, Is the female frontal nude allowed And, some-
one else answered, It was not, but nowadays young people paint whate er they want.
Are there any portraits of real people in that mouth The uestion was refer-
ring to a painting e hibited on the se ond oor, whi h had a number of distin ti e
portraits inside a monster s open mouth. It would be an unauthori ed use of those
images if they were real portraits. nly if the painter makes pro t with this work,
somebody himed in.
It seems like the pie e is missing some parts. Maybe they got lost in transit. Another
responded, Well, in terms of ontemporary art, there is no su h thing as lost parts.
The artist wouldn t admit it e en if something were missing. Then, they all laughed.
These fragmented yet dire t obser ations, to a ertain degree, represent some of
the iewpoints of authorities in the eld as well as those of artists from the older gen-
eration. Then, what are the opinions of the artists and theorists among the younger
and middle-aged generations
This e hibition is primarily a summary, and for the indi idual artists, their for e of
impa t isn t great be ause e eryone is already uite familiar with many of the artists
and works. Modern art should not merely emphasi e national hara teristi s, rather,
it should fo us on keeping in step with art mo ements in the world. Wang Lin,
Si huan ine Arts Institute
Many pie es in the e hibition are too rudely made and bear strong tra es of imi-
125
tation. Li hengtian, uang hou A ademy of ine Arts
|
Modern industrial so iety is reprodu ing, not opying. Copying is already at a more

ompli ated le el than reprodu tion. u Meng hao, Journal of Architecture (Jianzhu
Is our life modern, or is the e hibition modern Sun in, Lu un A ademy of
Literature
This e hibition reminds me of the 1913 Armory Show. Modern art manifests mod-
ern man s ries and es ape from the rushing power of traditional i ili ation. We
must pla e a great emphasis on lo alness. Modernism is a ultural phenomenon and
not simply an artisti genre. Li Tuo, Bei ing Writers Asso iation
Art should be superior. Art should not ust, as Mao edong pro laimed, ser e the
toiling masses. Art should be re ned, appealing to whoe er may understand it. Su
Li un, Central A ademy of Art and esign
The o abularies of modern art should be international. This e hibition was a su -
ess. I don t think the entire show an be simply termed an imitation. Throughout the
world, modern art an only be de eloped one region after another. ay tribute to the
artists Ye Tingfang, Institute of Literature at the A ademy of So ial S ien es in Bei ing
China doesn t ha e modern art. ight now, China only has a few art pro teers
that are playing with their so- alled modern art. Wang uiting, Fine Arts in China
You referring to Wang uiting wouldn t ha e gotten this far without the atmo-
sphere generated by modern art. If you all them art pro teers, then I m willing to all
myself that. I don t see why we an t pro t sin e we e ne er done this before
Su Li un, Central A ademy of Arts and Crafts
We should admit that some phenomena in the world and in humankind are
in omprehensible. Being in apable of grasping some of the artworks also in ol es a
form of understanding. eng hennan, Institute of Literature at the A ademy of
So ial S ien es in Bei ing
It also needs to be mentioned that a fair number of e hibited artists either didn t
parti ipate in the dis ussion or didn t e press their iews at the symposium, be ause
they assumed it was a meeting only for theorists.
14
I had separate on ersations with u Bing, Wang uangyi, and hang eili today.
u Bing told me that he felt rather sad after the My iew of Art forum. He said,
The urrent le el of Chinese a ant-garde art is still super ial. And, in ontrast, I myself
am too bookish and serious.
There is something elusi e and inde nable about u Bing, and I nd that uite
appealing. The way he talks seems a bit gentle, whi h is nothing like Wang uangyi and
hang eili. While Wang speaks in a straightforward manner with a sense of humor,
hang eili s talk re eals that he is intelligent and unassuming, like a typi al southerner.
But, I feel that the three of them share something in ommon their su ess is based on
the dis o ery of a tting and subtle point, su h as in enting and utting by hand
authenti -looking Chinese hara ters, borrowing and re onstru ting well-known i ons
and images, or using strange late glo es. This is the out ome of their natural talents
trans ending on epts. erhaps this is pre isely what will be preser ed in art history.
I told them that I looked forward to hearing some of their theoryless iews.
u Bing said, I feel satis ed when I am in the pro ess of ar ing hara ters. I am
drawn into a feeling of being losed off and a sense of sublimity. It nearly into i ates me.
I was relati ely alm in 1985 and 198 . But now it feels like in one fell swoop I
was dropped into a turbulent whirlpool, and it s really dif ult for me to adapt to this.
I an t e en answer uestions like: Why do I keep utting these hara ters And what
126
is the meaning of utting these hara ters . . .

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I d really lo e to keep utting Chinese hara ters, to not think too mu h and do
purely te hni al work. I wouldn t ha e to indulge in wild ights of fan y it feels mu h

more grounded.
Wang uangyi stated that, I am not rational. When I ipped through Western
lassi al painting atalogues, I didn t feel like there was anything left to paint, I ust
wanted to modify them a bit.
I was restoring them to onform to their original ambien e. or instan e, Death
of Marat a tually on eals a number of things. Its tragi nature re uires a ertain le el
of ambiguity in order to deepen its meaning. This is a form of ultural modi ation.
hang eili told me that he had been looking for a form that would pro ide the
isual impa t to smash the inertia fostered by the lassi s. Later, in the bathroom, he
found a pair of late glo es that his mother used when leaning the room, and in them
he e perien ed a profound unfamiliarity.
17
n ebruary 15 and 1 , the e hibition was shut down for three days. It was said that
the National Art allery, the Beijing Daily ( Beijing ribao , and the Bei ing ubli Se urity
Bureau re ei ed the same anonymous letter made from utout letters from newspa-
pers stating that China /Avant-Garde must be immediately shut down otherwise we
will detonate the three bombs that we e installed in the museum. After inspe tion,
it turned out to be a false alarm.
Today again is the rst day following the reopening of the e hibition. A long line
e tended from the bag he k at the entran e of the museum, and more se urity was
added to guard the gate. I remember that someone from the preparatory ommittee
sighed with emotion, China /Avant-Garde has truly been slow to emerge
The earliest troublemaker, who played the lead role in the gunshot e ent, iao
Lu, had already departed and returned to the south with her friend Tang Song. They
left a note as a publi announ ement:
As the people in ol ed in the handgun in ident at the opening of China /Avant-
Garde, we belie e this to be a purely artisti e ent. We belie e that art naturally arries
with it the artists different understandings of so iety. But, as artists, we are not inter-
ested in politi s. ather, what interests us is the artisti and so ial alue of art itself, as
well as the way in whi h we an use a suitable form to reate and to e tend and
deepen our understanding of art.
We perhaps need to wait until the distant future before e aluating iao Lu and
Tang Song s a tions. But the so ial reality in China has made them the fo us of the
media. I don t know whether or not this oin ides with their original intentions.
Throughout the e hibition, we ha e sensed the a or of the era and a ariety of
emotions. Here is a brief passage from an i an, whose pertinent words bring out a
great sense of mission:
In a nation plagued by so mu h hardship, and engulfed by di ying ompetition
o er material omforts, we still ha e a group of artists who persistently de ote them-
sel es to nding a spiritual dwelling pla e. This e hibition was a riti al reminder to
so iety. E en if it is pass to talk about a so- alled sense of mission.
riginally published as Zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan e i in Meishu [ Art 25 , no. 4 1989 : 5 9.

Translated by iayun huang.
The “End” of the New Wave
127
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FACING THE END OF THE NEW WAVE: AN INTERVIEW WITH FINE ARTS
IN CHINA ( 1989 )
By Peng De
Fine Arts in China ( Zhongguo meishu bao ): In your inter iew The Art of the New Wa e
in Mainland China hongguo dalu in hao shu , you suggest that New Wa e art
has already on luded April 10, 1989 no. 15 . What is your reasoning behind
this statement
Peng De: irst of all, New Wa e art is the result of in uen e from abroad. It was not a
spontaneous mo ement, but rather was initiated by the outside. n the surfa e, the
in ol ement of New Wa e artists was oluntary but, behind this, there was already
the in uen e of a foreign ultural ba kground that they had to in oluntarily re ei e.
Anthropologists point out that when one parti ularly isolated so iety en ounters
another stronger and more te hnologi ally ad an ed so iety, the two will form a rela-
tionship of subordination and domination, with the subordinate for e adapting to the
dominant one. Less seriously, this relationship is manifested in adaptation su h as in
Asia and Afri a more seriously, it is re e ted in the entire substitution of an indige-
nous ultural system by a foreign ultural system su h as in Ameri a and Australia .
er the past few years, New Wa e artists ha e read works by modern and ontem-
porary philosophers of the West and followed Western s hools of modernism. They
e en oin identally employed the same methods as al and other artists to reate
reudian snakes, a erns, stair ases, and distorted dreams. New Wa e artists ha e
grown weary of all this and are already rethinking and trans ending it.
Se ond is the general weakening of the riti al spirit. The original artisti on-
epts and pra ti es of New Wa e art were full of an intense riti al spirit. Its spearhead
points not only to an impasse losed aestheti thoughts as well as obsolete artisti
positions but also points dire tly at a series of absurd phenomena in so iety and
human life. Howe er, the awakening of so iety annot linger on an artist s intuition it
may be that only politi ians, thinkers, and e en writers ha e the ability to rationally
and on retely ontemplate and resol e the uestions that were swiftly proposed by
the artist. Although new uestions will ontinue to arise, it is important to note that
when so iali ation of the riti al spirit is already ons iously established, the New
Wa e an no longer be onsidered a new wa e.
Third is the transformation of the a ant-garde. The ries of New Wa e art to sur-
pass the present ha e grandly lled the National Art allery with the China /Avant-
Garde e hibition Zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan . Conse uently this art has be ome a
new tradition openly re ogni ed by publi opinion, whether by their re ognition or
denial. When the entire Chinese art world is willing to iew the New Wa e as a ful-
rum point, and when New Wa e art has produ ed groups of legitimate pra titioners
at ma or Chinese a ademies, then its own ounter on entionality the soul of the
a ant-garde has be ome on entionali ed. Initially, it was the inter ention and
atta k that seemed to be the indomitable impulse of the New Wa e painter s e is-
ten e. Now, ha ing progressed from inter ening to being tolerated, the art of the New
Wa e has followed its histori al mission to the end and has arri ed at its on lusion.
Aside from a few indi iduals who may ontinue to pursue the a ant-garde, the ma or-
ity of New Wa e artists will set a general pattern of mo ing toward a li elihood, the
market, salons, and institutions. As a result, the New Wa e will naturally disintegrate
128
amid this pluralisti ondition.

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It should be mentioned, howe er, that the end of the New Wa e is by no means
the end of modern art. The New Wa e is the prologue to Chinese modern art modern
art is a rational e tension of New Wa e art.
riginally published as Miandui in hao de hong ie in Zhongguo meishu bao [ Fine Arts in China ,
May 8, 1989 no. 19 , 1. Translated by risten Loring.
THE MODERNIST DILEMMA AND OUR OPTIONS ( 1989 )

By Yi Ying
...
II. rom its initial emergen e, ontemporary Chinese art has been doomed to o upy its
urrent position: its origins and de elopment were not premised on the internal
demands of art, nor were they the result of the transformations in isual ulture
brought about by the appearan e of modern industrial so iety see my arti le
Contradi tion Between orm and Spirit in Art ( Meishu , no. . Instead,
it was a by-produ t of the intelle tual liberation mo ement and a method borrowed
from Western modernism. It was used as a weapon against the bulwark of traditional
artisti do trines and it was adopted as a barometer for testing the openness of a so i-
ety. Its e plosi e so ial impa t reated an illusion, as if it signaled the dire tion along
whi h Chinese ontemporary art would pro eed. In fa t, ompared with Western on-
temporary art, we did not e en at h the last train. What we opied from Western
modernism in the New Wa e onsisted mainly of its early styles, whi h had already
be ome a ademi reli s in the history of modern art. Ne ertheless, ertain a ti ities of
Con eptual art, whi h ha e appeared sin e , also be ame negle ted orphans due
to the de line of the New Wa e and the hange in the so ial ethos. There s no denying
that sin e the reform period, our art produ tion has undergone fundamental hanges.
These hanges emerged through the intelle tual liberation, the pen oor poli y, and
the impa t of New Wa e art. In this regard, New Wa e art is not the only determining
fa tor, and it annot represent either the whole pi ture or the basi tra e tory of on-
temporary art in China. The urrent situation is that traditional art, realist art, and
modern art all oe ist and en oy riti al attention from their respe ti e audien es and
riti s. Maybe out of histori al oin iden e, this situation mirrors the tra e tory of
Western modern art. What is different is that after a entury of de elopment, the
Western modernist mo ement has started a histori al return owing to the limits of for-
malist e ploration. f ourse, this return is not degenerati e, but rather demonstrates
new dis o eries in pre iously adopted forms su h as the three Italian C s Sandro
Chia, ran es o Clemente, En o Cu hi and erman Ne -E pressionism . The result
is a genuine pluralism de oid of a singular standard of the a ant-garde. In China, how-
e er, largely be ause of the innate inef ien y of modern art and the immense and
long-lasting in uen e of traditional art, there has appeared an e uilibrium resulting
from a deadlo k. We should a ept that this standstill is normal. If not for modern art,
we would lose sight of the most sensiti e and nuan ed hanges in our modern life and
modern isual ulture. Entangled in traditional models and the imitation of nature, we
run the risk of being ut off from imagination and originality, and of being suffo ated.
Moreo er, traditional art and realist art are ne essary he ks on New Wa e art, pro-
iding balan e so that we don t follow Western modernism in lo kstep and produ e
monologues in a language we oursel es annot e en understand. It is only in this sense
129
that we don t hope for modernism to be ome an all-en ompassing youth mo ement,
|
but rather hope to nd a small number of e plorers trekking through rough terrains off

the beaten tra k.
Therefore, as modern art enters a period of self-re e tion and nds its appropriate
position in the general so ial and ultural onte t, as a by-produ t of this art, modern-
ist riti ism should study and riti ue its forms, moti es, and models, as well as its
onne tion to the histori al tradition and the urrent ultural ondition. ire ted at
the audien e, this riti ism should also interpret the ad an ed hara teristi s of the
art s form and ontent, and should ser e as a onduit into the eld of aestheti on-
sumption. This will guarantee that modern art will attend e en more losely to ues-
tions regarding art itself rather than merely a ting as a method of rebelling against
tradition. f ourse, su h a phenomenon may also be understood as part of the pro-
ess of Chinese modern art s departure from its early state of blindness and subse-
uent mo e toward maturity.
III. nly through this way of thinking an we assess the urrent state and future prospe ts
of modernist Chinese art. rom the Stars to the New Wa e, modern art s most
daunting hallenge was not yet the audien e s indifferen e or politi al interferen e,
but rather its own inade ua y in reating new languages and methods it plagiari ed
and reena ted Western modern art, running almost the whole spe trum from ost-
Impressionism to Con eptual art. Western modernism takes formal reation as its
guide and theoreti al foundation. After its heyday, modernism fell into an impasse,
and we are opying this mo e as well. f ourse, imitation is a ne essary pro ess in
de eloping human i ili ation, and losed ultures always remain passi e within bilat-
eral e hanges. Imitation is a means of awakening from this and a starting point for
self- riti ism. All new ideas and thoughts may nd their genesis in imitation. Moreo er,
an art mo ement that has strong so ial ef a y usually doesn t put too mu h thought
into whether the weapons are smuggled ontraband or manufa tured domesti ally.
The waning of the New Wa e illustrates two points. irst, imitation annot repla e
reation. When people gradually learn about Western modern art, their interests in
the ounterfeits fade, and New Wa e art orrespondingly loses its impa t. Se ond,
although New Wa e art has some deri ati e elements in it, it promulgated a on-
s iousness that has led to a modernist art on ept, i.e., regardless of whether one
opposes New Wa e art or stands aloof from this debate, one ne essarily ruminates
o er the uestion of what onstitutes art. As a matter of fa t, prior to this, people had
already been opying, either from nature or pree isting artworks. It was be ause New
Wa e art went so far as to opy from de adent apitalist ulture that it was regarded
with suspi ion as a terrible offense.
After New Wa e art subsided, modern art began to mar h toward maturity, om-
pletely mindful that it ould only o upy a limited spa e in the history of Chinese
modern art. In addition, New Wa e art also taught traditional art and realist art a les-
son, for ing them to abdi ate their traditionally dominant status and lear the way for
others. This reated a genuinely pluralisti situation, where all kinds of art styles and
s hools formed a ultural hain from the traditional to the a ant-garde a ording to
the aestheti needs of all of so iety. In this hain there is no hierar hy, as e ery link has
its own irrepla eable alues and standards. re isely be ause of this situation, modern
art an use not only Western modern art as a frame of referen e, but as part of mod-
ern Chinese art, it also remains onstrained by traditional and realist art, either on-
s iously or un ons iously re isiting traditions and ontemplating the reality in China,
instead of ompeting for no elty as Western modern art did. This is also an important
130
prere uisite for modernist art to rea h maturity. I should also point out that Western
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modern art remains the most important frame of referen e, be ause modernist art
attends to the intera tions between modern so iety and human psy hologi al and
isual e perien es. ur e periments are hardly all absolutely new, be ause we are
undergoing a pro ess whi h Western de eloped nations ha e already gone through.
I . The waning of the New Wa e is not e ual to the de line of modernism. nly when
New Wa e art weans itself from imitation an it truly enter the modern and a ant-
garde phase. In other words, only when Chinese artists soberly re e t on the present
state in China and its ontrast with the reality of Western modern art an the modernist
pro ess nally start. As mentioned abo e, modernist art is not the standard for artisti
de elopment, nor does it mean to interfere with so ial and ultural life. n the ontrary,
modernist art stems from artists sensiti ities toward ontemporary so iety and ontem-
porary life, and toward the ir umstan es and e perien es of ontemporary people. It is
art s intrinsi demand to reate new forms. It is to satisfy our own needs.
The key to de eloping modernist art is to nurture its independent hara ter.
e e tions fo used e lusi ely on forms are inade uate. orms should be approa hed
in on un tion with re e tions on people li ing in ontemporary so iety and their on-
ditions of e isten e. Thus, we return to the age-old duality of form and ontent. But,
our understanding of ontent has undergone a fundamental hange from its tradi-
tional interpretation. Content no longer refers to any parti ular sub e t matter or in i-
dent. It refers instead to the o erar hing ultural on ept, or the spiritual signi an e of
an artwork. Based on looking at re ent artworks, we an dis uss the relationship
between form and ontent from three aspe ts. These three aspe ts should be re og-
ni ed as the basi dire tion of ontemporary Chinese modernist art at this moment.
1 The ombination of modern ons iousness and national ulture. Whether or not
Chinese modernist art an ha e a pla e in the global art s ene depends on if it an
nd its own uni ue language. oing global does not refer to the Red Sorghum
phenomenon. Nor is it putting on a ouple of ommer ial blo kbuster e hibitions
in New York City. Being global depends on whether we ha e the apa ity to hold a
dialogue with the international art ommunity, and whether we an pro eed at the
same pa e with them, all the while maintaining our own independent hara ter.
Many artists ha e long pursued the integration of modernist art and Chinese tradi-
tional art in a oherent system. But, for a long time they ha e been ated on the
idea of seeking roots and ha e been beating around the bush. La king modern
on epts to re e t on our tradition, they ha e only been able to make some e hi-
bitions of folk art and totemi art su h a result is miles away e en from the
rimiti ist pursuit of early Western modernists that was used to destroy the lassi-
al tradition. Con ersely, when many young artists be ame obsessed with perfor-
man e art whi h one might onsider the remaining lega y of the 85 New Wa e ,
others were inspired by formali ed Con eptual art i.e., pre on eptual art and dis-
o ered symbols from traditional art to fa ilitate their Con eptual art pro e ts. L
Sheng hong s e hibition of paper- ut images is one good ase in point. His mas-
terly paper- ut skills materiali ed as ombinations of symbols. The whole e hibi-
tion onstituted a single oherent work. aper- utting represents a spe i ultural
af liation. Ea h separate paper- ut in the show is not an independent work, but
rather ompelled the audien e to go beyond indi idual symbols to understand a
new kind of relationship between artisti e pression and traditional ulture from
an integral perspe ti e. or the design of the e hibition, he adopted the styles of
131
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L Sheng hong. aper-
Cut Installation. 1988.
10 2 23 3 13 2
310 710 400 m .
Installation iew in Lü
Shengzhong Paper-Cut Art
Exhibition, National Art
allery, Bei ing, tober
1988. Colle tion the artist
en ironmental art, and plugged in adaist elements through ollages of paper

remnants and other unanti ipated paper- ut on gurations. L Sheng hong s art
was based on his in-depth study of and e perien e with folk art. It started from uti-
li ing large-s ale paper- uts to embody his philosophy of life, and has gradually
morphed into a style integrating both Con eptual art and folk art.
2 Arti ulation from a on eptual le el to a te hni al le el. The reation of modernist
forms embodies a omple duality. n the one hand, it emphasi es a hange in
on epts and the destru tion of tradition. Through seemingly yni al mo es, it
gradually undermines pree isting artisti mindsets. n the other hand, it is mindful
of the isual transformations ushered in by a hi-te h so iety and uses these te h-
nologies to reate new forms. At present, the latter situation pre ails, as seen from
the trends in Western a ant-garde art. China ob iously has no apa ity to demon-
strate these hi-te h onditions in its art yet. Howe er, ompared with the shoddy
skills displayed in modernist sleights-of-hand, e periments arried out on the
te hni al le el undoubtedly signify more ad an ed pursuits. As New Wa e art
wanes, su h pursuits demonstrate the artists steadiness, not dri en by trends. L
Sheng hong s paper- utting shows his ability to utili e folk art forms. u Bing s
prints attest e en more to the worship of te hni ues. In the pro ess of reali ing
pure te hni al methods, u also pushes the language of prints to its purest state. In
modernism, te hni ue is often a mark of an artist s indi iduality, a kind of ability
no one else is apable of rea hing. In terms of so ial ons iousness, it also re eals
the psy hologi al in ltration of a modern industrial so iety. In ontrast, olle ti e
pro e ts and on eptual pro e ts that fo us narrowly on the on eptual le el an-
not manifest su h indi iduality e en if the parti ipating artists are unusually tal-
ented. Although these pro e ts harbor a serious reati e ons iousness, they are
still pursuing a type of art that has already been patented by Western modern art
and is being in essantly mass-produ ed by numerous art groups in China. As
132
Western modern art tells us, on eptual inno ation is e tremely e ible when it
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omes to forms. It has e entually be ome a routine game that e erybody is apa-
ble of playing. It is e a tly under su h a risis that modernism starts to reorient

itself again toward te hni ues, whi h in a sense is a return to negating negation.
3 ational re e tion and riti al spirit. The alue of the 85 New Wa e lies also in its
an ious mentality and riti al ons iousness, e hoing the sense of responsibility
pre alent in the New Culture Mo ement. Howe er, the forms it adopted to sup-
port itself failed to a ommodate the magnitude of its thinking. The rationalism
that modern art embra es is neither straightforward uotation nor blatant refer-
en e, but un ons ious per olation into the uestion of form. Take u Bing s A
Mirror to Analyze the World — Fin de Siècle Book ( Xi shi jian — Shijimo juan , for
e ample, its e hibition raises both aspe ts dis ussed abo e traditional ultural
symbols and the appli ation of pure te hni ues. Behind these two aspe ts lies
rationalism, a re e tion upon the meaning of e isten e. The result of su h a rigor-
ous re e tion forms a ontrast with the painstaking te hni al pro ess. The thou-
sands of manipulated hara ters e iden e not a adaist attitude of ultural
mo kery, but rather a re e tion of the way the artist e ists, and in e tension the
way in whi h other people e ist. That is, the uestion: What is the meaning of
e isten e isillusioned and e perien ing the i issitudes of the world, people
always pass through life as if burdened by original sin. Who an e plain the mean-
ing of e isten e But e en fa ing su h hardship and onfusion, people still strug-
gle to li e, like in the reek myth of Sisyphus, endlessly pushing a giant ro k uphill
e ery day. ully aware of its futility, he nonetheless hooses to e ert himself.
Likewise, u Bing hand- ut thousands of hara ters that no one an read. Life is
like an inde ipherable te t. It is not enough ust trying to read the surfa e mean-
ing of the words or to understand the te hni al pro ess of ar ing. The key to
understanding this work lies in the metaphysi al alues embodied by the a tion
itself. Certainly, an artist s philosophi al thinking is often dire t and intuiti e, and
ultimately needs to be reali ed by e pressi e forms. Be ause u Bing imbues his
thoughts into the pro ess of design, on guration, ar ing, rubbing, produ tion,
and installation, people an grasp the an iety of modern-day people through this
kind of modernist form.
Stri tly speaking, Chinese modernist art has only ust taken its rst step. But
ust as it would be hard for us to say whether today s Chinese art has rea hed a
state of freedom, it is hard to tell to what e tent modernist art has a hie ed its
independent hara ter. But, from our ultural heritage and our artists attention
to so iety, we see modernism s opportunity and options in China. n e it starts,
it will ontinue to grow. ollowing the arri al of a moderni ed and open so iety, it
will ne essarily bring itself to fruition.
E erpted from a te t originally published as iandai huyi de kun ing yu women de uan e in
Meishu [ Art 25 , no. 4 1989 : 10 13. Translated by ela Shang.
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ILLUSTRATIONS
133
134
|
ILLUSTRATIONS
Wang Keping
Silence. 1978. Bir h,
18 48 m high.
Colle tion the artist
135
|
Wu Guanzhong
The Ancient City of Jiaohe. 1981.
Color on paper, 41 39 3 8"
105 100 m . ri ate
olle tion
136
|
ILLUSTRATIONS
3 4
Chen Yiming, Liu Yulian,

and Li Bin. Maple. 1979.
Illustration from the serial
publi ation Picture Stories,
1979: no. 8
Cheng Conglin
Snow on X Day X Month,
1968. 1979. il on an as,
5 9 8 19 29 m .
137
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5 6
Luo Zhongli
Father. 1980. il on an as,
7 3 1 222 155 m .
Chen Danqing
Mother and Son. 1980.
il on an as
138
|
ILLUSTRATIONS
Zhang Qun and Meng Luding

In the New Era: Enlightenment 8 9
of Adam and Eve. 1985. Ye Yongqing
il on an as, 5 5 Awaken in Spring from
19 1 4 m . Colle tion Hibernation. 198 .
Taikang Life Insuran e Company il on wood, 39 3 8 27 "
100 70 m . Colle tion
the artist
Wang Guangyi
Post-Classical — Return of
the Great Sorrow. 198 .
il on an as, 59 8
150 250 m . ri ate
olle tion
139 |
140
|
ILLUSTRATIONS
10
Zhang Peili
Midsummer Swimmers. 1983.
il on an as, 7 " 11
172 170 m
Mao Xuhui
Shepherdess and White
Goat. 198 . il on an as,
33 35 8 90.5 m .
ri ate olle tion
141
|
12
Ding Fang
City. 1985. il on an as,
23 35 0 90 m
13
Southern Artists Salon

First Experimental Exhibition
of the Southern Artists
Salon. 198 . hotograph of
a performan e, Sun Yat-sen
ni ersity, uang hou.
Colle tion the artists
142
|
ILLUSTRATIONS
14 15
Xu Bing
Book from the Sky (A Mirror
to Analyze the World — Fin de
Siècle Book). 1987 91. Hand-
printed books, eiling and wall
s rolls, printed from wood
letterpress type using false
Chinese hara ters, dimensions
ariable. Installation iew in
Three Installations by Xu Bing,
El eh em Museum of Art,
ni ersity of Wis onsin
Madison, 1991
Wenda Gu
Wisdom Comes from
Tranquility. 1985. Mi ed-media
installation with ink, ri e paper,
la uer, bamboo, and wo en
materials, 1 5 2 3 32
500 800 80 m . riginally
ommissioned by he iang
A ademy of ine Arts, China.
Artwork not e tant
143
16 17
pening day of the
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China /Avant-Garde e hibition,
ebruary 5, 1989, National
Art allery, Bei ing
Wu Shanzhuan
Red Humor — Red Characters.
198 . Mi ed-media
installation, dimensions
ariable. Installation iew,
Hang hou, 198
144
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ILLUSTRATIONS
18
Sui Jianguo
Earthly Force. 1992 94. i er
ro ks and welded steel, 2 pie es, 19
ea h appro . 19 23 27 "
50 0 70 m . Colle tion Liu Xiaodong
the artist Joke. 1990. il on an as,
5 10 70 180 195 m .
Colle tion Mr. Lawren e Wu
145
|
20
Fang Lijun
Series 2, No. 2. 1991 92. 21
il on an as, 47 "
200 120 m . Museum Liu Wei
Ludwig, Cologne, ermany Spring Dream in a Garden:
Dad in Front of the TV. 1992.
il on an as, 39 3 8 31 "
100 80 m
146
|
ILLUSTRATIONS
22
Wang Guangyi
Great Criticism — Kodak. 1990.
il on an as, 39 3 8 59
100 150 m . ri ate
olle tion
147
|
23
Zeng Fanzhi
Mask Series No. 8. 199 .
il on an as, 70 55 "
170 140 m
148
|
ILLUSTRATIONS
24
Zhang Xiaogang
Bloodline — Big Family. 1994.
il on an as, 59 70 "
the artist
149
|
25
Yue Minjun
Sky. 1995. il on an as,
39 3 8 31 100 80 m .
INTRINSIC PERSPECTIVES | 150
2
GLOBALIZATION AND A
151 | INTRINSIC PERSPECTIVES
DOMESTIC TURN, 1990–2000
C hina underwent a profound transformation in the 1990s, when economic
152
reforms and the Open Door policy began to produce full-blown conse-
|
quences. Major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai were now completely reshaped.
Numerous private and joint-venture businesses, including commercial art galler-
ies, emerged. Foreign goods and domestic copies flooded the market. Educated
young men and women moved from job to job in pursuit of personal well-being,
and a large floating population entered metropolitan centers from the country-
side to look for work and better living conditions.
Equally important to the development of contemporary Chinese art, China
entered a new stage of globalization during this period. If 1980s “modern art” was
predominately a domestic movement linked to the country’s internal political sit-
uation at the time, “contemporary art” of the 1990s unfolded across multiple geo-
graphical, political, and cultural spheres, including a domestic art world, a
multinational contemporary art world, and linkages created by independent art-
ists and curators between the two. Each of these spheres had its own history and
posed different problems. During the 1990s, these spaces overlapped but did not
provide a fixed framework for a single narrative; their relationships were subject
to continuous negotiation and transformation.
To better reflect this complex situation, the texts in this section are grouped
under “intrinsic” and “extrinsic” perspectives on contemporary Chinese art. Intrinsic
perspectives proceed from artists and art projects; the foci include the artist’s self-
identity and experience, the introduction of new art mediums, the changing con-
tent and function of artworks, the variety of stylistic pursuits, and debate about
using taboo materials such as animals and the human body. The translated docu-
ments demonstrate that these issues, rather than being purely formal and aes-
thetic, were closely related to the artists’ intentions and social contexts.
Extrinsic perspectives mainly concern the factors surrounding and influencing
the development of contemporary Chinese art during this period. The foci include
specific historical circumstances of this art, the changing social and economic
environments, the living and working conditions of the artists, different kinds of
“experimental exhibitions” organized by independent artists and curators, the
effort to bring contemporary art into a normal social framework and its backlash,
and debate about the identity of overseas contemporary Chinese artists. Although
this line of investigation seems to have its point of departure in art itself, it must
be remembered that the scope of contemporary Chinese art vastly transcends the
narrow confines of concrete works and art projects. Such perspectives are espe-
cially important to this period, during which Chinese artists, curators, and critics
struggled to forge an extended field of contemporary art, not only through mak-
ing works, but also by establishing a new system of art exhibition, education, and
the market.
I. INTRINSIC PERSPECTIVES
153 | INTRINSIC PERSPECTIVES
ARTISTIC TRENDS IN THE EARLY 1990S
154
(1990 – 93)
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INTRINSIC PERSPECTIVES
C ompared with the exhilarating 1980s, contemporary Chinese art of the early
1990s has a somber and even cynical feel. The New Wave’s idealism, heroism,
and yearning for metaphysical transcendence had almost completely vanished, and
the emerging tendencies in the late 1980s toward conceptualization and image-
making now prevailed [ pl. 18 ]. Multiple factors contributed to this change. One
was China’s political situation and its psychological impact: the crackdown on the
1989 student demonstrations was followed by official bans on unauthorized public
activities, including contemporary art exhibitions and publications. Realizing their
impotence in the face of real politics, many young artists turned to sarcasm. Another
factor was the rapid commercialization of Chinese society and the globalization of
contemporary Chinese art. Both developments encouraged new types of images as
well as different relationships between artists and their audience. A third factor was
the coming of age of a group of academic painters and sculptors, represented by
“New Generation” artists who held a major exhibition with this name in 1991.
Mostly trained at Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Arts, New Generation
artists made a conscious shift from representing “depth” to “surface.” For many
years Chinese artists had been schooled to inject deep meaning into their works;
this doctrine was now rejected by these artists, who instead were fascinated by
meaningless details of ordinary life. The critic Yin Jinan characterized them as hav-
ing a “close up” vision, which separated their work from both the grand narratives
of Socialist Realism and newly imported Western Conceptual art. Many New
Generation paintings verged on sarcasm. The more extreme examples, labeled
Cynical Realism, expressed the artist’s boredom with the surrounding world or
mockery toward authority figures.
Another major trend in the early 1990s was Pop art, which evolved in two dif-
ferent directions but employed similar visual tactics. Political Pop signified a
deepening deconstruction of previous political visual culture: images from the
Cultural Revolution were recycled and combined with heterogeneous signs found
in the marketplace. In contrast, Cultural Pop focused more exclusively on the
present, deriving images and styles from divergent fields of popular visual cul-
ture, especially commercial advertisements.
Cynical Realism and Political Pop are the styles of contemporary Chinese art
best known in the West. Li Xianting’s 1992 essay, “Apathy and Deconstruction in
Post-’89 Art: Analyzing the Trends of Cynical Realism’ and Political Pop,’” played
a key role in defining both trends. Some recent studies have questioned Li’s for-
mulation. Huang Zhuan, for example, argues that the labeling of some represen-
tative artists of this period (such as Wang Guangyi) as Political Pop disregards
both their individual development and the complexity of contemporary Chinese
art in the early 1990s.
There were two lesser-known aspects of contemporary Chinese art during this
period. The first is the continuous development of Conceptual art, represented by
the experiments of the New Analyst group and artists like Zhang Peili and Qiu
Zhijie (see texts in the section “Experimental Photography and ideo Art”). The
second is performance art, which was at the time frequently conducted in rural
areas, historical sites, and public spaces. Although these performances attracted
less attention at the time, their growing focus on social issues would herald a
“domestic turn” in contemporary Chinese art of the mid- and late 1990s.
NEW GENERATION AND CLOSE UP ARTISTS (1992)
155
By Yin Jinan
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Modern Chinese art in the early 1990s possesses a ertain temporal signi an e. At the
moment when histori al memory ollides with reality, anyone an dire tly obser e the
fundamental sour e material belonging to the s ope of art history. The literary world s
age of prose orresponds dire tly with the art world s period of manifesto-free real-
ism. Settling into their pea eful lifestyles, these artists ha e reated an enormous ul-
tural rift from the maddening infatuation with the e plosi e and dysphori on epts
that pre eded them. This ree amination and uestioning of traditional artisti alues
and New Wa e art did not initially arise from within the theoreti al world, but rather
from the reati e one. A few onspi uous solo and group art e hibitions that took pla e
in 1990 and 1991 silently e pressed a ery on dent artisti attitude. A group of young
artists born in the 19 0s thus emerged onto the s ene. The age of these reati e protag-
onists also be ame an important aspe t of how we hara teri e the urrent art pra is.
When I began to ons ientiously employ the two on epts, New eneration Xin
shengdai and Close p Jin juli , I onsidered the fa t that these terms possess
dynami impli ations of subtle spatiotemporal ariations. The term New eneration
was not my own in ention, I m making use of it, in the same way the rst people to use
it borrowed the term from geography and embedded it within the oordinates of on-
temporary art s omposite omple . The turning point for this entren hment began in
May 1990 at two oil painting e hibitions held in Bei ing: Liu iaodong s solo e hibition
Liu Xiaodong huazhan pl. 19 and World of Female Artists Nü huajia de shijie parti i-
pants: Yu Hong, Wei ong, Chen Shu ia, Li Chen, Liu Liping, Ning ang ian, iang
ueying, and Yu Chen . These artists uietly dealt with issues of ultural pertinen e and
distilled the artisti trends emerging from the arious artisti languages, and thus
attra ted my ontinued interest. I ha e pre iously made it lear that these two e hibi-
tions symboli e the true beginning of art s New eneration. Later painting e hibitions
by Wang Hua iang, Yu Hong, Shen Ling, hao Bandi and Li Tianyuan, and the New
Generation Art e hibition Xin shengdai yishu zhan in luding Wang Hao, Wang
Hua iang, Wang Yuping, Wang Youshen, Wang Hu, Liu inghe, hou irong, Wang
insong, Song Yonghong, han Wang, hu ia, ang Lei, Yu Hong, Wei ong, Shen Ling,
and Chen Shu ia one after another pronoun ed the alues of this New eneration.
Most New eneration artists are on entrated in Bei ing. Born in the 19 0s, none
among this group was a ed uard or sent-down youth, and be ause they la k pro-
found histori al memories or mental s ars they embody a distin t spiritual fra ture
from the generation born in the 1950s. Their olle ti e ons iousness has been diluted,
and there are no life prin iples or artisti iews that they unanimously uphold. The
on ept of a new generation is based on age, while that of lose up is based on
artisti posturing. The latter omes from the title I ha e hosen for Wang Hua iang s
e hibition this Mar h in order to differentiate him from the grand on ept art of the
New Wa e artists. Close up implies a losing of the spiritual gap among art, on-
epts, and life. Life and on epts, as deliberated by Chinese artists, ha e always been
at opposite ends of the spe trum. In the past, pla ing importan e on daily life resulted
in different styles of realism. After 1985, people began to pla e importan e on grandi-
ose on epts. The on lusion of the 1980s also signaled an end to the artisti New
Wa e in China. New eneration artists en oy depi ting tri ial matters from daily life,
often making the people most familiar to them entral sub e ts in their works. Liu
iaodong and Wang Hua iang both use friends and oworkers within their so ial ir-
les as models for their paintings they e e en painted me. Wang Hao and Wei ong
are more a ustomed to hoosing a relati ely more ob e ti e ga e to re ord familiar
156
urban life and e eryday street s enes in Bei ing. Shen Ling, Chen Shu ia, Wang Yuping,
|
Liu inghe, hao Bandi, and Li Tianyuan, et al., like to e e ute s enes from e eryday
life dire tly on the an as. At rst glan e, this artisti phenomenon seems ob iously
in lined toward realism, but ompared with China s pre ious in arnations of realism
su h as lassi al painting, Andrew Wyeth s style, or egionalism , it has distin tly
uni ue on eptual elements this is a relati ely new art form in China.
The trend of New eneration or Close p art often re e ts e pli it de larations.
The artists on eal their indi idual attitudes about life behind their representations of
it, instead allowing these attitudes to permeate through their works little by little. It s
easy to understand why New eneration artists don t like to issue formal manifestos.
They often la k interest in grand theoreti al on epts, and onstru t their egos through
reati e pra ti e rather than a ast theoreti al system on art. Be ause New eneration
artists generally don t like to dabble in obs ure and abstruse philosophi al uestions,
philosophi al issues naturally are not the moti ating prin iples behind their works.
They fre uently apture life s realisti e perien es while e e uting their art, beginning
from a ery pra ti al, ery on rete personal episode they pro e t what an de nitely
be alled both emotional and on eptual elements of their psy he.
The New eneration artists make use of their superior te hni al skills and pla e a
great importan e on the reati e pro ess, paying attention to distilling artisti lan-
guage and personal symbols. They essentially pla e themsel es in the position of artist,
and not philosopher. A statement from one artist among them learly illustrates this
issue: ainting means to paint the ob should be done well. They feel fundamentally
the same kind of distan e from grandiose on epts. This aspe t marks an ob ious dis-
tan e from New Wa e artists. New eneration artists o asionally re e t on epts but
they ne er stri e to manifest them.
The ultural ba kdrop of the early 1990s dire tly onstitutes an important ondi-
tion for the emergen e of New eneration artists. This is not so mu h to say that these
artists hose the 1990s, but rather the 1990s hose them. wing to the general spiri-
tual fatigue aused by an o erheated e onomy and ulture, on eptual things already
make people weary, artists want to return to their own spe i ally unassuming li es
to uote Wang Hua iang . arti ularly in their appre iation of ordinary states, for
these artists uiet and re ned e perien es ha e repla ed patien e for pro o ati e tur-
moil. This kind of Close p art and the re ipro al hoi e the painter shares with ea h
spe i sub e t are also e pressed in the fa t that New eneration artists ob e ti ely
a oid the trends of New Wa e art.
New eneration and Close p artists a ompany the rise of a new type of Chinese
realism. ifferent forms of realist art suddenly emerged in a umble: hotorealism as
pra ti ed by Wei ong, Wang Hao, han Wang, and hang efeng E pressionist-
realism from Shen Ling, Wang Yuping and Chen Shu ia and Con eptual-realism by
artists like Liu inghe, Wang insong, ong Yuanhong, hao Bandi, ang Li un pl. 20 ,
Liu Wei pl. 21 , Li Tianyuan, Liu iaodong and Wang Hua iang.
At the present, New eneration and Close p art is not uite a national artisti
phenomenon, but a lo ali ed one limited to ertain ultural areas of Bei ing. This group
of artists by and large graduated from the Central A ademy of ine Arts. rban life
ser es as their reati e ba kdrop, and the interse tion between their opinions on life
and on art shapes their fundamental iewpoints. New eneration artists present life,
highlighting its internal logi al and integral nature. They e ploit the most familiar or-
ners of their li es to represent allegori ally life s limited e perien es and points of iew.
The spiritual elements that permeate their works are a mis ellany of tri ial and fri o-
lous matters, and in no way do their works emphasi e or hypothesi e on the spiritual
157
dire tion of any uni ed on ept.
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At present, the few attempts at theoreti al e planation of their works either show

different understandings or embody indi idualisti interpretations. Some obser ers
hara teri e the ontent of New eneration or Close p art as ridi ule and self-mo k-
ery, others all it a rogue ons iousness. ltimately, in terms of a broader on ep-
tual signi an e, these interpretations pro ide these artists with a de nite psy hologi al
position. This kind of thinking also in uen es our ultural udgment as to whether
Close p art has emerged as a result of histori al fortuity or histori al ne essity.
Belie ing this e isting art to be an a idental phenomenon, these riti s imagine a non-
e istent art to be an ine itable one be ause it should emerge. This is a tually an
issue of whether art should a ord to histori al fa t or histori al logi . f ourse, inter-
pretations of and alue udgments on the psy he of New eneration and Close p
artists are bound to be ome an interminable argument following the transformation
of ultural ir umstan es and issues to ome, the a is and fo us of this debate will
shift. It is not my intention to a oid dis ussion on the le el of signi an e, but my
main purpose is to identify the e isting and relational fa ts on the state of this art in
the early 1990s.
ust as the 1990s are beginning, New eneration and Close p art is merely in its
early phase. These artists ha e attempted to use relati ely on entional and styli ed
artisti language, and integrated the personal life e perien es buried inside of ea h of
them, to begin their artisti pra ti e. Among them, already a few works e hibit a dis-
tin t ultural pertinen e. The signi an e of New eneration and Close p art itself,
ust like our theoreti al attention, must pass the mer iless test of history.
tober 1991
riginally published as in shengdai yu in li in Jiangsu huakan [ Jiangsu Pictorial 133, no. 1 1992 :
1 17. Translated by Lee Ambro y.
APATHY AND DECONSTRUCTION IN POST-’89 ART: ANALYZING THE

TRENDS OF “CYNICAL REALISM” AND “POLITICAL POP” (1992)
By Li Xianting
The notion of ost- 89 implies the approa h of taking the 1989 China /Avant-Garde
e hibition as a losure of 1980s New Wa e art in mainland China, and refers to art
phenomena that emerged in opposition to pre isely this 1980s New Wa e art.
The hallmark of 1980s New Wa e art was its manifestation of the ontemporary
tumult of so ial and ideologi al trends. This art was positioned against a ultural ba k-
ground that en ompassed the loss of alue systems at two histori al moments: rst,
after Western powers for ibly opened China s doors, the traditional literati ulture
was forsaken during the antitraditional May ourth New Culture Mo ement and se -
ond, in the wake of the 1978 pen oor poli y and amidst the in u of Western mod-
ern ulture, the re olutionary realist tradition established during the Cultural
e olution was likewise abandoned by many young artists.
Therefore, a ontinual pursuit of new spiritual pillars to support art was una oid-
able. The impetus for New Wa e art originated in intelle tual thinking, from art phi-
losophy to so ial ons iousness. Howe er, subse uent to the 1989 China /Avant-Garde
e hibition in Bei ing, when all manner of art on epts from the past entury of Western
art history were e hausted, a risis of on eption ame to light. Nobody was able to
158
pro ide a safe harbor for art, not reud, Niet s he, Sartre, nor Camus.
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Espe ially after entering the 1990s, people started to uestion the idealisti belief
that Western modern intelle tual history ould be utili ed to res ue and re onstru t
Chinese ulture. Without prospe ts for a perfe t world, people were for ed to fa e
the hopeless lands ape of spiritual fragmentation.
It was against this ba kdrop that the 1989 China / Avant-Garde e hibition lowered
the urtain on the 1980s modern art mo ement.
In fa t, initial inklings of the ost- 89 phenomenon had appeared in the China /
Avant-Garde e hibition. irst, as a pre ursor to oliti al op, Wang uangyi, one of the
most representati e artists of 1980s modern art, showed his work Mao Zedong. Se ond, a
new generation of artists who would onstitute the main for e of Cyni al ealism, su h as
Liu iaodong pl. 19 , ang Li un, and Song Yonghong, also presented their early works.
In their minds, parti ipation in the 1989 China / Avant-Garde e hibition spontane-
ously ga e rise to a sense of alienation. They stopped trusting the ef a y of established
art on epts in resol ing artists problems of inspiration and instead turned to the burn-
ing realities sensed through their intuition e erpted from Song Yonghong s diary .
Some remarkable new works and emerging artists in e hibitions from re ent years
attest to a state of mind distin t from that of the 1980s New Wa e mo ement. To ite
but a few: Liu iaodong and Yu Hong s e hibition at the beginning of 1990 in Bei ing
Song Yonghong and Wang insong s e hibition at the end of 1990 ang Li un and Liu
Wei s e hibition in early 1991 the New Generation Art e hibition Xin shengdai yishu
zhan in mid-1991 eng an hi s e hibition in Wuhan in early 1991 edgling Si huan
artists who ha e re ently entered the limelight su h as Shen iaotong and in Hai hou
and the ulture T-shirt by ong Yong ian, the su ess of whi h swept through ities
like Bei ing during the summer of 1991. All of these ha e alled our attention to a new
trend uietly underway, whi h possesses a powerful entripetal for e both in terms of
its language and psy hology the sense of apathy, roguish humor, and a yni al style
of realism. When iewed in omparison with Wang Shuo s hooligan literature, the
new realist literature by writers su h as Liu henyun, and the post Cui ian rise in
ro k-and-roll musi , the hara teristi s of this new trend be ome readily apparent.
i i – v i i
The artists in this trend belong to the third generation of artists sin e 1979. The rst gen-
eration onsisted of intelle tual youths i.e., students who were sent to the ountry-
side during the Cultural e olution , who suffered from psy hologi al trauma and
re ei ed a re olutionary modernist art edu ation. Their mindset and art leaned toward
austere realism, with key gures hampioning S ar Art, Nati e Soil Art, and oot-
Seeking s hools of thoughts. Their art featured a strong fo us on truth and ompassion
as ore elements of artisti beauty, as well as sympathy for ordinary people and sensiti -
ity toward the dark side of reality. The se ond generation is a group arising from the
mid-1980s and nurtured in modern thought. Most of them were born in the mid- to
late 1950s, and their ollege years in the early 1980s oin ided with the tremendous
ood of Western modernist thought. They shared arying degrees of life e perien es
with the intelle tual youth generation. Howe er, their memories ser ed not as sour es
of heart-felt onsideration, but rather as points of entry and ob e ts of introspe tion in
their re e ti e a eptan e of Western modernist thought during the early 1980s. This
onstituted their artisti hara teristi s, that is, borrowing riti al perspe ti es and artis-
ti o abularies from Western modernist art and thought, and fo using on mankind s
meaning of e isten e from a metaphysi al point of iew.
The third generation was omposed of rogue artists. They were born in the 19 0s
159
and graduated from ollege in the late 1980s. Their hildhoods and edu ational ba k-
|
grounds ontributed to a striking departure from the pre ious two generations. ust as

the end of the Cultural e olution was the atalyst for the maturity of the intelle tual
youth generation, the introdu tion of modern Western thought ser ed as the ba k-
ground for the oming of age of the 85 New Wa e. Whether in pursuit of ompassion
or Western modernist thought, art by the rst two generations was born from the same
effort to onstru t an idealisti so ial en ironment for a new Chinese ulture. In on-
trast, members of the third generation of rogue artists ha e been thrown into a so i-
ety of rapidly hanging ideas sin e birth. Their hildhoods o erlapped with the opening
up of the nation. Their graduation from s hool in 1989 oin ided with the China / Avant-
Garde e hibition, whi h represented the 1980s modernist mo ements and imitated
arious Western artisti models. Whether in the name of so iety or art, the ideal of sal-
aging Chinese ulture be ame sheer tion. Whether in life or in art, reality left the
rogue artists only a few fragmentary pie es. Almost no so ial e ent, artisti style, or
alue would lea e an eternal or profound in uen e in their minds.
Thus, apathy be ame the most real per eption for them with regard to their ur-
rent state of e isten e.
Almost all sensiti e artists fa e a ommon dilemma regarding the problem of e is-
ten e. That is, after the reality of e isten e has lost the meanings pre iously assigned
to it by former ultural models and alues, this powerful system of meanings that has
heretofore reigned o er their li es doesn t su umb to hange simply be ause of these
losses. But the rogue artists ha e adopted an approa h to this problem that funda-
mentally differs from the pre ious two generations of artists. They re e t both the pre-
dominant system of meanings as well as any effort to restru ture it a ording to
oppositional meanings, whi h they nd to be e ually delusional. ather, what they
belie e to be most tangible and most authenti is a onfrontation with the self.
Sal ation an only be a hie ed through res uing the self, and apathy is the rogue art-
ists most for eful solution to dissol ing the sha kles imposed by all meanings.
Moreo er, when reality fails to pro ide a spiritual support, the meaning of the
meaningless be omes their hannel for assigning new meanings to art and e isten e.
This is both their most desperate approa h to entrusting new signi an e, as well as
their most promising a enue toward self-sal ation. They disa ow the idealism and the
heroi s seen in pre ious art. They lower the ommanding perspe ti e that S ar Art
and the 85 New Wa e adopted in looking at life, and instead return to a le el iew-
point, s rutini ing fragments of their mundane, inane, a idental, and e en absurd
surroundings as rogues. Su h hange in perspe ti e brilliantly aptures the olle ti e
sense of senselessness and roguish humor in their per eption of the world. A ording
to ang Li un, nly a bastard will be swindled again after being heated a hundred
times. We d rather be looked upon as the lost, the inane, the ones in risis, the rogues,
and the disorientated, but we will ne er be heated again. They better not use the
same old shenanigans to edu ate us, be ause all do trines will be stamped with a big
uestion mark, negated, and thrown into a pile of garbage e erpted from ang
Li un s notes .
Their roguish humor and apathy means meaninglessness. The signi an e of their
sense of apathy lies in dissol ing the re e tion of the real world in our minds and feel-
ings. Sin e the real world is meaningless, one need not treat it seriously, whi h is the
essential rationale behind the rogue artists yni al and mis hie ous style, as well as
the reason for dissol ing the solemnity arising from the responsibilities borne by the
pre ious two generations of artists.
In Wang Shuo s famous te t Playing for Thrills Wanr de jiushi xintiao , frightening
160
e ents turn out to be a senseless oke. It hints at the fa t that many high-pro le e ents
|
in modern so iety are no more than okes. Almost all of Wang s works poke fun at the
respe table writers and heroes from the past, and e en the human ra e, e iden ed in
the titles of his no els: Please Don’t Call Me Human Qianwan bie ba wo dang ren, lit.,
please don t take me as a human being and An Attitude Meiyou yidian zhengjing, lit.,
ne er taking anything seriously , among others. In ro k-and-roll musi , the post
Cui ian group repla ed Cui ian s pre ious strong sense of parti ipation and politi al
aspiration with disdain and indifferen e. ne of the most prominent musi ians among
them, He Yong, hants in his song arbage ump : The pla e we re li ing in is like a
dump. eople shit like pests. They feed on ons ien e and defe ate with their
thoughts. The pla e we re li ing in is a slaughterhouse. But you are o.k. if you know
shit is dirty.
Works by representati e rogue artists deploy a sense of humor from two sele ti e
perspe ti es. The rst onsists of segments from life that are ridi ulous, senseless,
or medio re the se ond approa h parodies originally serious and signi ant
ob e ts and e ents.
E amples of the first perspe ti e in lude ang Li un s meti ulously e e uted
yawning portraits of his friends, whi h at the same time reated a uni ue linguisti
sign: the image of the bald rogue pl. 20 . Song Yonghong is good at assuming a al-
lous, sneering, and oyeuristi attitude, unearthing the utterly mundane, nauseating,
pretentious, and omi s enes from e eryday life, and dis losing its tri ial, despi able,
and laughable beha iors. Yu Hong s young women are mostly in an idle tran e, whose
fa ial e pressions betray an apatheti attitude toward life. Among them, Liu iaodong
is the most de oted and attenti e artist whose works bear the most tragi hara ter.
He often aptures group portraits of ity youths as his sub e t matter and represents
their unresponsi e and un aring states. Liu s paintings are replete with ontradi tory
elements: indi idual worries within so ial settings, and happy e pressions masking
grief. arti ularly in pi tures lled with roguish ridi ulousness, there is an indes rib-
able, awkward air of attempting to trans end and es ape the urrent situation, whi h
also marks the artist s remarkable a hie ements in apturing the essen e of art and
life. Works by these artists share a tenden y toward intro ersion and self-mo kery.
They reate in their pi tures a sense of ontradi tion through rendering ultrarealisti
segments from life with a remote and lifeless a or.
The emotion in a pi ture does not solely ome from the a or of life inherent in
the fragments of e isten e. Instead, the artist in e ts an emotion, a relu tant emotion,
into e ery gure, e ery tou h of olor and e ery brushstroke, and reates what Liu
iaodong alls the ambiguous thing or dual stru ture. This twofold omposite of
ontradi tory fa tors is mostly manifested in the use of the form of a roguish omedy
in representing an ines apable and ridi ulous tragedy. or instan e, in Liu iaodong s
Pastoral Tianyuan muge , a ouple on an outing appears lost and awaiting a hopeless
out ome. The omposition and the brushwork stri e to apture the power of tragedy,
in ontrast to the pastoral lightheartedness. The gures in the painting are of the art-
ist himself and a female ompanion, presenting a portrait of introspe ti e self-mo k-
ery. Song Yonghong s Tranquil Environment Qingjing huanjing represents a ated
moment of turmoil and re eals the humorous an iety and absurdity in repressing se -
ual desire under a ne essary alm. Yu Hong portrays young women in the mode of
ommer ial ad ertising, whi h uses a sense of fashionable trendiness to embed
beauty within transient happenstan e. ang Li un treats all of his bald gures in a
poeti way inserting these homely yet amusing hara ters into the lyri al realm of a
blue sky, white louds, and the ast o ean and a hie es an effe t that is sar asti ,
161
ludi rous, and humorous.
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Artists who follow the se ond strand in lude, for instan e, Wang insong. Ea h
one of Wang s works mo ks and teases all manner of worldly affairs, parti ularly those
supposedly serious and momentous e ents that are nonetheless also li h s. Liu Wei
portrays honorable soldiers and re olutionary families in ompositions resembling
family photographs whose solemn and digni ed nature has been rendered in a some-
what omi al and lumsy way pl. 21 . These unattra ti e and unin iting personas are
the artist s signature gures. Clearly, works by these artists dire t ridi ule at the out-
side world. Their pi tures are like ari atures, both more theatri al and lighthearted
than the internal tensions felt in the rst group of artists works, whi h ow from their
intro erted in linations toward self-mo kery.
Taking Wang insong s ari aturi ed hara ters for instan e, their effortless lines
and blank fa es en ourage a onspiratorial relationship between the audien e and
the artist, the meaning of whi h resides not within the pi ture but in a shared ultural
ba kground and shared attitude toward this ba kground rooted in reality. rom a
theoreti al perspe ti e, it s a representation of the pale and lifeless side of the human
psy he. At the same time, it also omes from my personal an iety and inse urities with
my abilities, thus lea ing behind an in ompleteness in the empty blanks. This kind of a
sense of powerlessness is a kind of ultural phenomenon. This wan lifelessness is e i-
dent in Wang s works su h as Big Chorus Da hechang) and Big Qigong Da qigong .
Con ersely, Liu Wei s roguish mentality omports perfe tly with the omposition,
olor, and brushwork in his paintings, as if the latter elements re ord his mis hie ous
and tongue-in- heek humor throughout the pro ess of image-making.
i
Idealism brought a sense of mission and parti ipation to intelle tual youths and mem-
bers of the 85 New Wa e mo ement. It permitted them to take a lofty stan e toward
reality and endowed their work with solemnity and gra ity. It also nurtured an in lina-
tion to s rutini e the meaning of reality outside oneself and ask uestions of an eter-
nal, nal, and metaphysi al nature. All these dissol ed, howe er, in the wake of the
rogue artists reali ation of their own powerlessness, a loss subse uently on eyed in
their artwork. The loss of the artists professional san tity and sublimity marked a re o-
lutionary hange. ursuant to Wang Shuo s notion of hooligan-turned-writer, artists
are, in turn, no more than a bun h of illiterates. It is said that the artist is the engineer
for the human soul. But aren t all souls born e ual This laim is too pretentious, too
hea y-handed, and too self-aggrandi ing. thers say that artworks are artists mere
e rement. Crude as it may sound, it has some truth to it. eople an see from the
e rement whether you re healthy or plagued with diseases, similar to the way do -
tors make diagnoses based on their patients e rement e erpted from ang Li un s
notes . Sin e art no longer possesses a sa red so ial fun tion, the surrounding reality
has be ome the fo us of the artists isual perspe ti e as well as their soul. Moreo er,
their e tensi e training in mimeti art te hni ues pro ides a natural foundation for
pursuing realist styles. This edu ational ba kground also e plains two hara teristi s of
their art the rst is to sele t and s rutini e the mundane, pedestrian, and e en ridi u-
lous segments of life, and the se ond is to utili e themsel es and the people around
them as their painting sub e t. As Song Yonghong notes: The fo us of my attention is
the interest I take in my surroundings. Trans ending the habitual for e of reason is
indeed an e iting matter, as my li ing en ironment onfers the basi elements of my
reati ity e erpted from Song Yonghong s notes . Liu iaodong proposes this e en
more learly in his essay espe ting eality un hong ianshi : In life, I m a real-
162
ist. Therefore, I belie e art ought to be realisti . My insisten e on realism deri es

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from my on i tion that realism is all about do umentation and immedia y. My heart
is assured when I rely on the solid foundation of realism see Meishu yanjiu Fine Arts
Research no. 3 1993 . or this ery reason, most of these artists abandoned the imi-
tation of Western modern art languages typi al of the 1980s. Instead, they initiated a
fresh start on realism the now dominant style of realism that was itself introdu ed
from the West in modern times to lo ate new possibilities.
ranted, the reality within their realism is disparaged, ridi uled, and mo ked by
these artists. In a tuality, realism is the most ompli ated and multi alent of all artis-
ti phenomena as well as the term that is most often misused. In fa t, all types of real-
ity under the rubri of realism result from a sele ti e pro ess based on one s era,
en ironment, ultural limate, and so ial psy hology. As the most mainstream artisti
style in modern China, realism has fo used more on the realisti elements in terms of
artisti language. The post-1949 re olutionary realism in uen ed by the So iet nion
on entrated on so ial e ents and the do umentary narrati es of parti ular person-
ages. The re olutionary realism during the Cultural e olution unders ored the real-
ism of the tall-grand- omplete and the red-bright-brilliant, akin to a sort of
religious idealism. The S ar Art mo ement realigned realism s eld of ision toward
the dark side of so ial reality.
The realism espoused by the rogue artists re ti es the e essi ely grandiose philo-
sophi al uestions raised by the 85 New Wa e. Their realism dire tly ta kles the ur-
rent olle ti e psy hologi al state of loss and apathy. is arding the in lination toward
so ial parti ipation felt by pre ious generations, they transformed the formerly aloof
attitude into that of an e ual bystander of reality, e perien ing the onditions of e is-
ten e of themsel es and of those around them. nly by means of this attitude of an
e ual bystander an one take up an unruly and roguish stan e and feel the ludi rous
aspe ts inherent in reality, the intrinsi omple ity and per ersity in people, and the
meaninglessness in life. Wang insong aptly summari ed: n e I turned myself into a
bystanderlike author, I started to see that the short omings we all possess are a tually
a hidden hannel onne ting us together. It s like a tentati e point of entry through
whi h I an pla e myself into the real ultural ambien e, where people s arious pit-
falls foreground some tragi elements of theatri ality. E perien ing the most appeal-
ing mental phenomenon through an onlooker s e itement enables me to adopt a
deta hed, rela ed, and humorous way of representing the true psy he of real men.
Liu iaodong also belie es that these ob e ti e phenomena themsel es radiate a bril-
lian e. I insert the ontents from my heart into them. This posits some dis repan-
ies with traditional realism, and following an initially humorous impression lea es
a lingering fear behind in the audien e from the same essay ited abo e . or these
reasons, I all their art Cyni al ealism.
We may approa h ong Yong ian s ulture T-shirt from the same angle. Through
at hphrases su h as annoyed lea e me alone, omplete loser, burned out,
and ball n hain, and stereotypi al signs of Chinese so iety su h as the residen e
registration booklet, I ard, and food ration stamps, ong s work rea hes the same
goal of a roguish realism through mo kery, but also through an a enue that is truly
op: onsumerist ulture. It be ame an instant hit in Bei ing and other ities, and
attra ted widespread attention from international media as well as domesti go ern-
ment agen ies. ong a urately and powerfully aptured the uni ersal apathy and
roguish attitude toward life in modern-day Chinese so iety.
: i i “ ” “ ”
163
’85 v
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The psy hology and o abulary of the so- alled rogue artists were not a idental

by-produ ts. New Literati painting and the 85 New Wa e ser ed as the basis for
their as ent onto the so ial stage.
In 1985, the Nan ing-based artist hu in ian painted lassi al women with big
heads and tiny feet, idling nude. Through wantonly e aggerated lines borrowed from
brushstrokes in literati art, the pat hwork of ins ribed poems umbled in both lassi al
and modern Chinese, the na e-looking and tipsy disposition of alligraphy, and the
use of seals su h as playboy and anity fair, hu harted a new dire tion for New
Literati painting featuring a roguish and omi al style. This style immediately intro-
du ed a wide and profound hange in ontemporary Chinese art.
The tenet art for fun s sake, as hu in ian puts it, aptured some of the ore
strands of the ontemporary Chinese spirit, namely, the risis of faith disguised under
the indi idual pursuit of liberty. This mentality en ouraged subse uent popular fads
su h as the future for fun s sake, life for fun s sake, and . . . for fun s sake. n the
one hand, before an indi idual s sense of self and pri a y gain wide a eptan e and
respe t from so iety, an unfathomable psy hologi al burden is imposed on the artists.
This, in turn, dri es their art toward a roguish and omi al dimension, mo king both
themsel es and so iety at large. n the other hand, in Nan ing, where traditional art
en oys a long and established genealogy, artists a ersion to New Wa e art indu ed
them to take up traditional literary ink play. This hoi e not only alle iated a hefty
so ial burden in fa or of art for fun s sake but also steered lear of the protests
against the imitation of Western art. Nonetheless, when they took up traditional ink
painting, they saw their inade ua y in light of the insurmountable height of the tradi-
tion, in all aspe ts in luding their state of mind, their training, te hni ues, and e en
their alligraphy whi h they used to ins ribe their works. Their embarrassment,
whether self- ons ious or not, pushed them toward a yni al path.
To a ertain degree, the roguish humor of New Literati art was born from a kind of
ultural aberration, formed by the pressures of so ial psy hology and ultural modes.
Be ause New Literati artists are unable to onfront reality, they an only amuse them-
sel es by looking ba k at histori al sub e t matter and artisti forms, making only a
small splash through lightweight, playful works.
Compared with New Literati art, rogue artists are largely free of su h an anoma-
lous psy hologi al state. They started off from self-re e tion and ta kled and repre-
sented the reality as they saw it olle ti ely, whi h is healthy and powerful.
Nonetheless, as an artisti trend, the New Literati art for fun s sake broke new
ground for late omers in terms of both their state of mind and artisti language.
ogue artists and the 85 New Wa e ha e a loser genealogi al relationship. ogue
artists did not ompletely e tri ate themsel es from the o erar hing 85 New Wa e
framework of life s absurdities. Instead, they repla ed empatheti heroism with the role
of a yni al bystander. The swit h from relating to mankind through a metaphysi al per-
spe ti e to ontemplating the self and one s immediate surroundings allowed rogue art-
ists to trans end ultural limitations. They obser e physi al reality from a more intimate
antage point and grab hold of ordinary people s ommon state of e isten e, thereby
stripping off the shroud of modern philosophy en eloping the 85 New Wa e. ogue
artists ha e bene ted more, in terms of artisti language, from the 85 New Wa e s
e perimentation with surreal and alien onte ts. Howe er, they ha e now eradi ated
the latter s deliberate obs urity and esoteri language. Instead, they fo us on themsel es
and their surroundings to e perien e and represent e tant strangeness and absurdity.
i i iv
164
Sin e 1989, without oordination, some leading artists from the 85 New Wa e ha e
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one after another abandoned their metaphysi al stan e and headed toward op art.
Be ause the ma ority of their works de onstru t the most in uential personages and
politi al e ents in China in a humorous way, I all them oliti al op. E amples
in lude Wang uangyi s reat Criti ism Da pipan series pl. 22 , whi h he reated
after Mao Zedong, en ian s Siphon ff Chou gan series, Shu un s - 0 series,
hang eili s Chinese Bodybuilding Zhongguo jianmei) and 1989 Standard Pronunciation
1989 Biaozhun yin , among others, and eng ianyi s Group Portrait Heying) and
Books Shu .
oliti al op is another phenomenon that shows a strong homogeneous dire tion.
Compared with Cyni al ealism s fo us on apathy, the two are twin brothers in on-
temporary Chinese ulture. They are both interested in the dissolution of ertain sys-
tems of meaning and both attend to reality. Cyni al ealism fo uses on the senseless
reality of the self, whereas oliti al op dire tly portrays the reality of dissol ed mean-
ings. Both adopt a omi al approa h yet are distinguishable in their sour es of inspira-
tion. Cyni al ealism tends more to the e perien e of the artist s surrounding reality,
while oliti al op e perien es reality within the e panded framework of so iety and
ulture. A ordingly, some works of oliti al op arry in uen es from the dogmati
tenden ies of 85 New Wa e s rationalism. This is parti ularly prominent in works by
former members of the Northern Art roup who proposed rationalist painting and
Ar ti Culture of the North, most of whom relo ated to Wuhan. They were a us-
tomed to following the most pre alent international trends. In 1989, when de on-
stru tion was most popular in China, they published numerous lengthy arti les and
artworks in maga ines and newspapers. With a re olutionary momentum resembling
that of the 85 New Wa e, these artists raised the ag of Western de onstru tion and
rallied under slogans su h as purging humanist enthusiasm oined by Wang
uangyi, dis ussed in publi ations su h as Beijing Youth Daily Beijing qingnian bao ,
leansing and dissol ing, using new signi ers to re i e the brillian e of the an ient
spirit Shu un, see Art Panorama Yishu guangjiao no. 2 1991 . They stripped the
lofty eil off the metaphysi al 85 New Wa e and attempted to gi e rise to a new
mo ement through the materiality and immedia y of op art. But their art was rip-
pled by e essi ely s hemati tenden ies, su h as the mathemati al signs in Shu un s
- 0. Wang uangyi ontinued to de elop the style he started with the 1987 Mao
Zedong in a bla k grid. Now he ombines propaganda prints typi al of the Cultural
e olution with ontemporary Western ommer ial signs. These new works are trans-
parent in signi ation and more a urately represent the style and hara teristi s of
his oliti al op painting.
In omparison, Shanghai-based artist Yu Youhan s Mao edong series in orpo-
rates elements from Chinese folk art, su h as New Year s pi tures and printed loth.
Inspiration from the latter ranges from fabri patterns to olors and printing te h-
ni ues, thereby grasping some distin tly Chinese ultural symbols. Art ser ing politi al
needs and art in the ser i e of workers, peasants, and the masses onstitute the basi
elements of the Maoist theory on art and literature. In terms of artisti styles, all art
mo ements after Mao s address at the Yan an Conferen e of Art and Literature ha e
entered around elements of folk art, su h as folk musi in the Yellow River Cantata
Huanghe da hechang , and the in uen e of New Year s pi tures on the oil painting The
Founding of the Nation Kaiguo dadian . Therefore, Yu s Mao Zedong trans ends a sim-
ple ultural riti ue, as its folk-art elements en ompass ultural impli ations that are
far ri her and more profound.
hang eili s Chinese Bodybuilding, and espe ially his 1989 Standard Pronunciation,
165
in isi ely and a urately grasp ontemporary Chinese ulture to an e en greater e tent.
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The psy hologi al mindset of Westerners is rippled by ommer iali ation, whereas

that of the Chinese people is more onstrained under the pressures of politi al propa-
ganda. or this reason, Andy Warhol was able to depi t Ameri an ulture through a
series of Co a-Cola bottles and the image of Marilyn Monroe, yet in China no image is
more pre alent than that of the an hor broad asting CCT China Central Tele ision
news. There, hang eili found the national fa e of China the fa e, ountenan e,
and oi e that best represent the entirety of the Chinese national ideology.
eng ianyi s work at the Garage Art Exhibition Cheku yishuzhan in No ember
1991 in Shanghai onsisted of book ases holding books whi h had been repeatedly
printed o er. Although the amount of information in reases with ea h printing, the
o erlap of ea h repeated print an els ea h other out. The setup entails enlarged head-
shots printed o er ea h other. These types of portraits are ubi uitous in China, su h as
on publi announ ements, I ards, and all kinds of one-in h hatless head-shots for
purposes of politi al ba kground he ks. E ery Chinese person, from his or her birth,
will ha e to ll out ountless forms and will ha e to endlessly deal with this type of
portrait. Through these head-shots, Chinese people are irre o ably tied to politi s.
en ian s installation Archives Dang’an addresses the psy hologi al omple that
Chinese people ha e regarding ar hi es and targets his mo kery by publi i ing se ret
re ords. The series Siphon ff and Stamp Colle ting Jiyou take the state itself as the
sub e t of dismissal. The Siphon ff series is a topographi al map of the ountry in a
seemingly lifeless sandbo . The Stamp Colle ting series onsists of postage stamps of
national ags, the postal an ellation marks pro ide a isual uidity, and it is within
this uidity that the national ag is about to be dissol ed e erpted from en ian s
notes . hou iping used the forms of old a ounting books to re ord the entries of
the histori al i issitudes of personages in re ent history. Liu ahong omes losest to
the roguish and omi al feel of Cyni al ealism, yet his rerendering of portraits of re -
olutionary isionaries su h as arl Mar in the form of the guardian-kings in folk art
does not enture too far from oliti al op.
The emergen e of oliti al op marked a signifi ant turning point in modern
Chinese art history. It was a turning away from the lose attention paid to Western
modern ideas and art a sober awakening from the grandiose uestioning of man
and art and a turning toward the real spa e of Chinese e isten e. Through a humor-
ous approa h, oliti al op takes up the trend of de onstru ting the self and one s
psy hologi al omple toward politi s. It is also a milestone indi ating the starting
point of Chinese modern art in a dire tion of its own hoosing.
Notes
. The losest English ounterpart to wanshi lit., to play with the world is yni al. The differen e is that
the Chinese e pression of wanshi is often used in on un tion with bugong disrespe t , whereas the
English word, aside from its onnotations of sneering and mo king life, retains some impli ations of
seriousness in dealing with the world. In terms of respe t, Chinese Cyni al ealism is respe tful at times,
and disrespe tful at other times, respe tful toward ertain people, and disrespe tful to others. It is
nonetheless disrespe tful to the established mainstream ulture and so ietal alue systems, although
arying in degree and manner.
. oguish humor. Humor in modern art and literature is e en more indes ribable than in traditional art
and literature. It is often modi ed in phrases su h as bla k humor. In omparison to bla k humor,
Chinese Cyni al ealism is less poker-fa ed and instead appears to be s athing, wayward, uns rupulous,
and disillusioned. like a spiritual agrant. hou uoren talked about su h mental in linations in his arti le
Broken Leg from : A broken leg is also known as a ras al and a ruf an in more standardi ed
parlan e. In premodern Chinese, it s alled rogue and down-and-out. It s alled s oundrel in Shanghai,
and agabond or blue skin in Nan ing. apanese all it s amp, and it s rogue in English. hou u taposed
it with the Spanish novelas depicaros and ited e amples su h as the rogue Niu the Se ond in the no el
166
Water Margin. Lin Yutang e en sang great praises for agabonds and tramps, belie ing that in today s
China when demo ra y and indi idual freedom are threatened, perhaps only the spirit of the agabonds
and tramps an liberate us and pre ent us from be oming dis iplined, obedient, and ontrolled soldiers
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in an infantry that is redu ed to a statisti , and that agabonds are the last-standing and er est enemies
of the authoritarian institution, upon whom the whole system of modern ulture will ha e to rely
Lin Yutang, The Art of Living .
I am attempting to introdu e this attitude toward life as a ultural on ept.
This phenomenon is hardly uni ue. The founders of New Literati art, hu in ian and hou ing in,
painted the belligerent hara ter from Water Margin, the rogue Niu the Se ond, at an artists get-together
on the o asion of the Chinese Paintings e hibition in Hubei ro in e. The hara ter was omi al and the
brushwork was light-hearted. Sin e then, this rogue, Niu type of humor has ushered in an era of life for
fun s sake in all of so iety. In re ent years, many a ademi s in China ha e liked using the on ept of the
s hippie from the West. In fa t, although there are some similarities between the Western hippie
ulture and the abo ementioned Chinese ounterpart in terms of the antimainstream ultural tenden ies,
the state of mind is uite different. The hippie ulture is e tremely simple and na e with idealisti fea-
tures, whereas the Chinese roguish humor is anti-idealisti and laims to ha e seen through e erything.
Antimainstream ulture is a alue udgment, yet the method of opposition is a ta ti al all. As for art,
it s a udgment in style and artisti language.
The famous sinologist ohn Minford also posited similar thoughts: n this post-Mao wasteland a
strange new indigenous ulture is e ol ing, whi h ould, perhaps a little pro o ati ely, be alled the
ulture of the liumang an untranslatable term loosely meaning loafer, hoodlum, hobo, bum, punk . . . .
The original liumang is to be seen ruising the inner ity streets on his lying igeon bi y le, looking
somewhat lethargi ally for the a tion, re e ti e sunglasses ashing a sinister warning. Liumang in e ery-
day spee h is a harsh word. It is the word for antiso ial beha ior, a ategory of rime. But the liumang
generation as I see it is a wider on ept. apist, whore, bla k-marketeer, unemployed youth, alienated
intelle tual, frustrated artist or poet. . . . It is an embryoni alternati e ulture, with striking similarity to
the Ameri an and European ulture from the s eremie Barm and Linda ai in, New Ghosts, Old
Dreams: Chinese Rebel Voices New York: Times, .
osts ript :
This arti le was initially drafted in Mar h under the title The Sense of Apathy in Art Today: An
Analysis of Cyni al ealism ang ian yishu hong de wuliaogan: Wanshi ieshi huyi haoliu i , whi h
was published in Twenty-First Century ebruary at the Chinese ni ersity of Hong ong. The arti le
attra ted riti al attention from o erseas a ademi s, and e erpts were published in some o erseas
ournals.
The rst draft only mentioned some op tenden ies in passing. In e ember , I was in ited to
urate an e hibition for the Sydney, Australia Museum of Contemporary Art, Hong ong Arts Centre,
and Hanart T gallery. The e hibition planning report is the rst instan e of the e hibition title China’s
New Art, Post-1989, and also when the on ept of oliti al op was rst positioned as a sub ategory of
op art. At around the same time, I was in ited to found the maga ine Art Trends Yishu chaoliu) for the
Suiyuan Art oundation of Taiwan. In its inaugural issue, I put in some additional material in the oliti al
op part based on the pre ious draft of The Sense of Apathy, and ompleted the arti le published in
this book.
Subse uently, Twenty-First Century soli ited new arti les, and I adapted the part on oliti al op in this
arti le into a separate essay titled oliti al op and the Image of Consumption heng hi bopu yu iao-
fei ing iang , whi h was published in Twenty-First Century in its fourth issue of . Afterward, the
Australian English-language publi ation Art Asia Pacific in ited me to write on oliti al op, and I wrote an
essay titled The Imprisoned Heart: Ideology in an Age of Consumption April , ol. , no. . uring
this time, I also wrote a few short essays on the two s hools of art for the Shanxi Daily Shanxi ribao) and
Genesis Chuang shiji , among others.
riginally published as Hou ba iu yishu hong de wuliaogan he iegou yishi Wanshi ieshi huyi yu
heng hi bopu haoliu i in Yishu chaoliu [ Art Trends 1992: no. 1. Translated by ela Shang. eprinted
with posts ript in Zhongyao de bushi yishu [ Art Is Not the Significant Thing iangsu: iangsu Art ublishing,
2000 , 291 30 .
APPENDIX
167
THE MISREAD GREAT CRITICISM (DA PIPAN) (2008) [ pl. 22
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By Huang Zhuan

rom art riti ism to mass media, from art-history literature to the art market, Wang
uangyi has always been seen as a poster boy for Chinese op art. This lassi ation
an be tra ed ba k to the irst 1990s Biennial Art air Shoujie 90 niandai yishu shuang-
nian zhan held in uang hou in 1992. At that e hibition, he won the highest a ademi
award from Chinese art riti s for his work Great Criticism, the o ument award. The
award omments read:
In Great Criticism, familiar histori al forms ha e been deftly linked to what were
on e irre on ilable popular ontemporary i ons, sending a hopelessly tangled
metaphysi al problem into suspension. With the language of op Art, the artist has
opened up a ontemporary problem: so- alled history is a linguisti prompt that
onne ts with ontemporary life Great Criticism is one of the best e amples of su h
a linguisti prompt to arise in the early nineties.
While this was a somewhat sket hy appraisal, the art e hibition China’s New Art: Post-
’89, held in Hong ong the ne t year, une ui o ally bestowed Great Criticism with the
label of oliti al op. Li ianting, who dis o ered oliti al op, des ribes it thusly:
Sin e 1989, without oordination, some leading artists from the 85 New Wa e ha e
one after another abandoned their metaphysi al stan e and headed toward op art. . . .
The ma ority of their works de onstru t the most in uential personages and politi al
e ents in China in a humorous way. He belie ed that for the then- urrent Chinese
de onstru tionist ulture, oliti al op was identi al to Cyni al ealism, e ept that
the former found its inspiration from reality within the broader so ial and ultural
frame and the latter more from an e perien e of the reality pertaining to the self and
its immediate surroundings. Here, Wang uangyi s Mao Zedong and Great Criticism
ame to be seen as the representati e works for this style of painting. E er sin e then,
Wang uangyi s 1989 Mao Zedong and 1990 Great Criticism ha e ome into play within
this system of e planation. In 1992, the authoritati e Western art maga ines Flash Art
and ARTnews ga e prominent o erage to Great Criticism, whi h lead to Wang s in lu-
sion in the Cocart International Art Invitational held in Italy and in the 45th eni e
Biennale. E er sin e, oliti al op as represented by Great Criticism not only be ame
the main route through whi h Westerners ame to know Chinese ontemporary art,
Great Criticism be ame the main referen e through whi h the riti al eld would udge
the su ess or failure of Wang uangyi s art. Criti s felt that this artwork, in terms of
art, is ust a low- alue double opy, re e ting that as China passes its politi al peak
and mo es toward its e onomi peak, the impetuous reati e state of artists is the ill-
ness of the period where our history de elops into a ommer ial so iety. Another
riti ism was that oliti al op pandered to Ameri a s Cold War strategi need to sup-
press China. Great Criticism be ame famous be ause of its lassi ation as oliti al
op, but it ine itably paid the pri e of su h fame: a misreading of its methods based
on an old methodology.
ne ould enture that this lassi ation and riti uing of Great Criticism mostly
result from e tra ting Wang uangyi from the de elopmental logi of his own art his-
tory as well as from plu king him from the onte t of modern Chinese art de elop-
ment. In an arti le dis ussing the ultural de elopment and nature of the emergen e
of Chinese op art, I proposed that:
The op art that arose in postwar Ameri a had two ba kgrounds, one in ultural
168
history and one in art history. The former refers to the nourishment it gained from
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the mass-populari ation and utilitarian aestheti pedigree of Ameri an ulture,

and was also a physi al rea tion to the fragmented, super ial, and sensory on-
sumer ulture that emerged after World War II. The latter refers to the refutation
of elitist strains of modernism su h as abstra t e pressionism. Andy Warhol s
isit to China in the early 1980s, and more importantly obert aus henberg s
solo e hibitions in Bei ing and Lhasa in 1985, ki ked off the spread of Ameri an
op ideas to China. This moment ust happened to arri e at the peak of China s
85 modernism mo ement, whi h was marked by the themes of enlightenment
and rebellion. It was this set of ir umstan es that produ ed su h a bi arre short-
fall in meaning: op was la kadaisi ally understood to be a ada-style, destru -
ti e kind of art, and its de onstru tionist underpinnings were poorly understood.
or politi al reasons, Chinese so iety ui kly ompleted its transformation from
an enlightened ulture to a onsumer ulture in the early 1990s, and Chinese art-
ists, still stu k in a tragi mood by the failure of ultural enlightenment, suddenly
reali ed that they were buried in a ompletely unfamiliar e onomi world. The
loss of ideals and the death of the riti al identity left thought in a haoti mi ture
of modernist enlightenment onstru tion and postmodernist de onstru tionist
on epts, whi h made op a natural stylisti hoi e for the period. f ourse, this
hoi e was based on a lear misunderstanding of op: it was both seen as a
weapon of riti ue and used as a tool for de onstru tion.
...
Early Chinese op art learly ontained mutations that were wholly different from
Western op ideas. irst, the appropriation of readymade images was histori-
i ed and de nitely not limited to that whi h was urrent. This differed mark-
edly from the random or neutral image sele tion method in the West.
Se ond, the linguisti strategy of remo al of meaning was repla ed by an
attitude of rearranging meaning as a result of the abo ementioned appropriation
method. This formed the most bi arre and ontradi tory semanti and ultural
traits in Chinese op art: it de onstru ted the original images by re onstru ting
the meaning of the image, and it remo ed the ultural burden through a ulturally
riti al attitude. Wang uangyi s Great Criticism rearranged the highly different
images of Chinese politi al history and Western onsumer history su h that the
image produ ed a new form of riti al power.
b iously, without seeing the dual nature of the ultural ualities in Chinese op
art and simply seeing it as a dire t produ t of Western modernism, it would be dif ult
to make faithful udgments about its logi al relationships to the ultural enlightenment
and so ial riti ism aspe ts of the 1980s.
Also, appraisals of Great Criticism should pla e it within the artist s artisti meth-
ods and histori al logi for de oding before a rational on lusion an be drawn.
or a time in the early 1980s, Wang uangyi was a utopian, belie ing that a
healthy, rational, and strong i ili ation ould sa e a ulture that had lost its beliefs.
His early artisti a ti ities with the Northern Art roup and his early Solidi ed Ar ti
egion series Ninggu beifang jidi all displayed a passionate and delusional pursuit of
ulture. This kind of i ili ation style is marked by order, oldness, and su in tness.
This ideali ed style was ui kly repla ed by a strongly analyti al form of image, and in
his ost-Classi al series Hou gudian , whi h he initiated in 1987, he began to dis ard
his humanist sentiments and began to use a method of re ising the manus ript of
history to omplete his work of ultural analysis and s hemati riti ue. If we say
169
that in Black Rationality Heise lixing) and Red Rationality Hongse lixing the sub e t of
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analysis was still limited to lassi al art and literary lassi s, then it was with the Mao

edong series that he rst began using politi al images as the material for analysis.
Maybe we shouldn t put too mu h sto k in this term analysis, be ause the marks
and letters on the surfa e of the leader s image were not truly analyti al results, nor
did they indi ate any politi al standpoints or attitudes. They had only one fun tion:
to break off the established e pe tations of signi an e and aestheti udgments that
people had toward these kinds of politi al images.
In 1989, he lassi ed the image on epts and methods that were produ ed during
this period as purging humanist enthusiasm qingli renwen reqing . We an under-
stand it as a desire to maintain tension between abstra t and hollow humanist pas-
sions and a old, rational attitude riti al of realism. It should be pointed out that
during this period, whether he used lassi al art, literary lassi s, or politi al images, it
was mainly dire ted at the de it of meaning reated by the uni ersal humanist pas-
sions of the 85 New Wa e mo ement it was not a politi al stan e, and was wholly
unrelated to the op strategy of de onstru ting the meaning of images, e en though it
made use of readymade images. Wang uangyi on e des ribed his moti es behind
using politi al images su h as that of Mao edong:
I had wanted to pro ide a basi method for purging humanist enthusiasm through
the reation of Mao Zedong, but when Mao Zedong was e hibited at the
China / Avant-Garde e hibition, obser ers multiplied the humanist passions by a
hundredfold to imbue Mao Zedong with e en more humanist import. . . .
Mao Zedong tou hed on the uestion of politi s. Though I was a oiding this
uestion at the time, it really tou hed on it. But, at the time I wanted to use an
artisti method to resol e it a neutral attitude is better, as a neutral attitude is
more of an artisti method.
What should attra t our attention here is the way he proposed a neutral attitude,
be ause we an see his neutral attitude toward politi s and ideology in his later art.
This neutral attitude is not deta hment instead, it indi ates that art an only make
effe ti e udgments about politi al e ents and history after it has remo ed spe i
politi al standpoints and humanist passions, so that it an naturally present its inher-
ent signi an e and alue. This forms the basi methods of Wang uangyi s isual
politi al s ien e, and it is an effe ti e means for us to understand his politi al nature
this method has its roots in his appraisal of lassi al and ontemporary art.
The ost-Classi al period was an important stage in Wang uangyi s transition
from modernism to ontemporary ideas. In this period, the artist learly di ided
lassi al art from ontemporary art, belie ing that the former in luded art of the
lassi al period and modern art: They draw their meaning from the o erar hing las-
si al knowledge stru ture, they are natural arts that are the produ t of a pro e tion of
humanist passion. What they e press are mainly mythologi al illusions, religious pas-
sion, and the ommon and mundane emotions of the indi idual ontemporary art
dis ards its dependent relationship to humanist passion and its uest for the mean-
ing of art it enters into a relationship of resol ing the problems of art and establishes
a logi ally eri able linguisti ba kground whi h uses the past ultural fa ts as e peri-
ential material.
f ourse, what really brought about Wang uangyi s transition from being a
modern artist to a ontemporary artist and gaining re ognition in art history was his
1990 Great Criticism. It seems that it was here that he nally found an image method
170
that both used past ultural fa ts as e perien e and was logi ally eri able. With
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Great Criticism, he also dis arded all efforts toward perfe ting a onsummate artisti
style, and dire tly positioned two materially distin t images Cultural
e olution style politi al posters and Western onsumer ad ertisements together
in the same pi ture, a method whi h seems more like a stylisti gamble, using a on-
tradi tory attitude to narrate the empty state that ulture fa ed within this bi arre
lands ape, where the enlightenment era was repla ed by the onsumer era. It appears
that if we iew the politi s of Mao Zedong as nothing more than an image arrange-
ment method, then it was with Great Criticism that the politi s truly be ame the
e periential material for logi al eri ation. But, it differs from the narrow sense of
politi al realities, politi al e ents, and politi al authority in the original meaning of
oliti al op, be ause the ollo ation of images from the materialist age and signs
from onsumer ulture is not ne essarily in order to make a alue udgment about the
two, but instead to onstru t an imagined relationship that an be e plained in multi-
ple ways. To put it simply, if Great Criticism de onstru ted or riti i ed something,
then what it de onstru ted and riti i ed was merely the mode of politi al on eption
that lays within the humanist passion if it reated something, perhaps it merely re-
ated a neutral image method, a method that ould ontinuously attra t attention
and e planation. He is often pleased by this:
I think the reason that people remember Great Criticism e en if they don t like
it the reason they remember it might be linked to the term non-standpoint wu
lichang . I use this term now, but ba k then I didn t know this word: it is deter-
mined by the neutral standpoint. E eryone thought I was riti i ing some-
thing, that I had a lear standpoint, but they slowly reali ed that I hadn t really
done anything. erhaps Great Criticism drew its meaning from all of these seren-
dipitous reasons. Later I happened upon a on ersation with a philosopher, and
he said that in philosophy this attitude was alled the non-standpoint.
The non-standpoint does not indi ate not ha ing a standpoint, but rather a repudi-
ation of set modes of thought and biases, using a kind of neutral relationship to
make the ob e t present a more aried and open potential. hao Tingyang, the phi-
losopher friend whom Wang uangyi ust mentioned, des ribes the non-standpoint
thusly: The non-standpoint says that e ery standpoint has its useful pla e, so different
standpoints are used in different pla es, and no standpoint is denied. That is to say,
the non-standpoint merely strips away the absolute alues or alues priority of any
iewpoint . . . Non-standpoint thinking rst resists one s own biased thinking. nly
when one s own biases are losed off and pre ented from be oming the basis of e i-
den e an he see others, hear others, and understand others.
erhaps we an trust in art riti Yan Shan hun s psy hoanalysis of Great Criticism:
Wang uangyi ingeniously grasped the tension between Warhol s artisti har-
a teristi of being lear and easy to understand and Beuys s hara teristi of
being abstruse. I think that this kind of artisti taste is most suited to his per-
sonality: agile and adapti e like the monkey Warhol s a eptan e with plea-
sure, and er e as a tiger Beuys s mer iless riti ism. To pla e these mutually
ontradi tory art images together is ust the kind of humor that he reated for
ontemporary art.
Another art riti , following the same lines, proposed that the works from this period
171
manifested the idea of bringing ombri h s image form re isionism together with
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errida s de onstru tionism.
These are all logi al onsiderations to take into a ount in our obser ations of
Wang uangyi s isual politi al s ien e.
Notes
. Lixiang yu Caozuo: Zhongguo Guangzhou — Shoujie 90 niandai yishu shuangnian zhan (youhua bufen) [ Ideals
and peration — The irst 1990s Biennial Art air il Painting Section , Guangzhou China Si huan: Si huan
ine Arts ublishing House, tober , rst edition, .
. Li ianting Hou yishu hong de wuliaogan he iegou yishi wanshi ieshi huyi yu heng hi bopu
haoliu i Apathy and e onstru tion in ost- Art: Analy ing the Trends of Cyni al ealism and
oliti al op , in Piping de shidai [ Era of Criticism , ol. , ed. ia ang hou uang i: uang i ine Arts
ublishing House, , .
. uan Lian, Shiji mo de yishu fansi [ Rethinking Turn-of-the-Century Art Shanghai: Shanghai Art and
Literature ublishing House, May , rst edition, .
. Ibid., p. .
. Huang huan, Wei uang ing: yi hong lishi hua de Bopu huyi Wei uang ing: His Histori i ed op
Art , in Zuo tu you shi [ Interplay of Images and History uangdong: Lingnan ine Arts ublishing House,
No ember , rst edition, .
. L eng, Tu iang iu heng yu wenhua piping Image Alteration and Cultural Criti ism , in Dangdai
yishu chaoliu zhong de Wang Guangyi [ Wang Guangyi within the Trends of Contemporary Art Si huan:
Si huan ine Arts ublishing House, tober , rst edition, .
. Wang uangyi, ingli renwen re ing urging Humanist Enthusiasm in Jiangsu huakan [ Jiangsu
Pictorial , no. .
. Wang uangyi and Wu Shan huan, uanyu yi ie wangshi de fangtan A is ussion about Some Things
from the ast , Asia Art Ar hi e unpublished .
. hao Tingyang, Lun keneng shenghuo [ On Possible Lives Bei ing: China enmin ni ersity ress, ,
rst edition, and Meiyou shijie guan de shijie [ No Worldview for the World Bei ing: China enmin
ni ersity ress, , rst edition, .
. Yan Shan hun, Dangdai yishu chaoliu zhong de Wang Guangyi [ Wang Guangyi within the Trends of
Contemporary Art , in Dangdai yishu chaoliu zhong de Wang Guangyi [ Wang Guangyi within the Trends of
Contemporary Art Si huan: Si huan ine Arts ublishing House, , rst edition, .
. L eng, Tu iang iu heng yu wenhua piping, .
E erpted from Huang huan, ed., Shijue zhengzhi xue: ling yige Wang Guangyi [ Visual Polity: Another
Wang Guangyi uang hou: Lingnan Art ublishing, 2008 , unpaginated. Translated by eff Crosby.
TENDENCIES IN CHINESE POP (1996)

By Gu Chengfeng
i. i vi i i ’ i i
...
Although gi ing a omplete de nition of the following is ertainly not easy, we an still
identify se eral aspe ts of Chinese op by referring to the standards of Western op
art and to a tual onditions in China.
The great use of isual signs so familiar to the publi that they are ta itly understood.
These signs may simply be depi tions of readymade ob e ts or may in ol e some sort
of formal alteration.
The sear h for metaphors in reality. Satiri allegory e tends beyond glorifying ulture.
It often uses the an as to unleash a ertain de ant mo king of authority.
epartures from traditional aestheti ategories. The degree of a work s su ess is
determined by how well it e presses its underlying on epts.
raphi simpli ity and ui k e e ution. By abandoning a sense of the eternal, op
pursues ef a y for a gi en period of time.
What is des ribed abo e merely in ludes generalities about Chinese op. Be ause of
the parti ular ultural and politi al en ironment in China, many artists rst fashioned
a ertain style and only later ame to e periment with op. Certain works embody
172
tenden ies that are only partially op. or the on enien e of our study, using op
|
tenden ies as a des ripti e term seems most pre ise. Not only an tenden y in lude
the results of reati e a ti ity that erges on the ondition of pure op, but it an
also en ompass generali ed phenomena that already display a will toward op. The
artists and works mentioned below are di ided a ording to tenden y.
ii. v i
rom the indi idual to the part to the whole

By and large, one an di ide Chinese op into se eral periods: namely, pre-1989, the
era of the China / Avant-Garde e hibition Zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan , 1990, and 1992.
These di isions are determined a ording to the number of works that appeared and
the important e ents that o urred during ea h period.
It is ery dif ult to tra e who produ ed the earliest op work in this ountry. In
truth, e en though some op works had already been produ ed between 1985 and
ebruary 1989, there were ery few and be ause the media at the time was not yet sen-
siti e to this style of work , it was dif ult for op works during this period to ome
fa e-to-fa e with the publi . or e ample, in 1987, Wang iwei of Shanghai had already
transferred images of Mao edong onto his an ases, but, at the time, it had no impa t.
The China / Avant-Garde e hibition of 1989 was the germinal e hibition for Chinese
op tenden ies. Be ause they had relati ely more e posure to material from outside
China, a number of art a ademy graduates felt the possibility early on for the immi-
nent emergen e of a new influential style. The showing of Wang uangyi s Mao
Zedong AC was a parti ularly signi ant e ent. I myself wrote in a letter thereafter,
What I really want to do is to fo us people s attitudes about ulture, parti ularly their
suspi ion of news, through artisti means and I want to e press these attitudes prop-
erly. The reation of Mao Zedong allowed me to further larify the issue of what we
mean by a ant-garde art namely, I reali ed that a ant-garde art is predi ated on
its riti al rele an e to its parti ular ulture. Wang uangyi s works were the rst to
push the image of Mao edong toward iewers, an image that had been silen ed in
the ne arts for some years but also, Wang s works used others means, su h as impos-
ing a grid and adding letters, to defy purely histori al retrospe tion and to point
instead at the present. Conse uently, although people were still temporarily unable to
mull o er the work s riti al rele an e to ulture, no one, be they artist or iewer,
approa hed the work with their former re erential frame of mind. Their earlier men-
tality was repla ed with a omple mindset that synthesi ed histori ism and reality.
rom today s perspe ti e, one still annot but feel the deepest respe t for these artists
keen powers of per eption, e en though the artists themsel es may not ha e reali ed
this style s important inspirational fun tion at the time.
In omparison to the e pli it graphi forms of Wang uangyi s works,
Wu Shan huan s Red Humor Hongse youmo , whi h was also in luded in the e hibi-
tion, used different means to attempt to arouse people s memories. The many slogans,
te ts, and red- ag images in this installation were all sele ted from the isual signs
deeply ingrained in people s memories from the pre ious de ade but the op mean-
ing of the work was limited. Con eptually, it fo used on rethinking a past era. In tem-
perament, it still perpetuated the passion of the 85 New Wa e.
In terms of arousing the audien e s parti ipatory ons iousness and engendering
a feeling of ompleteness with regard to the work s on eptual form, u Bing s large-
s ale installation A Mirror to Analyze the World Xi shi jian later renamed A Book from
the Sky Tianshu pl. 14 was, without a doubt, the most in uential artwork at the
173
China /Avant-Garde e hibition dis ussions after the e hibition ha e often entered on
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this work. In the work, we see a large number of wood- ut letterforms, unidenti able

yet seemingly familiar, losely adhering to the most important medium in traditional
Han Chinese ulture Chinese hara ters. They form a link between the histori al and
the ontemporary. E ery iewer ould de elop a ompletely different e aluation of
the meaning of the work. Although the artist s intentions were deeply hidden, the
spe tators a t of udging resulted in a form of on eptual parti ipation that ompleted
the work in a fresh new way. i en this, A Mirror to Analyze the World an be said to
ha e had a ertain op impa t and pre isely be ause of this, the work has been able
to take a anoni al pla e within the history of Chinese ontemporary art.
The sudden losing of the China / Avant-Garde e hibition and the ma or hanges
that o urred in so iety shortly thereafter led to the rapid suppression of u Bing s
e plorations of modern art. The dissolution of artists olle ti es, the rapid de rease
in opportunities for publi display of artworks , and the in reasing indi iduali ation
of artists attitudes toward reation were the hallmarks of this period. ubli opinion
mostly entered around themes su h as New Literati painting, New A ademi
painting, and New Classi al literature. These trends ertainly la ked any sense of
the a ant-garde, and in terms of their e ploration of the realm of art , they la ked
anything worthy of praise. But during this period, the de ned fo us and ultural nature
of New ealist painting attra ted people s interest. Although the number of people
parti ipating in reating op works was in reasing, their works still had not attra ted
the attention of theory and riti ism.
After his Mao edong series, around 1990 Wang uangyi began his Masterpie es
Co ered by Industrial ui k- rying aint series Bei gongye kuaiganqi fugai de shijie-
hua , his Mass- rodu ed Holy Child series Piliang shengchan de shengying , and his
reat Criti ism series Da pipan pl. 22 , whi h has de eloped almost un ontrollably
sin e its in eption. If we think of the two series Masterpie es and Holy Child as more
engaged in rational elements and as attempts to use de onstru tion as a starting
point, then we an see the reat Criti ism series as more dependent on op to e pose
ontemporary so io ultural issues.
Se eral other artists who were together with Wang uangyi in Wuhan during this
period also sele ted their material from among isual images in the publi sphere .
They su essi ely set aside their past methods of artisti e ploration, whi h empha-
si ed rationality and spiritual ons iousness, and turned their attention to op. or
e ample, after abandoning his Sui ide series Zisha , Wei uang ing pu led o er his
Thumb Damuzhi and ed Wall Hongqiang series en ian began reating his Stamp
Colle ting series Jiyou after lea ing behind his work Primordial Transformation
Yuanhua and Shu un reated the work Cui Jian as well as his Complete Colle tion
of World Art series Shijie meishu quanji . These hanges all in ol ed the artists
transforming their enthusiasm for philosophy and self-e pression, turning instead to
the popular and oolly e e uting images familiar to the publi . The op tenden ies
that their works e hibited established a foundation for the Hubei op Wa e that
subse uently followed.
In Hang hou in 1990, hang eili reated Chinese Bodybuilding — Expressions of
1989 Zhongguo jianmei — 1989 nian cuoci ) and 1990 Standard Pronunciation 1990
Biaozhun yin Should be 1989 Standard Pronunciation — Ed. . rom their plans to their
titles, his works all make a fairly lear de laration about ontemporary so io ultural
phenomena. Shanghai s Yu Youhan also reated Mao Zedong Era Mao Zedong shidai)
and a subse uent number of works that took Mao edong s image as their theme.
174
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Wei uang ing. Red Wall — A Harmonious Household. 1992. il on an as, 5 9 9 11 175 300 m .
Colle tion onghui Co., Shen hen, China
The works des ribed abo e all use images, words, and titles to dire tly referen e
the present en ironment. All of these works already ompletely possessed the formal
traits and impa t of op. At the time, not only was it dif ult to publi ly e hibit su h
works, but newspapers and ournals also remained silent about them. eople s rea -
tions to this style were ompli ated. isregarding the politi al riti ue, some people,
speaking from a purely artisti perspe ti e, belie ed that this form of e pression had a
ery low le el of reati ity. Some belie ed that op was merely a temporary stylisti
transition. Still others belie ed that this was e iden e of a ant-garde art s ha ing
rea hed a dead end. egardless, no one ould on eal his or her rea tion be it
astonishment or disgust upon rst seeing op works. This feeling was one that the
iewer la ked when fa ing works of New Literati painting and New Classi al painting.
And, as its imitati e uality in reased, New ealist paintings also failed to garner this
kind of re eption.
While the ma ority of riti s still had not yet had time to arefully mull o er the phe-
nomenon of op, artists, always more sensiti e, had already su essi ely sei ed inspira-
tion from it. In late 1991 and in 1992, Chinese op had already be ome a trend it was
simply awaiting a suitable opportunity to as end to dominan e in the painting world.
This opportunity nally arri ed in tober 1992 with the irst 1990s Biennial Art
Fair Shoujie 90 niandai yishu shuangnian zhan , whi h fo used on oil painting. This
e hibition was pri ately funded, and it was urated by se eral riti s who had on-
du ted resear h on Chinese a ant-garde art. nder these basi pre onditions, Hubei
op was brought together and made a olle ti e appearan e. eople saw that artists
in Hubei had followed earlier in uential e plorers of the language of op, with a
group of powerful e perimenters emerging in large numbers.
A slide show assembled and shown at the Second Modern Chinese Art Research
Documents Exhibition Zhongguo dangdai yishu yanjiu wenxian ziliao zhan uang hou ,
whi h was organi ed at the same time as the Biennial, was titled op Abstra t
Bopu Chou iang . Although the tenden ies of the e hibited works were not om-
pletely identi al, fundamentally one ould see the slide show as a panorama of
Chinese op. At the symposium organi ed in on un tion with the e hibition, ten or
so Chinese riti s initiated a dis ussion about the phenomenon of Chinese op. Chinese
op nally mar hed forth out of obs urity and onto the stage. Its ournalisti effe ts,
175
whi h had pre iously attra ted su h e essi e attention, re eded from iew, and the
|
ultural issues that it fa ed and e posed, as well as the possibilities that it brought for

modern art, be ame the prin ipal topi s of dis ussion. At this moment, e ery-
thing from the number of people in ol ed in reating op works to the s ale of e hi-
bitions, from the impa t that op was making to the disputes that it was
instigating ould be seen as suf ient to indi ate that the height of Chinese op art
had arri ed.
egional traits and age groups

Simply des ribing the distribution of op phenomena a ording to region does not
seem entirely appropriate. Ne ertheless, attenti e people will reali e that artists a ti e
during op s most dynami period largely resided near the shores of the Yang i i er
in ities su h as Hang hou, Shanghai, Nan ing, Wuhan, Chong ing, and others. Among
these, the op olle ti e in Hubei left the most profound impression on people. The
word in uen e might e plain their relationship. uring the irst 1990s Biennial Art
Fair in uang hou in 1992, Wuhan s Li Bangyao, Yang uo hang, Shi Lei, ang Shaohua,
and Chen L shou all indi idually produ ed op works that showed a great departure
from their pre ious art. eople ould not help but ompare their earlier works with
those that they e hibited. Su h omparisons ould result in two out omes. irst, one
might on lude that the ma ority of the e plorers of op tenden ies in China were
eterans of the 85 New Wa e. In people s memories, there still remained impressions
of their earlier styles. id this new style and transformation deri e from the indi id-
ual s strong appre iation of su h a form of e pression, or did it deri e from a stylisti
e olution erhaps one annot ompletely separate these two issues. In the end, this
is a uestion worthy of in estigation. Se ond, one might on lude that be ause op
art was something imported from abroad, its indis riminate appli ation ould yield
effe ti e and powerful effe ts in the short term, distinguished from surrounding works
whi h were either e essi ely sweet or pretentiously bitter. Ne ertheless, all of this
still la ked an appropriately prepared and established foundation. ur painters were,
without e eption, the produ ts of art a ademy urri ula and la ked the onditions
that naturally generated Ameri an op art. Andy Warhol, for e ample, rst painted
popular illustrations ames osen uist was initially a painter of ad ertisement imag-
ery oy Li htenstein painted omi book images Tom Wesselmann also went through
stages of reating omi book images and ollage paintings and, of ourse, eith
Haring and ean-Mi hel Bas uiat began with graf ti. But, in China, the rst to use the
op language was a group of eterans of the painting world, and they only su -
eeded under pri ileged onditions of being able to refer to a large body of foreign
isual materials. This both determined the rapid spread of Chinese op and predeter-
mined the limits that ne essarily appeared. Thus, more natural onditions of de elop-
ment still remained to be sei ed by the younger generation.
What was worthy of our delight was that there was already a new group to arry
on. Many of them also had re ently graduated from art a ademies, but in terms of
their lifestyles and trends of thought, they belonged to a new generation. These were
people like iu hi ie and ong iawei, who graduated from the he iang A ademy of
ine Arts Hang hou Chen Wenbo, hang Bin, eng heng ie, and Yu i, who were
graduates of the Si huan A ademy of ine Arts Chong ing and eng Mengbo and
hang Bo, graduates of the Central A ademy of ine Arts Bei ing . Their works already
embodied interests and styles different from those of the pre ious generation. Below,
we will tou h on this issue further.
iii. i i i
176
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With regard to imagery, there are two types of Chinese op: one on entrates rela-
ti ely more on the figure of Mao edong and popular images from the Cultural
e olution, and the se ond takes ontemporary ulture, as well as ommodity ulture,
as prin ipal sour es of imagery. I ought to point out that I do not agree with allowing
Chinese op to be alled only oliti al op. China is a ountry that has been rather
sensiti e to politi al ontent in artworks for a long time. It is true that Chinese op
also bears the mark of this spe i ulture. But politi s annot be all-in lusi e, ust as
politi s annot repla e art. arti ularly gi en this urrent ba kdrop of opening up and
immersing oursel es in a ommodity e onomy, pop ulture and ommodity ulture
ha e ome to o upy in reasingly important pla es in people s li es. As the most
dire t and most sensiti e medium for representing hanges in our so iety, op art
should be seen as a sort of barometer of art, publi ly de laring artists psy hologi al
mindsets. This is something that the word politi s is far from e er being able to
en ompass. Western op art also arose from ommodity ulture. The uni ue history
of China aused Chinese op art to assume a parti ular politi al meaning, but this
alone is ertainly not e erything. Moreo er, the isible de elopment of op art an
bear further witness to this point.
The Mao edong motif and themes of the Cultural e olution

The gure of Mao edong and images of the Cultural e olution su h as model operas
and ed uards easily arouse people s memories of the not-too-distant past. Although
many artists did not ne essarily originally intend to pro oke people to simply riti i e
the past, their works ould produ e ui k effe t on the audien e with the help of this
type of image. Yu Youhan s method of pla ing owers throughout his works Mao
Zedong Era, Portrait of Mao Zedong with Flower Jia hua de Mao Zedong xiang , and Great
Beckoning Da zhaoshou shares a ertain similarity with Wang uangyi s method of
superimposing a grid in Mao Zedong AC, for they both reate a ertain effe t of obstru t-
ing or blo king. Wang iwei s Great Beckoning 1992 uses bright, sub e ti e olors and
negati e images to a hie e a similar goal. The portraits of Mao edong that often
appear in Li Shan s ouge Yanzhi series in orporate the uttering pink lotus blossom
de orations of his earlier works to reate a distant, mysterious isual effe t this pre-
isely orroborates the author s statement that here, se and power onstru t a grand,
sweeping, yet absurd s ene. In Reference News Cankao xiaoxi , Yang uo hang uses
s reenprinting to arrange multiple portraits of Mao edong. This, ombined with the
use of different kinds of newspapers, produ es an effe t that simultaneously looks ba k
on the past and e poses today s state of affairs. In Liu ahong s Sweet Day Mi ri) and
Model Opera Banhua xi , through the gure of Mao edong and the images of the
model operas, heroi personages of the past era are brought together and, like a kalei-
dos ope, e hibit a ertain magi al harm. With their artoonlike sensibility, ong
iawei s Happy Moment Xingfu shike) and Invitation Song Yao ge spli e together dislo-
ated images of the ed uard and, not without mo king, depi t a state of dislo ation.
hang Bin s Model pera Banhua xi series also shares a similar le erness.
In order to treat the dislo ation of past eras, some painters ha e used graf tilike
methods. or e ample, in their Scribbles on Newspaper Baozhi shang de tuxie ,
Shanghai s Yang u and hou Tiehai smeared images and popular slogans of the
Cultural e olution era o er newspapers. Comparati ely speaking, the use of images
and slogans in Ye Yong ing s Big Poster Da zhaotie emphasi ed aspe ts of e e ution
and tended toward a sort of elegant roughness.
n the one hand, an artist s use of the gure of Mao edong and of images of the
177
Cultural e olution e presses a psy hologi al omple related to the past e en more
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importantly, this onstitutes a ultural de laration aimed at the ontemporary so ietal

en ironment. Su h a manner of de laration draws on politi al metaphors, yet works
that metaphori e politi s are those that are most easily reproa hed. or the moment,
we will not dis uss the ensure that omes from people of opposing politi al iews.
ather, we should note that in the art world, people that hampion the purity of art
are also ery in uential. This, of ourse, is be ause, ideologi ally, the spiritual wounds
that these artists e oke remain fresh in people s memories. In fa t, our understanding
of politi s only as ideology is too one-sided. Metaphori ation of politi s is also a
ma or trend in Western modern and postmodern art howe er, they understand the
meaning of politi s to be mu h broader than we do. English op artist i hard
Hamilton was on e so mo ed by the arrest of members of the ro k group The olling
Stones on suspi ion of dealing drugs that he reated Swingeing London. Another artist,
oe Tilson, ga e the title Is This Che Guevara? ue ara, Cuban modern re olutionary
hero author s note to a work that be ame famous in the 19 0s. In today s Western
art, labor- apital on i ts, the women s rights mo ement, the antinu lear mo ement,
reenpea e, ele tion disputes, and en ironmental prote tion are all issues that an be
in luded within the realm of politi s. Western artists largely depi t the attitudes of the
artist-as- iti en toward so ietal life, as well as his desire to parti ipate within it people
herish their rights. Together with the gradual opening of so iety, moderni ation at
both the material and the ultural le el is ausing people s attitudes to be ome more
normal in China. The range of topi s that artists hoose for their works will ontinually
e pand. The de elopment of Chinese op, in breadth and depth, will allow it to
e eed its earlier, narrower rele an e with regard to politi al themati s and against
this broader ba kground, ea h will re eal its differen es.
Themes of ontemporary popular ulture and ommodity ulture

opular ulture has broad parameters. It in ludes popular isual images, and it is a
dire t, surfa e-le el manifestation of the mindset of so iety. Through re eption, peo-
ple are in uen ed by their surroundings, and often feel an intima y toward elebrities,
ad ertisements for goods, so ial praise, and e en things that so iety has abandoned.
This is pre isely one of the reasons why artists hoose su h themes. But if an artist
fails to mo e beyond showing, then he loses any sense of his sub e ti e under-
standing of so iety, as well as his fun tion as a riti . Yet if an artist is too an ious to
de lare a position, then he ne essarily weakens the purity of the work. rasping the
appropriate degree of the two is pre isely the point at whi h the artist an make a
breakthrough.
The themes of su h op works are di erse. or e ample, in en ian s Stamp
Colle ting series, e en though the artist has attempted to depi t globali ation s ten-
den y to dispel national elements, the o erall effe t still employs the formal and
stately images of stamps and national ags to e press this sort of ultural dispersal.
Although Wang uangyi s reat Criti ism series primarily utili es Cultural e olution
imagery, the appearan e of foreign logos on the paintings frames the primary ontent
of the works within the en ironment of ontemporary ommodity ulture. Wang
iwei s images of poker ards and erti ates seem to oke with iewers, but his hoi e
of these mediums learly has a ertain signi an e and a feeling that is dif ult to
e press fully. hang eili s Chinese Bodybuilding — xpressions of 1989 appears rather
reser ed, and it seems to ha e rea hed a deli ate point of agreement with popular
ommodity ulture. In ontrast, Li Bangyao s Product Trust Chanpin tuolasi) is rather
frank: ommodities ll the spa e, blanketing e erything. eople en oy material abun-
178
dan e but must simultaneously pay the pri e of being ensla ed to these material
|
things. The title of the work does not o er anything up. ther works like Yang
uo hang s Mrs. Lida Prepares Powdered Milk for Her Grandson Lida shiren gei sunzi
zhunbei naifen , Shi Lei s Prenatal ducation — Pavarotti Who orgot the Song Lyrics
Taijiao — wang le geci de Pawaluodi , among others, all must fa e different ontempo-
rary issues. ang Shaohua s Wind from ight Sides Bamian laifeng has a more rela ed
mood the omponents of this kind of lightness largely deri e from elements related
to a literati frame of mind.
Another ariety of op art that deals with popular ulture starts with themes
from histori al tradition. A representati e e ample is Wei uang ing s ed Wall
series. In the works, the sturdy, indestru tible walls are ombined with wood ut book
illustrations like ea eful oors to the House, latter the i h, Bully the oor, and
Ne er orget a a or e ei ed hosen from Master Zhu’s Maxims for Managing the
Household Zhuzi zhijiageyan . Together, they represent tradition and a kind of an ient,
un hanging meaning. The artist uses these images to point to the in eterate nature of
these traditional on epts so deeply ingrained within the people s ons iousness, and
draws upon this to formulate a theme of rethinking and introspe tion.
An e en younger generation has hosen to make use of images that are loser
to their lifestyles. or e ample, in order to ommuni ate feelings that are e en more
personal and dire t, ong iawei and eng Mengbo both use ideo game images as
their medium. At the le el of popular ulture, there are many themes that an be ho-
sen, it is simply a uestion of to what degree they will be grasped.
Another impa t of popular and ommer ial ulture an be seen in op art s
departure from the pi ture frame, as installation and performan e art ha e risen to
the top. After ondu ting their performan e Disinfecting Xiaodu) at the irst 1990s
Biennial Art Fair, en ian and se eral others planned an e ent alled China 1993 Big
Consumer Products Zhongguo 1993 da xiaofei ) the a tual title is New History 1993
Big Consumer Products Xin lishi 1993 da xiaofei Ed. , thrusting images of national
ags from earlier eras into so iety, reating an e en broader so ial effe t. About the
intention behind this e periment, en ian said: 1 Let us radi ally desublimate
op art and make it an art of produ ts of e eryday onsumption 2 let us build an
artisti language that is made ompletely uotidian, ompletely li ing, ompletely
popular 3 let artists, theorists, and entrepreneurs oin hands, do solid work, and
hange the means of artisti and so ietal effe ti eness. ne should say that these
means of penetrating into ommer e possessed a mu h stronger, more de ant sig-
ni an e than that of at, framed op, whi h was inherently mild and risked little
too, these new means better a orded with op s populari ed, onsumerist nature.
Another artist, Sun ing, ondu ted an a ti ity in whi h he sold sto ks Issuing Shares
Faxing gupiao during the irst 1990s Biennial Art air and the Art Research
Documents Exhibition, whi h was another meaningful e periment in whi h op
mo ed from te t to a tion.
Compared with op tenden ies of a politi al nature, op e periments that attend
to popular ulture and ommodity ulture seem to possess a mu h broader so ial
foundation as well as a greater possibility to produ e results. Looking at the spiritual
tenden ies that su h works re e t, the allegori al nature of op art is uite e ident,
whi h, of ourse, is onsistent with the mentality that Chinese a ant-garde artists ha e
held all along. A tually, op art not only has the fun tion of allegori ing and riti i ing
so ietal pop ulture, but it also ought to possess a omprehensi e position. The on-
temporary English riti Edward Lu ie-Smith on e said: op art also is ery
omplimentary. Artists like the so iety that they depi t the delights for ontempla-
179
tion that it gi es them. They like it be ause it represents the many spe ial traits that
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they lo e in the surrounding ulture: its speed, its energy, its libido, its eal for the new

and no el. With regard to this, the Chinese op tenden ies of today are already
re ealing ertain new in linations. or e ample, ertain artists depi tions of ideo
games betray a sort of rela ed attitude. Cultural de elopments during the Han
ynasty allowed the s ope and spread of information to far e eed traditional riteria
of good and e il and standards of aestheti udgment this a t of stepping beyond
past standards must ha e been built on artists systems of knowledge, the breadth of
their interests, and the degree of their sensiti ity to the time period. f ourse, gi en
that intelle tuals always un ons iously assume the post of so iety s ons ien e, as far
as artists and intelle tuals are on erned, the right for artwork to re eal the details of
life and the absurdity of reality is eternal. We simply hope that in the midst of trans-
forming so iety, the spiritual tenden ies of artists and artworks an and must enri h
all things.
...
Notes
. Dangdai yishu chaoliu zhong de Wang Guangyi [ Wang Guangyi amid the Currents of Contemporary Art
Si huan meishu hubanshe , , .
. See Li Shan, Yan hi ilie yu wo The ouge Series and Me, in Yishu chaoliu [ Art Trends no. .
. ong e, Shi imo uowei fu hanpin Jiyou End of the Century: Stamp Collecting as a By- rodu t
in Dangdai yishu [ Contemporary Art no. Hunan meishu hubanshe .
. Edward Lu ie-Smith, Western Contemporary Art.
E erpted from a te t originally published as hongguo bopu ing iang in Jiushi niandai Zhongguo
meishu 1990 – 1992 [ 1990s Chinese Art, 1990 – 1992 , ed. hang ing rum i: in iang ine Arts and
hotography ublishing House, 199 , 90 97. Translated by hillip Bloom.
A SURVEY OF CONTEMPORARY CHINESE PERFORMANCE ART (1999)

By Gao Ling
...
ii. i i i
Sin e its in eption, the rise, dissemination, and de elopment of 1990s performan e art
in China ha e followed a path from performan e based on on eptual ob e ti ation
to performan e entered on onditions of e isten e. erforman e art by Chen
Shao iong, Sun ing, and the Lan hou Art Legion ha e yet to demonstrate a linguisti
breakthrough. They re eal, instead, an ob e ti ation of the artists sub e ti e atti-
tudes and ideas on erning so ial and ultural phenomena. This marks only the
first step after brea hing the limits of lending linguisti e pression to stati , two-
dimensional planes and ob e ts. These are ampli ed by artists into dynami and multi-
fa eted elements from nature and so iety both intangible and tangible su h as
people, fa ilities, ob e ts, so ial relations, and so on. Through this art form, artists
mental on epts are onsigned to ob e ts outside of themsel es these ob e ts entail
all of the so ial and natural fa tors stated abo e . This is primarily e ident in the pra -
ti e and de elopment of performan e art between 1993 and 1994.
Two performan es, Countryside Project 1993 Xiangcun jihua 1993) and New History
1993 Big Consumer Products Xin lishi 1993 da xiaofei , are representati e of this period.
Sin e tober 1992, Song Yongping from Shan i and Wang Ya hong, Liu Chun, and Liu
Chunsheng, among other artists from Taiyuan, were determined to nd a starting point
for an artisti re i al. They felt that intelle tual ir les in the early 1990s suffered from
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an e essi ely self-indulgent osmopolitan malaise and tended to be o erly obsessed

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with Western rules of engagement. This generated in them an intense desire to return
to the nati e roots of their li es and the essential nature of art. They made plans, raised
funds, and bid adieu to the glamour of ity life. In the spring of 1993, they left for the
remote and impo erished illage of i u ha in Liulin County in Shan i s Luliang region.
They set up their easels on the illagers kang heatable bri k beds and painted dire tly
in order to ignite their most primiti e reati e passions. Their a ti ities in the ountry-
side differed from routine sket hing trips in that their work did not attempt to re- re-
ate rural life, but rather re e ted their mentalities, as ontemporary people, within a
ertain ultural en ironment. Thus, it was pre isely rural life that be ame a restorati e
measure to help them re o er their self- ons iousness, natural feelings, and state of
mind. They found fertile soil in whi h to plant a spiritual enter of support. Afterward,
they printed a olle tion of written reports, photographs, and do uments of their
a ti ities, and e en produ ed a do umentary lm. Along with the artwork that they
reated in the illage, they held an e hibition at the National Art allery and China
aily allery titled Countryside Project 1993 from August 20 to 2 , 1993. rom Song
Yongping and other artists plans to paint in the rural ountryside to the e tension,
transformation, ariation, and enri hment of this original artisti on ept, a pie e of
performan e art e entually took shape, en ompassing both the reated artwork as
well as une pe ted e ents. or e ample, the National Art allery announ ed the los-
ing of the e hibition on the ery afternoon of its opening. The ne t day, Song Yongping
publi ly sha ed his hair and beard in the gallery. It is not dif ult to see that the sub-
e ti e stru ture of the performan e was a series of a ts e tending and transforming
the artists on i ts with ommer ial ulture these a ti ities are performan es of
ob e ti ation.
After the 1989 China / Avant-Garde e hibition Zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan , and
alongside profound so iopoliti al hanges, the state of Chinese art started to e hibit
post-ideologi al symptoms. The full-s ale e pansion of the market e onomy propelled
unpre edented so ial, e onomi , and ultural transformations. The so ial problems
onfronting art, and the ultural responsibility it assumed, underwent lear shifts as
well. re isely at this moment, around May 1992, the New History roup Xin lishi
xiaozu was formally founded in Wuhan, onsisting of en ian, Yu Hong, hang San i,
hou iping, Wang Yubei, Ye Shuanggui, hu ikun, ao i, and u hongwang. In
tober, at the irst 1990s Biennial Art air Shoujie 90 niandai yishu shuangnian zhan ,
its members a ted as ustodial workers, sprayed the oor with Lysol, and s rubbed
the artworks in the e hibition hall, making the spa e smell like a hospital. Before and
after their a ts they handed out a folder labeled isinfe ting Xiaodu that ontained
yers su h as Synopsis of the Biennial s A ademi Symposium, eports of E aluation
and Sele tion, as well as notes, announ ements, and a knowledgments. This disin-
fe ting performan e was not intended as a mo kery of the market manipulation of
art, but rather signaled the New History roup s attempt to dispel Chinese art of the
lingering effe ts of the pre ious ideology. They were preparing a lean slate for the
birth of post-ideologi al art. ne of the most noted features of post-ideologi al art is
that it does not e lude market manipulation, and instead promotes an integration
between art and the pro esses of so ial life. It stands against the iew that onsiders
art to be a mere re e tion or riti ism of ideologies, and the post olonial ultural men-
tality that su h a mode pro okes.
Ha ing nished the disinfe ting performan e, the New History roup laun hed
another e periment of post-ideologi al art in an attempt to onstru t a new humanist
art. This was implemented in their New History 1993 Big Consumer Products. They were
181
on in ed that Chinese so iety in the 1990s had mar hed into an era of great on-
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sumption. In order to se ure a pla e of rele an y in su h an era, art had to enter life,
be ome produ ts, be onsumed, and onsume e eryone in turn. This on ept onsid-
ers artworks as produ ts, set to ad ust the entire pro ess of art reation to that of pro-
du tion and ir ulation. As a produ t, the artwork is reated, transformed, and
dissol ed within the pro ess of ir ulation. In other words, the relationship among
artists, work, and spe tator o erlaps and interse ts with that among produ er, prod-
u t, and onsumer. The artist is no longer a pure artist be ause he needs to a t out a
ariety of roles in the ir ulation pro ess artwork is no longer uni ue, but an be
mass-produ ed the spe tator is no longer passi e, but an a ti e user. Thus, art-as-
produ t thoroughly de onstru ts aestheti non-utilitarianism art is no longer for art s
sake, but returns to the material itself. Hen e, art returns to life, and enters plebian
dimensions. The members of the group went to fa tories to transform their respe ti e
artisti ideas from the two-dimensional pi ture plane into three-dimensional industrial
produ ts. en ian made large uantities of Stamp Collecting eans Jiyou niuzaifu) and
Stamp Collecting Printed abric Jiyou dahuabu mianliao hou iping made a rand
ortrait series Da xiaoxiang xilie featuring portraits of twel e noted entrepreneurs as
ad ertisements Liang iao huan made erami artillery shells, while Ye Shuanggui s
rand Cerami s series Dao taoyi xilie transformed three-dimensional pottery ob e ts
into two-dimensional paper ut-outs and mo able artoon greeting ards, using the
forms of world-renowned erami works and a simple de orati e motif based on on-
temporary artoons. After half a year of negotiation, these works produ ts were
s heduled to be e hibited at the M onald s in Bei ing s Wangfu ing on April 28, 1993.
But, the e hibition was losed and ensured by the poli e on the e ening of April 27.
A ording to en ian in a later a ount: uring the fteen days around this e hibi-
tion I en ountered many problems of a politi al, personal, business, and artisti nature.
I was e tremely e hausted. Ha ing my reati ity trun ated was one of the most pain-
ful e perien es in my artisti areer. Between une and September of the same year,
en ian s Stamp Collecting eans were on sale in Wuhan s department stores and
e pos. Many pedestrians were seen wearing the eans in Wuhan. It seems the two it-
ies, Bei ing and Wuhan, harbored ompletely different attitudes toward artists groups
and their performan es aimed at transferring art to life. In on un tion with the
e perien es of Shan i s Countryside Project group in Bei ing, it is not dif ult to see
that artisti ideas and on epts often fa e a profound dilemma on e they depart from
the on entional easel form and enter into the pro esses of daily so ial life: either art-
ists ompletely surrender their own artisti ideas to ater to the pra ti al needs of
so iety, market, and authority, or they hoose to intera t only with a small like-minded
group, forfeiting ommuni ation with the masses. Therefore, if artists hoose so ial-
life pro esses as their hannel to turn artwork into ob e ts and produ ts, the a ti ities
intended to dominate and ontrol the produ tion pro ess of their work are ne essarily
under the pur iew of so ial laws and regulations. In reality, for su h performan es,
one must arefully deliberate and prepare for how to oordinate so ial regulations,
laws, and publi a eptan e and how to utili e and ele ate them through the artists
own pra ti e. resently in China, it is hardly possible for performan e art to assume a
grand publi s ale fa ing so ial reality and its regulations without undermining its own
artisti on epts.
Be ause of so many obsta les and dif ulties, 93 Zheng Lianjie Simatai Great Wall
Performance Art 93 Zheng Lianjie Simatai changcheng xingwei yishu , onsidered one of
the larger-s ale solo performan e art pie es of the 1990s, was lo ated at the Simatai
region of the reat Wall, at the border between Bei ing and Hebei, a hundred kilome-
182
ters away from Bei ing. Independent artist heng Lian ie, the hief engineer and prin-
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ipal performer, reated and ompleted performan e and installation work based on
four themes Grand Explosion Da baozha , Black Cola Heise kele , Door God
Menshen , Lost Memory Mishi de jiyi along the unbroken stret h of the reat Wall,
atop its debris-strewn summit, and with the parti ipation of noted photographers,
writers, poets, ournalists, amateur artists, ollege students, international friends, and
lo al illagers. In Grand Explosion, with the ooperation of more than fty illagers in
e days, heng used a strip of red loth more than three hundred meters long to bind
tens of thousands of broken bri ks found s attered along the reat Wall, and pa ed
them on a two-hundred-meter stret h of the Wall that spanned three bea on towers.
It was duly re ogni ed as the most time- and labor-intensi e, physi ally onsuming,
and arduous performan e in ontemporary Chinese art. heng belie es that perfor-
man e art an dire tly in uen e the spirit of the era and the people be ause it om-
muni ates through the language of the human body and spe i mediums to produ e
intense isual effe ts. I hose the reat Wall as the lo ation and medium of my perfor-
man e art not ust be ause of its i oni status, but e en more so due to its open and
e pansi e natural en ironment. Here, I felt the ontinuity of tradition and the
future the energy eld that is la king in the urbani ation pro ess whi h is in alu-
able for the eman ipation of one s soul.
Implementing one s artisti ideas in the elds, woods, and ri ers far away from
the ity allows for the distin t ad antage of a oiding arti ial interferen es and so ial
onstraints. Howe er, while embra ing the natural s enery, one also risks negle ting
the isual stimulation and inspiration of the performan e and instead be oming blindly
obsessed with transforming the grandiose lands ape. This leads to a slippery slope,
threatening to slide into the domain of Land art or Earth art . Howe er, heng Lian ie
managed to keep ontrol and maintain the orientation of the work to re e t the
haoti mentality of modern man and the sear h for the lost souls without sa ri -
ing the ri hness and the impa t of the isual language. In Black Cola he limbed a lad-
der stark naked defying the gra ity of the ommer iali ed world abo e a ground
o ered by disposable ola ups in Lost Memory he bound his whole body with bla k
loth, lea ing only his lips e posed, gasping for breath. Both were intense and enlight-
ening a ts during the Simatai performan e. Stri tly speaking, this performan e on-
tained both the general ob e tifi ation of ideas into organi ed a ti ities that
in orporated many people, the lo ation, and the lands ape, and the sub e ti e parti i-
pation and oordination of the artist s own body language. Therefore, it is a perfor-
man e that is both generally intangible and partially tangible. In parti ular, heng s
naked a t in Black Cola was one of the rst body art performan es in the 1990s.
Between 1993 and 1994, other performan es similar to the abo e-mentioned
appeared, all trying to ob e tify on epts into e ternal so ial a ti ities, for e ample,
the works of Wang ianwei, Song ong, Huang Yan, eng ianyi, Ni Weihua, and oth-
ers. In tober 1993, Wang ianwei went to his home illage nit ne in Wen iang
County s Yong uan Township, lo ated at the outskirts of Chengdu in Si huan
ro in e. He signed a ontra t with farmer Wang Yun to plant one mu Chinese a re
of wheat for a season, and to obser e and re ord the omprehensi e system of the
planting pro ess, in order to pro e the on ept that all information in this world
in luding that whi h is tangible, natural, and physi ally e ists, as well as spiritual
ons iousness, whi h is unnatural and intangible is within the ontinuous y le of
input and output. As a onse uen e, this performan e was titled Circulation Sowing
and Harvesting Xunhuan zhongzhi . It was said that under the ollaborati e efforts
of the artist and the farmer, the land yielded 700 jin of grain. Also in tober 1993,
183
eng ianyi in ited twenty interested spe tators to ll out the uestionnaire form
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alled Marriage Law Hunyinfa in a lassroom in Moganshan Middle S hool in

Hang hou, but none of them ould omplete all the entries. Many thought that this
e ent was more like an e amination, and it sparked a debate on law, marriage, and
family. Ni Weihua, in the same year, in Shanghai e e uted an e ent titled Continuously
Diffusing the State of Affairs, No. 2 ’93 Placard Lianxu kuasan shitai xilie zhi er ’93
zhaotie xingwei , modeled after popular street ad ertisements. Howe er, the te t on
these posters whi h were usually reser ed for missing persons ads, want ads, ad er-
tisements for uring se ual diseases, wanted posters, et . was arranged a ording
to an errant logi al se uen e. The te t, whi h was input using a single-byte hara ter
set, was stru tured a ording to normal line and paragraph formatting, but be ause
of the displa ed hara ters was ompletely illegible. These displa ed posters were
posted e erywhere and were tra ked and ideotaped to re ord pedestrians rea -
tions. Starting from May 25, 1993, the artist Huang Yan from Chang hun formulated a
ten-year plan to make rubbings of parts of buildings from a ariety of periods and
styles that were s heduled for demolition. This long-term performan e was named
Collection Series Demolished Buildings Shoucang xilie chaiqian jianzhu . n April ,
1994, Song ong had a groundbreaking e hibition e ent alled One More Lesson, Do
You Want to Play with Me? You yi tang ke, ni yuanyi gen wo wan ma? in the gallery of
the Central A ademy of ine Arts. The gallery was transformed into a lassroom,
where middle s hool e am papers o ered the walls and oor. There was also a sink,
fau et, and paper strips as metaphors for the in u and ow of information. The artist
himself instru ted a group of middle s hool students to read wordless te tbooks in
a serious manner. It was an ob ious satire on urrent edu ational methods. This e ent
was an eled by the A ademy within a half hour of its opening, iting three reasons:
it was thought to be fri olous, agitating, and destabili ing.
erforman e art that ob e ti es on epts and ideas into so ial, interpersonal, nat-
ural, tangible or intangible e ents and relationships, is not measured by its s ale, but
how the artist s personal on epts intera t with publi dis ourse or e en go ernmen-
tal me hanisms, how they in uen e and mobili e all kinds of on entional so ial and
human norms to ser e the reali ation of their ideas. It does not matter whether the
performan e happens in the ity or in the ountry, whether it has a publi audien e or
is performed for a pri ate ir le. In this regard, i Nai huang s Walk Red Zou hong)
e ent is a ontro ersial e ample. In 1992, i laun hed an e ent to unfurl ten thousand
red umbrellas the e ent lasted three to four years and tra eled to publi spa es in
many Chinese ities, ultimately in ol ing more than e million parti ipants. It also
attra ted ontinuous press attention and be ame the sub e t of hundreds of news
items, whi h in turn rea hed an audien e of four hundred million. Most of the people
in the art world and a ademia belie ed it was a ery su essful so ial performan e art
pie e. By penetrating into so iety, it effe ti ely hanged ontemporary Chinese art s
usual separatist stan e. But, there were also many who riti i ed it as a misappropria-
tion of Christo s yellow and blue umbrella land art and la king the riti al reati ity
of a ultural on ept. In his own defense, i held that so iety is made up of a number
of programs and pro edures that ontrol people s beha ior and language. If artisti
reation an be used not only to e press isual language, but also to design so ial pro-
grams, artists an formulate programs and pro edures that are symmetri al to the
stru ture and standards of so ial reality. They an integrate their artwork into the
orresponding so ial s hemas, and e entually ha e their own pro e ted image
emerge within so iety. To this end, i posited the on ept of post- isuality, an
attempt to transfer isual images from isolated onditions of aestheti appre iation to
184
a position within a omprehensi e program that would follow tangible beauty to re-
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ate a grander intangible beauty. The ontro ersy surrounding i s pro e t tou hed on
the problems that performan e art entered on ob e ti ation en ounters in Chinese

reality. It draws a line between two different understandings of it that an only be
tested and eri ed through pra ti e.
Note
. Cited in To Bind Lost Souls ialogue between ao Ling and heng Lian ie , published in Hong Kong
1990s Monthly April .
E erpted from a te t originally published as hongguo dangdai ingwei yishu kao ha baogao in Jinri
xianfeng [ Avant-Garde Today , 1999: no. 7, 2 8. Translated by Yin ing Liu.
MAJOR TRENDS IN CONTEMPORARY

CHINESE ART OF THE MID- TO LATE 1990S
T hroughout the 1980s, Chinese avant-garde artists and critics habitually called
the newly emerging contemporary art “modern” (xiandai), a term which read-
ily identified them as participants in a delayed modernization project. During
the 1990s and especially from 1994 onward, however, many of them preferred
the term “contemporary art” (dangdai yishu) or “experimental art” (shiyan yishu)
instead. Rather than a simple alteration in terminology, this change indicated a
major shift in conceptualization: if the notion of “modern” is temporal and dia-
chronic, then that of “contemporary” is spatial and synchronic. Not coinciden-
tally, it was exactly during this period that new Chinese art became a branch of
international contemporary art. While a considerable number of leading Chinese
artists emigrated to the West and Japan, those who remained at home also had
increasing opportunities to travel to overseas exhibitions and workshops.
Contemporary Chinese art was no longer a purely domestic phenomenon, but
began to develop in different places and contexts.
The concept of “experimental” had broad implications at this time. The 1980s
“avant-garde art” (qianwei yishu) had been strongly political; but in the 1990s art-
ists experimented with everything from medium, style, and content to the sys-
tems of exhibition, education, and the market. Underlying this range of
experiments was an intensified search for contemporaneity (dangdai xing), under-
stood as the intentional construct of a particular subjectivity. To achieve this, the
artists bestowed the present with individualized contemporary references, lan-
guages, and points of view.
The documents in this section are mainly written by artists and reflect experi-
ments in five areas: ( 1 ) self-identity, gender, and historical memory; ( 2 ) China’s
social and urban transformation; ( 3 ) emerging fields of photography, video, and
multimedia art; ( 4 ) art by overseas Chinese artists; and ( 5 ) debate on the use of
animals and the human body in making art. These original proposals demonstrate
that fifteen years after its inception, contemporary Chinese art had now devel-
oped into a mature field energized by creativity and inventiveness.
Identity and Experience
185
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A crucial aspect of 1990s contemporary Chinese art is a serious probing into the
MAJOR TRENDS OF THE MID- TO LATE 1990S

notion of the self. Beginning with Cynical Realism and throughout the 1990s,
many self-portraits showed a voluntary ambiguity in the artist’s self-image, as if
the best way to realize individuality was to make themselves simultaneously visi-
ble and invisible. Paintings by Fang Lijun, Yue Minjun, and Zeng Fanzhi, among
others, expressed heightened anxiety about the possibility of maintaining an
authentic self in a rapidly changing society.
Body-oriented performance art thrived in the mid-1990s and was most
intensely conducted in the so-called East illage near Beijing. Dealing with similar
issues about the self, Ma Liuming invented a female alter ego, Fen-Ma Liuming, as
the central character in his / her performances. Masochistic endurance is a trade-
mark of Zhang Huan’s art: as he states in the document translated below, through
the simulated self-sacrifice in the performance 6 g he explored his inner poten-
tial. Also during this period, the definition of the artist’s self was extended to
include his or her cultural background, education, and memory. Works created in
this vein often simultaneously examine selfhood and deconstruct historical
authority. Qiu Zhijie’s ignment o 1: opying the r hi Pa ilion Pre a e a
Thousand Times can be considered a postmodern deconstruction of the art of cal-
ligraphy, the core of China’s literati culture and an art form that Qiu had studied
from childhood. Zhang Xiaogang, conversely, invested his Big Family series with
memories of the Cultural Revolution. Inspired by old photos, he explored deeply
the dialectic between collectivity and personhood in Chinese society.
One of the most important events in Chinese art around the mid-1990s was
the birth of feminist art criticism and related exhibitions and publications. In her
1994 article “Walking out of the Abyss: My Feminist Critique,” the critic Xu Hong
sharply criticized the Chinese art world as “a narcissistic abyss of homogeneous
magnetism” dominated by men. She challenged both female and male artists to
emerge from this abyss, because, in her words, “modern art, without sober and
self-knowledgeable feminist art, is only a half-baked modern art.” Following her
call, a heated discussion unfolded around feminist art and aesthetics; and several
large exhibitions of works by women artists were organized in the following
years. Around the same time, artists such as Yin Xiuzhen and Lin Tianmiao cre-
ated installations with a distinct female sensibility, adding a new dimension to
enrich contemporary Chinese art.
Self
A PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF 65 KG (1994 / 2000)

By Zhang Huan
I remember it was in e ember 1993 that I had the idea for the 65 g e periment. n a
day no different from any other, I was alone, partially lying on my bed in the deep of the
night, my mind in an agitated da e. It was pit h-bla k outside o asionally I ould hear
the sound of dogs barking. The lamp at the head of my bed illuminated the framework of
the angled iron rafter beams in a pe uliar way, and their shadows were mysteriously pro-
e ted a ross the eiling like some kind of perilous and disastrous omen. a ing upward, I
ga ed at the single most important hori ontal rafter beam supporting my studio. Looking
186
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hang Huan. 65 g. 1994. Color photograph of performan e, 40 0

101. 152.4 m
at it. . . . I already began to ha e fantasti ideas, seeing the rafter beam as a hammo k
suspended in the air. Thus, the idea of rela ing on this hammo k was born.
riginally, I had wanted to use iron hains to hang my naked body parallel to the
iron rafters, with my suspended body fa ing the oor. I would e perien e that state for
as long as I ould, enduring it for as long as I ould hold out, and when I ould no lon-
ger handle it, friends would take me off the rafter, at whi h point the work would be
o er. I entertained a momentary thought of hanging from the rafter fa e-to-fa e with
a woman and ondu ting the pro e t together, but I ui kly de ided against that idea.
Later, I added new ontent to my initial on ept: drawing 250 milliliters of my
blood and distributing it in drops o er 100 white otton-padded mattresses. Two days
before the performan e I de ided against this. In the end, I de ided to drip the entire
250 milliliters onto a large medi al pan, below whi h would be installed an ele tri
hotplate. In this way, this performan e as a work of art was e en loser to me, more
pure, and more rational. At the same time, it would also bring olfa tory sensations
into the work, without whi h the work might ha e appeared differently.
The total area of my studio was appro imately 32 s uare meters, it was .5 meters
long, 5.5 meters wide, and 5 meters high. The iron rafter was 3 meters away from the
oor. f the one hundred otton mattresses, eighteen were spread pre isely on the
oor with a distan e of 3 entimeters between them. Twenty mattresses were neatly
piled together like a twin-si ed bed, set up parallel to and ust below my body. After
that, the ele tri hotplate and pan were pla ed in a entral lo ation on the twin-si ed
bed. The remaining otton mattresses were all pla ed at the wall behind my feet,
neatly piled up against the wall. To bind my body I used ten iron hains, a leather belt
for my head, a wooden plank measuring 175 by 50 entimeters, and two ladders. The
temperature that day was 32 Celsius. These were the basi tools and onditions of the
performan e.
n the day before the performan e, I did some ne essary trials, resulting in the
dis o ery that some of the details were not at all what I had imagined. I ould barely
lie fa ing down on the iron hains for a few se onds: my head and body were slipping
toward the ground. Later, I added four more hains, ing their lo ation and applying
some tal um powder, this was the only way that I ould strain to hang for a longer
period of time. The trial lasted about e minutes. This way, I had some grasp of the
performan e. Sometimes trials are ne essary, otherwise on the day of the performan e
there will be unanti ipated problems or a idental o urren es during the ourse of
187
the work. erhaps in this parti ular ir umstan e, there ould ha e been dif ulties
|
drawing blood or I ould ha e gone into sho k midway through, and the authorities

might ha e prematurely stopped the performan e, whi h would all ha e resulted in
failure. At the time, I was mentally on dent that I was in e ellent form and entirely
apable of e e uting the work smoothly. uring the ourse of its e e ution I was
nonetheless une pe tedly treated to some intuiti e e perien es. At the time, I was
ompletely enshrouded by the smell of burning blood, and this unbearable odor lled
the entire spa e. Blood and sweat dripped endlessly, and be ause the upper torso is
where the body s weight is on entrated, my hest was the most painful pla e and in
pain for the longest time. My two hands were numb to the point that they were unre-
sponsi e, ea h nger felt bloated ten times its si e my body in reasingly a hed to
hange position, but that only ampli ed the pain. inally, it pro ed best to not mo e,
my whole body and mind were engrossed with e perien ing ea h part of the body, for
ea h se ond. Appro imately one hour passed from the beginning to the on lusion of
the work, until I felt I ould no longer stand it. It was endless time all but ongealed.
In the few minutes before the work on luded I was enduring, e perien ing the
authenti e isten e of adaptability and enduran e.
I belie e that 65 g was ompleted su essfully e erything seemed like pro i-
den e, and it was e e uted without a hit h. As an artist, it is important to use your
own standards in hoosing things, and to do things that you are most interested in and
most familiar with a ording to your personal ir umstan es, to ontinuously dis o er
the insigni ant aspe ts of e eryday ob e ts, and then to use your own means to bring
them into art.
riginally published as uanyu 65 g de ishu in Leng Lin, Shi wo [ It’s Me Bei ing: China
ederation of Literary and Art Cir les ublishing, 2000 , 150 52. Translated by Lee Ambro y.
FOUR NOTES (1994)

By Ma Liuming
In Something Happened, oseph Heller wrote, I think that maybe in e ery ompany
today there is always at least one person who is
going ra y slowly.
In today s so iety in whi h nothing an sur-
prise people, artisti form has already de eloped
to its limits and artists ha e performed a ts of self-
in ury, maso hism, and e en sui ide. espite all of
this, I still belie e that art, espe ially Con eptual
art, has not yet met the kind of nality that people
ha e predi ted. The real future of Con eptual art
lies in its re erent mentality, in the maturity of the
work s on ept, and in the neness of its lear and
reati e dire tion.
Ma Liuming. Fen-Ma
Liuming’s Lunch II. une 12,
1994. Bla k-and-white
photograph of performan e.
The on ept of mid-se zhongxing aims to re eal this kind of awkward ir um-
188
stan e: people s udgments of others are based on lothing and other so- alled ul-
|
tural attributes, and not on the a tual person. The manner in whi h material ob e ts
are treated often indi ates the manner in whi h we treat the spirit.
The person positioned in a on rete situation in spirit and esh is himself
already an outstanding work of art. The reason I sele t this parti ular style or medium
is be ause I belie e that it is the only real option.
When I play a role, I am ompletely immersed in it.
To the artist, any artisti performan e is like a member of the opposite se who is
familiar yet also a stranger. The two arefully e amine one another.
Art and artists should share a relationship like lo ers. Art should onstitute an
important omponent upon whi h the spiritual life of the artist relies.
riginally published as Bi i siti in Heipishu [ Black Cover Book ed. eng iao un, Ai Weiwei, and
u Bing, with eng Boyi Bei ing: pri ately published, 1994 , 35. Translated by risten Loring.
THE BOUNDARY OF FREEDOM: A PERSONAL STATEMENT ON

ASSIGNMENT NO. 1 (ZUOYE YIHAO) (1994 / 2003)
By Qiu Zhijie
Sin e 1990, I ha e been in uen ed by the lu us mo ement and on erned about the
issue of time in the produ tion of the plasti arts. Along with this, I all the group of
performan es that I e e uted on erning pro ess in art the Assignment series
Zuoye xilie .
I initially laun hed an ar haeologi al study of the prin iples of alligraphy, using
an approa h like peeling an onion to gradually remo e the insubstantial elements of
traditional alligraphy. The rst item to eliminate was the literary nature of alligraphy
in order to return alligraphy to its original a ti ity of modeling or, spe i ally, om-
posing ink tra es, to arri e at pure isual abstra tion. The se ond step was to return
writing to the original a t of writing itself without produ ing the formal tra es of the
brush. In abandoning these formal tra es, one listens attenti ely to how the a ti ity of
writing is guided by the sub e t: writing is the e use for the writer s tiny dan es of the
brush the primary alue of the sub e t is ultimately a hie ed in the disappearan e of
its formal tra es. epetiti e writing on an ink ba kground stri tly obser es the lassi al
standards of Chinese alligraphy and strengthens its innate meaning as a form of writ-
ten meditation. The daily repetition of this a ti ity turns part of the alligrapher s life
into play. The insipid re- reation of playing further stimulates the transformation of
the indi idual state of the writer. Thus, the a t of writing the Orchid Pavilion Preface
Lanting xu a thousand times, in terms of its medium, is a return to the original mode
of Chinese alligraphy and not an inno ation in any sense.
or the lassi al literati, alligraphy was ne er a ause for establishing oneself, yet
it re eals the temperaments of their li es. Within the lassi al forms of alligraphy, the
original hand of the literatus is a kind of measure of one s artisti identity and attain-
ment of internal perfe tion. or this reason, the te t of the Orchid Pavilion is presented
as an unsurpassed lassi that epitomi es the alue of a ertain unself- ons ious, are-
free spirit that ultimately denies formal elaboration. As a erb, writing does not
denominate a parti ular thing, but rather is a re olle tion of a ertain state of the body
and soul. Through re onstru ting this state, the pra ti e of alligraphy has been sim-
pli ed into opying hara ters, so that the marks of the ink are simply reated by blind
189
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iu hi ie. Assignment No. 1:
Copying the “Orchid Pavilion
Preface” a Thousand Times.
1990 95. Single- hannel
ideo and ink on paper, paper
29 59 75 150 m .
Colle tion Hanart T allery,
Hong ong
mo ements of the brush tip, and the ink tra es hange from the purpose of writing to
the onse uen e of writing. In this way, writing be omes an endless self-in estigation
into the limits of the imagination. This in estigation auses one to forget the routines
of daily life and almost entails a slight mania. This marks an es ape from the e essi e
sense of purpose in modern affairs and, therefore, relates to imagination.
Thus, what is a tually unpa ked is a e ible understanding of information in the
a t of writing. Again and again, information opies itself and is un easingly lost amid
in nite multipli ations this is addition and subtra tion e isting in the same hermaph-
roditi body. Within this on entration of tightly knit forms, ea h indi idual alli-
graphi shape be omes in isible, and, ultimately, all these forms be ome in isible.
ualitati e hanges within the forms of the writing pro ess are guided by the restless
mo ement of information. The e ibility in understanding raised by this e isting dual-
dire tionality a tually produ es the impossibility of understanding: only after the for-
mal tra es are on ealed will the image of alligraphy itself appear. If there are no
formal tra es of writing, only then will a ons iousness of lassi al standards truly
attain larity. The e isten e of these rules indi ates the basi fun tion of art: to di ide
life into goal-oriented work and insight-oriented work di ided between rationality
and non-rationality. The sub e t, in its pursuit of rules, proposes self-positioning as a
kind of ne essary death, a foothold for rethinking imagination. At this time, writing
the Orchid Pavilion Preface a thousand times is proof of the ontology of art.
ne thousand is a random target number that I hose. In terms of fun tion, the
number may be arbitrarily e tended or ombined.
The sele tion of Orchid Pavilion does not stem from a spe ial re ognition or feel-
ing toward the ulture of the motherland. This work was sele ted for its famous name.
Be ause the orpse of an a uaintan e is more apti ating than that of a stranger, it
further re alls the ondu t e empli ed during the life of the de eased.
ublished as uanyu Zuoye yihao de iwo henshu in Ziyou de youxianxing [ The Boundary of Freedom
Bei ing: China enmin ni ersity ress, 2003 , 293 94. Translated by risten Loring.
REPORT FROM THE ARTIST’S STUDIO (1996) pl. 24
190
Interviewer: Huang Zhuan

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Interviewee: Zhang Xiaogang

Date: August 2, 1996

Place: Shaziyan, Chengdu City
Huang Zhuan: Big amily Da jiating signals a fundamental hange in your work sin e
the Chinese Experience e hibition Zhongguo jingyan zhan . The har oal-like painting
te hni ue and the typi al Chinese group portrait format pro ide a new i onography
for the isual style and mode of meaning for ontemporary Chinese art. id this
hange happen mainly at the on eptual or linguisti le el What does it signify
Zhang Xiaogang: Thank you for your high opinion of my re ent work. I think these
past few years ha e been perhaps the most awkward time for Chinese artists. At pres-
ent, as arious artisti styles ha e be ome saturated, we ha e ne er felt so keenly the
importan e of making a hoi e, a hoi e that often itself re e ts some personal artis-
ti sense. Meanwhile, what else is left for painting to do today If we onsider the
matter from the re olutionary perspe ti e of material and style, painting perhaps
really has nowhere left to go. The meaning of a ant-garde seems to ha e be ome
something for ed upon painting against its will. After entering postmodernism,
easel painting has again be ome in ol ed as if to dissol e the re olutionariness of
the a ant-garde as well as pro iding new fodder for international art ir les. If
e amined from the angle of isual language and on epts, what painting an still do,
or should do, is onsider how to hange the on entional mode of painting language
to e press a ontemporary feeling. In other words, painting will no longer enter the
arena under the identity of painting, but rein ent itself as a isual mode to e press
ideas that an inter ene in ontemporary issues. As far as I am on erned, the key
point that I ha e to grasp is not to paint a ording to the standard of painting. This
might be seen as a failure or a mistake a ording to on ention, but I intend to put the
failure to work in order to a hie e a purity of sensations. This is perhaps one of
the basi reasons why I use har oal-like rendering and the group portrait format as
the important referen e points for my painting. Besides, I always feel that when an
artist is reating a work, it is ery dif ult for him to think dualisti ally about on ept
and language. It is impossible for an artist to be a philosopher rst, and then sear h
for ertain art forms to substitute for his on epts. eople may often share similar
on epts, but there are big differen es in their feel for language. I belie e that paint-
ing ultimately still rests on a linguisti le el, whi h enables us to make proper udg-
ments regarding the pro ien y and profundity of e pression. In other words, what
matters to artists is what kind of language they authenti ally ha e a feeling for and
whether they ha e entered a desirable linguisti state. To me it is far from suf ient if
a work is merely on eptual symbols. I think on epts and language often emerge
simultaneously sometimes the feeling for a ertain language e en triggers the re og-
nition and determination of an idea. It is through su h a pro ess of gi e and take
between the two that their ulmination is gradually rea hed. Spe i ally speaking, I
began to paint family portraits in 1993 be ause I was mo ed by old photographs. It
is hard for me to e plain whi h ner e of my soul was tou hed by these arefully pol-
ished old pi tures. They stirred random re olle tions. I ould not let go of them. After
a while, I gradually reali ed that in those standardi ed portraits, besides the histori al
ba kground behind the pi tures, what tou hed me was pre isely the formulai pol-
ished-ness about them. It embodies an age-old, parti ular aestheti of Chinese
popular ulture, namely indistin t indi iduality, a poeti beauty of gender neutral-
191
ity, et . Moreo er, family portraits should be ategori ed as symbols of pri a y, but
|
they ha e instead been standardi ed and turned into ideology. As we are keenly
aware of in reality, we truly all li e in a big family. In this family we need to learn
how to fa e all kinds of bloodline relationships: familial, so ial, and ultural.
Through all kinds of heredity, the idea of olle ti ism has in fa t already burrowed
deep into our ons iousness and formed a ertain unshakable omple . In this fam-
ily where both standardi ation and pri a y on ene, we ounterbalan e ea h other,
dissol e ea h other, and depend on ea h other. This ambiguous familial relationship
be ame a theme that I wanted to e press. In my spe i approa h, I tried to highlight
the retou hing pro ess, and I had to stay on the surfa e of a ertain mental state,
repetiti ely drawing formulai and beautiful fa es one after another. The surfa e is
as tran uil as water, but all kinds of internal omple es swarm underneath.
Huang: How did you hoose your pi tures for Big Family How did you reate them
step-by-step
Zhang: In the beginning I was somewhat faithful to the things I got from the original
pi tures, in luding different images of people and details of the apparel. Sin e 1994,
I ha e reali ed that I only need to paint one person. It ould be a man or a woman,
de ned only by the hairstyle and lothes. In this way the theme of family and
sense of gender neutrality are better highlighted. So from then on the photographs
only pro ided a referen e for omposition and ambien e. I di ided photographs into
family portraits, omrades portraits, lo ers portraits, and standard portraits,
and then used one person s fa e as a model and repeated it on different paintings.
Some all me an anti-painting painter and an anti-portrait portraitist, and su h
an impression is perhaps based on pre isely this reprodu tion of a lifeless state.
Some ha e suggested that I should adopt other methods to a hie e the effe t of
pre ise reprodu tion, but I prefer the feeling of de iation reated by manual paint-
ing, be ause in this way a sense of inbreeding is intensi ed. In order to reate an
illusory and ool deta hedness and aloofness, I ha e to follow ery stri t steps: rst I
must atly brush on ery thin olors layer after layer, and ea h layer is a repetition of
the pre ious layer. n a erage a fa e needs four to e layers. inally, I use ery dry
olors to paint the light spots on the fa e, whi h reates a ontrast between the two
te tures. To sum up, what I ha e done in these years in terms of painting has been a
onstant redu tion, abandoning almost on e and for all ertain painterly effe ts
that used to into i ate me into self- ompla en y. My painting methods an be said
to be ery plain, and I do not seek some uni ue spe iali ed skill to all my own,
be ause what I alue is the uality of the painting surfa e, and I really do not set out
to be a good painter.
E erpted from an inter iew with hang iaogang by Huang huan, originally published as Yishu ia
gong uoshi baogao in Hualang [ Art Gallery 199 : no. 5 , 8 10. Translated by Yin ing Liu.
PREFACE TO IT’S ME! ( SHI WO! ) ( 1998 / 2000 )
192
By Leng Lin
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The e hibition It’s Me! is on ei ed based on obser ations of the following two ondi-
tions of ontemporary Chinese art:
irst, from the early 1990s, ontemporary Chinese art has been losely asso iated
with artists images of self pls. 20, 23, 25 . This is partly due to the widening gaps
among artists, riti s, and the art management during the 1990s, and partly due to art-
ists isolated penetration into the international art s enes. With an unimaginable
speed, Chinese artists ha e begun to tra erse their own national border to parti ipate
in the pro ess of globali ation. This has aused subtle yet substantial hanges in artists
relationships with their regional reality. While artists during the 1980s willingly
assumed the burden of regional history and so ial responsibility, artists of the 1990s
ha e instead been trying to oin the globali ation pro ess, and, as a result, ha e been
redis o ering and reaf rming their self-identity in a global sphere. In Chinese art of
this period, we nd a great many self-referential e pressions by artists. Su h e pres-
sions an be onsidered, on the one hand, as an instin ti e rea tion against the pres-
sures of globali ation. n the other hand, they also re e t a ons ious effort made by
artists to ease this pressure by de eloping a new, transnational sub e ti ity. The on-
ept of region has been hanging in the 1990s as well. While a region in a traditional
sense is fre uently asso iated with the history and identity of a nation and often
de ned by the losed borders of the nation, this on ept has been hallenged and
repla ed by that of an unfettered, syn hroni , and spatially e pansi e global pla e.
As part of this hange, indi idual artists and urators ha e in reasingly been par-
ti ipating in transnational and trans ultural a ti ities, resulting in the abandonment of
their regional burdens and histori al responsibilities. Their more fre uent parti ipation
in these a ti ities must also anti ipate their new roles as the organi ers and initiators
of these a ti ities. We an no longer restrain su h a ti ities within a state or a nation.
ather, they are part of a new ulture and are produ ed by a new situation that an be
omprehended only from a global perspe ti e. Although national and histori al es-
tiges remain, this new ulture brea hes the formati e onditions of a nation and its
history and transforms these onditions into a basis for an artist s self-identi ation in
today s global world. The self-referential works in this e hibition symboli e a global
attitude in the artists own e pressions of self-af rmation.
Se ond, in re ent years, e hibitions of ontemporary Chinese art ha e been held
in enues both inside and outside China. ften these e hibitions, espe ially those held
outside China, approa h and introdu e ontemporary Chinese art as an ob e ti ed
other. But I want to point out that it would be a futile attempt for a urator to ob e -
tify his e hibition, be ause the two onstitute an indi isible whole. As the urator of
this e hibition, therefore, I identify with the theme of the show and also align myself
with the artists parti ipating in it. I share these artists laim: It s Me This prefa e is
therefore both an introdu tion to this e hibition and a self-statement. To urate this
e hibition attests to my desire to approa h art in the 1990s through a new perspe ti e,
and to my endea or to re e t the method of studying this art by simply periodi ing it.
riginally published in Leng Lin, Shi wo [ It’s Me Bei ing: China ederation of Literary and Art Cir les
ublishing, 2000 , 293 95. Translation from Wu Hung, Exhibiting Experimental Art in China Chi ago:
a id and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, ni ersity of Chi ago, 2000 , 107.
Feminism and Women’s Art
193
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WALKING OUT OF THE ABYSS: MY FEMINIST CRITIQUE (1994)
By Xu Hong
Modern art in China ebbs and ows: the Bei ing Critics’ Nomination Exhibition Pipingjia
timing zhan is o er and will soon start again, the irst 1990s Biennial Art air Shoujie
90 niandai yishu shuangnian zhan is also beginning its se ond y le. Although these
e hibitions differ from of ial nationwide ne arts e hibitions in both their organi a-
tional stru ture and in the me hanisms through whi h they sele t works, they are
essentially still a ontinuation of obsolete and se ist traditions. A group of men sit
around and dis uss what artwork by whi h female artist is up to their standards for
parti ipation, or whi h aren t. In the end, they hoose a work by the female artist who
most losely abides by their standards and tastes, then they atta h their preposterous
riti ue to the artwork.
This is not to mention whether or not this method of sele tion onforms to artisti
prin iples what standards are these methods and their implementation based on
oes art s de elopment rely on the reation and e e ution of su h guidelines In fa t,
su h a oarse attitude in the treatment of female artists is an e tension of a longstand-
ing patriar hy. When this disregard for the ery essen e of art is isited upon the female
se and her art, female artists are a tually onfronting a dangerous situation they
must eradi ate their sel es and put their trust into predetermined artisti regulations,
allowing men to take the pla e of women, to ensure this world s standard of a singular
male oi e. If female artists attempt to alter these ir umstan es, or use their own oi e
to speak the truth, then those parties who do not understand the female lan-
guage those who disdainfully hastise the language of female artists and riti i e their
display of the e essi ely personal perhaps they are basing their opinions on a more
mas uline language will deny the female oi e. They hastise with omments su h
as: female painters don t on ern themsel es with ulture at large or so iety, they are
only on erned with the tri ialities that surround them and personal emotions in a
so iety ontrolled by men, women ha e only been permitted to do so . Su h argu-
ments are used to negate works by female artists and to dismiss their oi es, to pla e
them in a state that makes it impossible to nd their own footing suspending them in
a state of onfusion somewhere between person and ob e t.
Today, this kind of preposterous situation has not been eliminated in the least.
eal ir umstan es dis riminate against the female se , and people who magnify gen-
der differen es ontinue to offer to ll their fatherly roles, restri ting and stipulating
what determines the nature of art.
What annot be denied is this: almost all institutional riteria, in luding the estab-
lishment of philosophy, language, and imagery, are in a ordan e with rules set by
gender. E en women s own language and patterns of thought ha e in oluntarily on-
formed to these standards all of whi h were tainted early on by gender dis rimination.
When we attempt to alidate oursel es, we are un ons iously applying the model set
by others to oursel es. Now, as we regain ons iousness and are attempting to use our
own language and oi es to onfront the irrationality that has been imposed upon us
and that we habitually e ist within, we lose oursel es, and for all pra ti al purposes
be ome mute.
Although we annot rewrite history be ause we ha e anished from history as
history has progressed up to today, a re e ti e opportunity presents a new prospe t
to us. nder the domination of se ism, humankind has performed arious illainous
194
and foolish a ts that de iate from fundamental human interests. But, following this,
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people ha e sobered up to reali e that women will ultimately make this world a more
beautiful pla e. This will be in reasingly borne out by the fa ts. Therefore, as we dili-
gently sear h for a language belonging to oursel es and del e into our ons iousness
and thought although they will no longer emerge from a purely female nature, ele-
ments of a uni uely female spirit will always e ist. emale parti ipation will transform
women s urrent predi ament, and it will transform human ulture, in luding the
plight of art and in other fa ets of so iety.
Art, as the ons ien e of humankind, should naturally take the initiati e to remo e
the sha kles of male suprema y the urrent state of Chinese art is not at all optimisti ,
it has plunged into a nar issisti abyss of homogeneous magnetism from whi h it is
unable to e tri ate itself. Although the art world bestows upon itself many handsome
laurels, in luding arious -isms, at e ery opportunity, it is the rst to take the lead
re klessly to be ome king of the mountain. The ountry s arious e hibition uries are
oftentimes homogeneous gatherings, and its many se ts and organi ations ha e
be ome homogeneous lubs. asionally, one or two women are in ited merely for
show, but e en so these women are e luded from all substantial erdi ts and de lara-
tions in ontrast, our female ompatriots are often e tremely respe tful of the propos-
als made by male authorities . This, as e er, is a routine preser ed from many enturies
ago if we allow this outdated method to ontinue to e ist and ut a ross enturies into
today, this super ial modernism what is essentially patriar halism will e entually
fragment our bodies from our minds. Su h a fra ture would ultimately ause the true
downfall of art.
or this reason, China s female artists and riti s should make efforts to eliminate
these s hi ophreni symptoms, in order to allow the other se to read and to under-
stand a language that belongs to them, to listen and learly hear their own oi e most
women an understand the male language, from the moment women are born they
are indo trinated with this language , and they must work tirelessly to a hie e this.
China s male artists and riti s also must stri e alongside women if they hope to
emerge from the abyss they ha e reated for themsel es. We should reali e that mod-
ern art, without sober and self-knowledgeable feminist art, an only be a half-baked
modern art.
riginally published as ou hu shenyuan: Wo de n ing huyi piping guan in Jiangsu huakan [ Jiangsu
Pictorial 1 3, no. 7 1994 : 17. Translated by Lee Ambro y.
TOWARD A FEMALE INITIATIVE (1996 / 2003)

By Tao Yongbai
After the Chinese art world underwent the surge of the 85 New Wa e, the break-
down of the uni ed norms of the art establishment , and the urtain all of the
ost- 89 era, painting e tri ated itself from a dependen e on on epts, but also lost
the guidan e of a mainstream artisti na igator. This has resulted in an ambiguous
artisti dire tion for the indi iduali ed state of the painting world, and has re ealed
the pat h of dreariness that follows the heat wa e. Howe er, women painters ha e
used their female initiati e to make an une pe ted arri al in art ir les. In 1990, the
World of Female Artists e hibition Nü huajia de shijie marked the arri al of a New
eneration, referring generally to the fth generation of painters it also symboli ed
the beginning of a mo e by female painters toward self-awareness. They often appear
195
as a olle ti e fa e, while ea h of them also draws the attention of painting ir les
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with their indi idual personalities and strong feminist ons iousness.

Yu Hong s series on her female friends omprehensi ely uses te hni ues of on-
temporary photography, design, and ad ertising. With groundbreaking designs, her
portraits possess an abrupt sense of freshness and stunning distin tness. They use an
e aggerated ision orresponding to today s ontemporaneity, and depart from tradi-
tional formulai portraiture to appropriately show the spirit and style of a younger gen-
eration of women. Yang e in a oids the fetters of grand themes, and through a
uni uely female point of iew and awareness of women s li es, she passionately depi ts
wine bottles, iron lo ks, e en her two feet unpi tures ue ob e ts as her main sub-
e ts. The giant dimensions of her an ases are awe-inspiring and sub ert the intrinsi
s hema of the depi ted still lifes.
The harmony between ornamentation and sket hlike strokes in Chen Shu ia s
works omposes her uni uely luminous, elegant, and tran uil, but nonetheless illusory,
world. Her works are also a manifestation of her inner feelings for an outside world.
Li Yan mo es from lands ape paintings of her nati e Yimeng Mountain to rational paint-
ings that take her nati e lands apes as linguisti signs. She not only goes beyond gen-
eral models of lands ape paintings but also demonstrates a feminine spa e for thinking
about her homeland, people, and the ast uni erse, things imbued with profound phil-
osophi al signi an e. The works of former writer Li Hong and Yuan Yaomin, whose
ba kground is in oil painting, employ different te hni ues to arti ulate the li es of on-
temporary women. Li Hong was on e a ournalist, and uses her own personal e peri-
en es to re eal the distorted and abnormal e isten e of lower- lass women, thus
on eying the artist s sisterly affe tion and sympathy. Yuan Yaomin instead stresses pi -
torial language and form. She borrows from folk-art symbols, and uses a op art modal-
ity to e press or allegori e the many so ietal issues ontemporary women onfront
about men and women, marriage, family, and the like.
ia uanli is enamored with the tran uility and idle aloofness of women in an ient
times. rom her series of freehand xieyi portraits of boudoir-bound women to the
dreamlike ingdom of Hea en series Tianguo xilie and In the ala e series Gongnei
xilie , she re eals the impatient apprehension and lonely, oppressed psy hology of
modern people and a sentimental atta hment to lost elegan e, almness, and ease.
Yan ing s series of mother-and- hild imagery is teeming with motherly lo e and uses
lu id and li ely olors to interwea e a mother s sweet affe tion and kindness toward
her hildren. u iaoyan s series on orn elds employs her feminine sense of the ordi-
nary to dis o er beauty in the roplands and rubbish piles that surround her. In her
orn eld paintings, she affords us with the awareness of the signi an e of e isten e
and human life, thus linking u iaoyan s ery name with the sight when we see
orn elds we an t help but re all her paintings. Shen Ling is a preeminent representa-
ti e of the new e pressionist painting mo ement, she uses brushes dipped in life s
passion to re ord her personal life e perien es in her art there is a purity of painting
and human sin erity.
We an also see the pioneering de elopments of women painters by obser ing
the theme of owers in their work. lowers ha e long been a popular theme for
female painters. Sin e an ient times, owers and women ha e forged an inseparable
bond. In traditional Chinese thought, owers are women, women are owers the
two ha e already be ome a set. ainting owers has also be ome a traditional te h-
ni ue through whi h female painters represent their emotions and thoughts painting
the beauty of flowers, their ibran y, elegan e, radian e, and lo eliness, endows
feelings and lo e, praise, and tribute. Ea h ower is truly its own world, and history
196
has left us with many e ellent works. But almost no one has made dried and withered
|
owers their primary ob e t of praise. And, in painting ir les, u Min is not the only
one painting su h owers, there are also Li Hongfeng and Lei Shuang. nder their
brushes, these dried, withered owers ha e long ago lost the deli ate e pressions of
their former days. nder the tender ga es of these female painters, we see eternal life
solidi ed in the shape of dried and withered owers they seem to be telling us that it
is the owers who offered themsel es to the world, who endured the pro ess of des-
i ation, and who emerged as a kind of immortal spirit.
If we were to thoroughly s an the body of painters today, we ould ite a long list
of names demonstrating the distin ti e mien of female painters, su h as Cai in pl. 2
and her banana series, or Liu Liping and her rural series, Chen i s realisti series
depi ting so ial phenomenon, and u Hong s edgier works. They demonstrate that
the 1990s is the de ade for female artists in China to ar e a ni he for themsel es. In
their sear h for the female, they ha e interwo en the modern woman s self-af rmation
and trans enden e, her identi ation of and e lusion from the world of men, and her
parti ipation in or es ape from the outside world along with arious spiritual ontra-
di tions. All of these strengthen the self-awareness of the female sub e t, and their
arri al at the forefront by surpassing traditional male styles of painting. These women
artists take their profound on ern for women s topi s as the entry point for their re-
ati e pra ti e. They utili e their pain and pity omple to empathi e with onditions
of female e isten e and life alues, and pursue a more perfe t human nature. All the
artisti sin erity and on den e e pressed in their persistent pursuit bring the ad an-
tages of female emotions into full play, thus entering an unrestrained artisti state. By
perfe ting the omposition and enri hing the meanings, we arri e at a de niti e artis-
ti orientation and position. Compared with the oil painting e hibitions today whi h
emphasi e e e ution, la k genuine feeling and spiritual meaning, and ha e been alled
mas uerades the ontinuous appearan e of e traordinary e hibitions by female
artists has, ontrary to e pe tations, be ome the new prospe t in e ting life into paint-
ing ir les.
In their new book Megatrends for Women, ohn Naisbitt, the rather in uential
author of Megatrends, and atri ia Aburdene use the on ept of riti al mass from
physi s to illuminate how women are transforming the world: Criti al mass an be
ompared to an a alan he, at rst only a snow ake mo es, it seems like nothing will
happen, but millions of snow akes hange into billions, at the turning point, they will
burst with a boom. When riti al mass appears, this is the moment when tenden-
ies hange into megatrends, the moment when new so ial standards repla e the
old. They belie e the 1990s to be the era of women s liberation, when a riti al mass
for gender e uality has already arri ed, or when women and men an e ually progress
to mold the future of humanity.
The prospe t of su h a global megatrend is alluring, but this depends on women s
efforts to stri e for it. Today, female artists are showing strength and ompeten e in
liberal and enlightened painting ir les, but truly mo ing toward a feminine initiati e
is an e er-demanding pro ess. Many female artists hope that people will see them as a
painter, not as a female painter, and indeed art trans ends gender ust as brillian e
trans ends gender. No matter male or female, genuine artists surely ha e their artisti
originality. They do not easily submit to any nature of olle ti e attributes, and still are
able to reate their own independent style. E en so, so many women artists harbor a
gender inferiority omple , it is almost as if terming someone a female artist is sus-
pe t of belittling her artisti standards.
Su h slandering of one s own identity ontinues to ha e roots in the traditional
197
modes of thinking of a male- entered ultural authority. nder the in uen e of thou-
|
sands of years of being treated as inferior to men, women ha e de eloped an inferior-

ity omple . Conse uently, they seek onfirmation of their own alue through
identi ation with men. Women rst deny the so ial dis repan ies between the two
genders, forfeiting their own sub e ti e ons iousness in what appears to be a on ept
of gender e uality, but in essen e is dependen e on the male gender.
We an say that the liberation of women is in fa t also a re olution in ideologi al
ulture women need to undergo a pro ess of self-re ognition. In re e ting on the
history and status uo of women, to fully reali e that women not only need to share
with men the burden of that hea y responsibility whi h is dri ing the arts into a mod-
ern era, they need to preser e the autonomy of a female sub e ti e ons iousness.
Women painters need to o er ome this twofold dif ulty, if they are to parti ipate in
the building of human ulture and reali ing its ultimate goal of e uality between men
and women.
E erpt from a te t originally published as ou iang i ue de n ing huihua in 96 Shanghai meishu

shuangnian zhan lilun yantaohui lunwenji [ Collected ssays from 96 Shanghai Biennial Symposium on
Theory , re ised ersion in Piping de shidai [ Era of Criticism ol. 1, ed. ia ang hou uang i: uang i
ine Arts ublishing House, 2003 , 138 41. Translated by Lee Ambro y.
WRAPPING AND SEVERING (1997) pl. 27

By Lin Tianmiao
After sele ting this kind of a ti ity for myself wrapping e eryday ob e ts in thread I
began to think of it as a real kind of orporal punishment. Moreo er, I kept saying to
myself, abandon this, gi e it up . . . Later, I slowly be ame a ustomed to it. E ery
day, I would wrap a little, and with ea h passing day like this, I felt perfe tly alm and
psy hologi ally at ease. The on ept of orporal punishment also hanged: was I
being punished or did I go looking for this punishment
A tually, all women e perien e this kind of orporal punishment in their daily
housework: if she were to end this situation, a new orporal punishment would
await her. Is it possible to se er oneself from these tangled ir umstan es
After nearly a de ade of shuttling ba k and forth between New York and Bei ing,
it s easy for me to ompare old and new lifestyles, parti ularly with the e eryday
ob e ts that I m able to see and tou h. ld pots, metal basins, oal-burning sto es,
sewing ma hines, thimbles, water ladles, ba ks rat hers, knitting needles, ars for
pi kled egetables, et . . . . ha e all been repla ed by lighters, ele tri o ens, mi ro-
wa es, et . . . . The natural, familiar, and warm rhythms left behind by old utensils and
applian es will gradually be superseded by trendy, modern ways of life. New alue
systems negate old ones, making it dif ult for people to make wise hoi es and udg-
ments. I, also, an nd no way out, so I might as well wrap them entirely in thread.
New, old . . . after they are all wrapped up, they will ease to ha e any utilitarian fun -
tion, and ease to ha e any attributes.
riginally published as Chan yu ian in Huipishu [ Gray Cover Book ed. eng iao un and Ai Weiwei
Bei ing: pri ately published, 1997 , 87. Translated by eggy Wang.
CLOTHES CHEST (YIXIANG) (1995) pl. 28
198
By Yin Xiuzhen
|
I lo e remembering things. rom my hildhood until now, I e left behind many

lothes at the wayside. What they re ord is e en ri her than photographs. After a
period of time, I began to think of them as my artwork. Although they an be atego-
ri ed as personal things, they also manage to resonate with a lot of people.
I e folded ea h item of lothing and sewed them all together using a needle and
thread. I e pla ed the lothes into a hest that I e had for a long time. I then poured
ement into the hest, and allowed it to solidify. The ontrasts between hard and soft,
old and warm, reason and per eption e oke a kind of indes ribable feeling.
riginally published as Yi iang in Baipishu [ White Cover Book ed. eng iao un and Ai Weiwei
Engagement with Social Transformation
By the mid-1990s, most contemporary Chinese artists had freed themselves from
the baggage of the Cultural Revolution. Their art now responded directly to issues
in contemporary Chinese society [ pl. 29 ]. In the field of painting and sculpture,
Gaudy art developed into a formidable force. Combining visual elements from ear-
lier Cynical Realism and Cultural Pop, it simultaneously satirized and embraced
the “vulgar” taste of commercial culture. Favored by gallery owners and foreign
collectors for its brilliant coloration and exaggerated imagery, the fate of Gaudy
art seems doubly ironic: in critiquing consumerism and material desire, it was
itself willingly commercialized.
In contrast, a group of performance and installation artists developed non-
commercial art projects to interact with society. As revealed by some of the texts
translated below, what fascinated these artists most was China’s mind-boggling
transformation: the rapid disappearance of the traditional city and its neighbor-
hoods (Zhang Dali, Huang Yan, Zhan Wang, the Three Men Studio), and the
changes in human relationships, lifestyles, taste, and values (Zhu Fadong, Wang
Jin, Zhang Huan, Wang Jinsong, Chen Shaoxiong, and Zeng Hao). Instead of rep-
resenting society objectively as did the New Generation painters, however, they
attempted to capture their own responses to the social transformation, including
their confusion about place in a rapidly changing environment.
A striking aspect of Chinese cities in the 1990s was the never-ending destruc-
tion and construction. Old houses were coming down every day to make room for
new buildings, and thousands of people were relocated from the inner cities to
the outskirts. These conditions were the background of several projects docu-
mented in this section. Zhang Dali, for instance, created over two thousand graf-
fiti images of his own head all over Beijing from 1994 to 2000. Sprayed or carved
on half-demolished traditional houses, these images enabled the artist to engage
the city in a “dialogue,” and in fact became the focus of the first public discussion
in China about the concept of contemporary public art.
Gaudy Art
199
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LIVING IN KITSCH — THE CRITICAL “IRONY” OF GAUDY ART (1999)
By Liao Wen
The time is 1999, the nal few months of the twentieth entury. The pla e is Bei ing,
China s apital, the heart of the nation, the window to the outside world. As a perfe t
e ample of modern life and ulture, this is what meets the eye: ity blo ks lled with
on rete buildings, apped with pseudo-gla ed rooftops, o ered by bathroom tiles
and tinted glass windows. S uee ed in between them are small guesthouses, restau-
rants, bathhouses, hair salons, and karaoke bars, s reaming for lients by means of lan-
terns and Christmas lights during all seasons, banners, balloons, and e en in ated
plasti rainbows. E en if we dri e miles into the ountryside, we an nd the same
buildings splashed a ross the natural lands ape. ur eyes are assaulted by the haoti
world of kits h. We are surrounded by instant millionaires with heap produ ts af u-
en e without foundation.
We are submerged in kits h, an unstoppable mainstream Chinese ulture at the
end of the entury.
: i i
The romanti ideal is a dream that has been pursued by Chinese for the past fty
years. To do away with anti uity, to build new things, to forget about tradition, let s
destroy the old world and build a new China. ur forefathers worshipped nature,
prayed for elestial and earthly harmony. They feared nature s for eful re enge. Today,
we belie e in man s power and pra ti al a hie ements we want to pro e that we an
on uer the sky.
Bei ing is a perfe t e ample of this pursuit of the new. The ity was built se en
hundred years ago in the in dynasty. ntil 1949, it was a enter of onsumption. After
the re olution, Bei ing be ame an industrial enter for iron, steel, oal, petro hemi als,
ma hinery, te tile, printing, et . With ama ing speed, a se en-hundred-year-old api-
tal was transformed into an industrial hub. Bei ing s skyline is one of puf ng himneys
and riss rossing ele tri wires. This same s enery has been the sub e t of propaganda
posters from the 1950s to the 1980s.
The romanti ideal has inspired the Chinese to dismantle the past. The ommer-
ial ulture of the 1990s has es alated the fero ity of this destru tion. Anti uity has
anished, e en the old new of the 1950s is being taken down at great speed. The
Bei ing of the 1990s is a permanent onstru tion site. We are not only in the business
of transforming the old, we also want to mira ulously transform something entirely
into the new. I am not sure whether man has the ability to forget that man has har-
bored a desire to edit one s own re ords, to hange the past, to erase tra es of rela-
tionships. But, what I do know is idealism that is fused with goals and the possibility
of reali ation has be ome reality.
The Chinese bulldo er has swept a ross the nation under the banners of mod-
erni ation and ethni ulture. It has leared away all remnants of pre iously estab-
lished so ial alue systems and aestheti standards. And, along with them, a lifestyle
and art form also met their demise. What appeared afterward was a self-professed
new, mira ulous moderni ation that arose from the debris, to laim and reinfor e the
oman e of the New to our hildren. nfortunately, all of this newness, mira le
and moderni ation is not what is needed for a modern i ili ation.
: i i
200
New annot be modern unless supported by an aestheti alue system. If we build

|
with a modern straight line but add to it ur es of anti uity, if we allow oursel es to
repla e the gentle sloping of a lassi wooden roof with plates of hard on rete, if we
imitate the gra eful ar h of gla ed tiles with bent metals, we are destroying aestheti
alues. We ha e uprooted the simpli ity, the straightforwardness, and the fun tional-
ism of the straight line. At the same time, we ha e distortedly plagiari ed the sump-
tuous elegan e of lassi al Chinese ar hite ture and misinterpreted the emphasis on
the de orati e. Whether it is a bank or a publi toilet, any publi building in China is
most likely to ha e a pseudo red wall, fake gla ed tiles, stone lions, or red lanterns
perhaps e en some oman images as well . These features are unforgi ingly ombined
with green or blue glass, shiny opper-plated olumns, and aluminum window frames.
It is a heap s enery hastily onstru ted on the bankrupt y of an aestheti system.
To plagiari e tradition, to interrupt ultural ontinuity, to opy without under-
standing are habits whi h ine itably lead to the new aestheti of ugliness. The New
gliness is not only an aestheti udgment, it is a testament to the dilapidated state of
moral standards and human dignity. This is the age in whi h media indulges in mutual
attery, the age of ad ertisement with the same stupid smile in e ery form the age
when aust be omes a moral role model for the young, and the desire to reshape
nature is handed su h an awesome tool. . . .
There are two reasons why the ugliness of kits h an be termed an aestheti inter-
est. irst, the interest is a result of the pursuit of the New: the oman e of the New
is a popular mo ement. It is ha kneyed and appeals to the masses. To a large e tent, it
stirs up dreams of what is good kits h is ugly, but merry. Se ondly, I am not sure
how many people an still dete t the ugliness. It ould be that e eryone is li ing hap-
pily in this en ironment. eople ha e forgotten the desire to admire beauty and lost
the ability to en oy it. When a phenomenon be omes phenomenal, it eases to be an
issue. Howe er well trained he is, one man s show annot outwit the onslaught of mil-
lions. The ugliness is irresistible, it des ribes an una oidable reality. It is all powerful.
: “i i ” i i
or an artist who li es and breathes in kits h, but still feels some responsibility toward
ulture, the situation is at best awkward. I do not want to argue that art an hange
so iety, but at least art an dis lose a reality so as to remind all of us to be riti al and
independent of our en ironment. This is the aspiration of audy art Yansu yishu .
audy art in China was born in the mid-1990s. In May 199 , there was a urry of
audy art e hibitions: Popular Model Dazhong yangban , Gaudy Life Yanzhuang shen-
ghuo , followed by Damaged by Affluence Fuhua de shanghai , and Narrative of Skin
Pifu de xushu . Con entrated together, they led to an artisti hot spot, and riti s,
in luding myself, ha e already written about their a ademi alue in great detail. At
the time, I was of the opinion that audy art dire tly targeted the urrent ulture. The
sar asm is learly e pressed through an e aggerated imitation of kits h. But, problems
remained in the artworks: rst, the o abulary was repetiti e, and symbols su h as
abbages, owers, and girls kept reappearing in different works. E en the te hni ue,
an e aggerated, at, shiny surfa e in the mode of ad ertisements, was similar among
different artists. Se ond, the language of audy art was still insuf ient: it was still
modeled on kits h, but in reality seemed indistinguishable from it. This was potentially
damaging to the implied sar asm in the artwork.
Today, three years after audy art rst appeared, our e hibition is replenished by
new works, and a new on ept is presented by artists who ha e ontinued to e plore
audy art. While some artists left the group to nd other forms of e pressions, others
201
oined its ranks.
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In omparison with the works presented three years ago, these works show dif-

ferent le els of maturity, presenting a more personal perspe ti e and o abulary. These
works intelligently borrowed aspe ts of the kits h format, and demonstrated the art-
ists talent in using te hni ues of Chinese folk art.
Art History Yishushi by u Yihui le erly uses the homonym shi, whi h an
mean either history or shit. Hen e yishushi an mean either art history or artisti shit.
u uses olorful owers and a hea ily de orated trophy to ele ate this y- at hing
shit on the altarpie e. His use of gold in the shit hints at dreams of fabulous wealth.
Surrounding the altar are lassi al Chinese ouplets, whi h usually are used to de o-
rate doorways in rural China. The hori ontal banner reads art shit. The two erti al
stan as read Art is a ower Master of the home. This is a further pun or a popular
slogan from the fties. The original two stan as were rain is a ower ertili er is
the master. Again, u makes a play on words, e hanging shit for fertili er. u s
work is both serious and humorous, meti ulous and super ial, elegant and grotes ue,
reati e and greedy. Art History is an e pression of the artist s helplessness in the fa e
of an art whi h is be oming base it is his own re e tion on art be oming kits h, as
well as his serious doubts about the alue system for art and art history today. Jinqian
is another pun. It means literally gold money but also implies wealth in Chinese.
old money, whi h is used only for de orati e and symboli purposes, is often burned
in folk eremonies to pray for wealth. The Chinese also make dolls to pray for a baby,
grain to pray for a good har est, the dragon for rain, et . . Jinqian re eals the illusion of
wealth as well as the desire and need for the illusion. u Yihui is one of the earliest art-
ists to use folk-art te hni ues. He has now perfe ted his skills in por elain as well as
his personal o abulary. The relief on the trophy, with ompli ated por elain letters
and an e plosion of gold shit and gold money, perfe tly e presses the strength of
the author in his use of sar asm.
Dream Plants Lixiang zhongzhi by Hu iangdong in ludes rystal abbages. The
work e okes the folk tale about the greedy man who planted seeds in hopes of grow-
ing gold and ade. Hu originally wanted to use traditional raft te hni ues to make
s ulptures alled ade abbages as well as employ heap fake ade to make imitation
ade abbages. Although ade abbages are symboli of o ernight wealth, they were
ultimately too e pensi e to be made. After se eral e periments, he hose resin as his
material, as this is lose to ade in appearan e. As the work e ol ed, natural materials
were repla ed by industrial materials, deli ate ar ing was substituted with simple
molding, miniature ade ob e ts were repla ed by larger-than-Iife abbages. The nal
work and its e olution is an a urate statement of the desire for wealth among Chinese
peasantry. lanted in the ground, the resin abbage takes on an additional le el of sar-
asm posing as the symbol and dream of a good har est.
Happiness Xingfu) and Romantic Trip Langman lücheng by eng heng ie are
series of works that themati ally take Chinese wedding photos as their sub e t. eng s
riti ism points at the ommer ial manipulation of the desire to feel good and roman-
ti , whi h has greatly heapened the human pursuit of happiness. His work re eals to
us that the need to appeal to ulgarity is not merely a form, but also a matter of taste
and a beha ioral pattern. The kits h-man s Kitschmensch need for kits h: it is the
need to ga e into the mirror of the beautifying lie and to be mo ed to tears of grati -
ation at one s own re e tion. As a painter, eng is in the minority within the audy
artists. His gures wear a isage of happiness that is more than a blush, it is almost pur-
ple. In the ba kground are images of amusement parks, World ark Shijie gongyuan ,
202
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eng heng ie. Romantic Trip

No. 21. 1997. il on an as,
59 74 150 190 m .
ri ate olle tion
and other popular leisure destinations. The surfa es of his paintings ha e the smooth-
ness and brightness of a alendar poster. Through this ombination, eng has arri ed
at a personal style with a te hni ue that omes from but also es apes the li h of tra-
ditional paintings
Lu Hao s Flowers Hua , Birds Niao , Fish Yü) and Insects Chong re all four pop-
ular playthings for Chinese people who reside in the ity pl. 30 . Lu Hao has remo ed
these playthings from their usual ages and put them into symbols of Bei ing s ar hi-
te ture. The reat Hall of the eople is a ase, the National Art allery is a bird age,
Tiananmen is a shtank, and inhua Men ate of New China is an inse t ar. This dis-
lo ation illustrates the separation of urban li ing from nature. n the one hand, the
fa t that natural ob e ts ha e be ome playthings is itself a distortion of nature, it takes
nature out of nature. n the other hand, these distorted playthings are admired by
ity dwellers, whi h further separates the people from nature. le iglas is a perfe t
material to e press su h a state of solid separation, but apparent transparen y.
Models Dianxing by hang Ya ie has a rm grip on the on ept of the role model
in Chinese so iety. These uni ed, regulated models of onformity, from Young ioneers
to e emplars from different professions, are not only measured by their beha ior but
are also re uired to look the same. They must display the same attitude: easygoing,
happy-go-lu ky, pleasant with no tra e of personality. hang used traditional folk
methods for inlaying doll s eyes and styli ed plasti e trusions to reate that sameness,
a uniformity that is sad and omi al at the same time.
In The Thinker Sixiang zhe) and Thousand Hand Buddha Nalai qianfoshou , Wang
ingsong digitally superimposes himself into his works. The artist mimi s meditati e
positions with a isage of sin erity. Yet, the M onald s logo is ar ed onto his hest,
and in his hands are lu ury-brand items. This kind of religious worship is a lear state-
ment that onsumerism, along with fashion, ha e not only impa ted people s daily
li es, but ha e also ontaminated their souls. With the image of a man in his under-
wear, with his abbages and garbage heap, and a omputer spray-painted onto el et
and bro ade, this kind of worship is gi en a peasant a or.
In the works of the Luo Brothers, the artists are telling us that we ha e been
bought and on uered by name brands. In Welcome World-Famous Brands Huanying
shijie mingpai , the artists ha e reated a montage of widely disseminated symbols
from different eras, from New Year s pi tures illustrating sayings su h as May you be
happy and prosperous, May you ha e a surplus year after year and Wishing you
fortune and happiness to urrent ommer ial ad ertisements. All of these are om-
203
pletely shrouded under a huge ray of light. The Luo Brothers were among the earliest
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audy artists to e periment with folk-art te hni ues. Their works push the brilliant

olor and shine of traditional la uer paintings to an e treme, thereby further empha-
si ing the ashy atmosphere of the nou eau ri he.
Copying a Calendar Fang yuefenpai , Love of Lushan Lushan lian) and Fashion Girl
Shimai n lang are all works by Liu heng. The bro ade uilt- o er has been a tradi-
tional gift at Chinese weddings for half a entury. Liu has embroidered beads on the
o ers, together with alendar girls from the 1920s to the 1940s, mo ie starlets from
the 1970s and 1980s, and supermodels from the 1990s. The work is a re e tion of a
state of mind: pretty things, loud things, empty things.
Shao henpeng imitates lassi al Chinese mahogany furniture in his work Made in
China Zhongguo zhizao . He fuses the lassi al shape of the hair with re olutionary
red ags and stars, sun owers and pines, as well as beauty ueens. Made in China is
not only a statement on China s de elopment from a lassi al traditional so iety to a
re olutionary so iety and nally a onsumer market e onomy, but it also e presses
how China has gradually be ome a sour e of heap ommer ial goods for the West.
Shit with Long Hair Zhangman maofa de dabian) and Shit with a Dream Manhuai
lixiang de dabian are works by Yu Bogong. He uses gold- olored bro ade, whi h was
spe ially reser ed for the emperor s lothing, and folk fabri to sew piles of soft, plush,
and uffy shit. He has also draped them with hair like a woman s fashionable eil or
atta hed pink, ushy wings. His work is ridi ulous, amusing, and nauseating e en the
pinned-on y is wearing a mask. The author is laughing at the nou eau ri he, for whom
money an easily substitute elegan e and intelle t.
Classics Jingdian is a denun iation of the new ultural hypo rites and their pre-
tension of ha ing lass. Liu Liguo uses a folk te hni ue of making ar ings and reliefs
in por elain to depi t kits h symbols of prestige su h as dragons, phoeni , ranes, and
lotus blossoms, ombined with base images of butto ks.
Li Luming s work Chinese Hand Gestures Zhongguo shouzi is a play on Buddhist
mudras. He has distorted the sa red positions by making them eroti and ommon.
What was pre iously a symbol of elegan e and mystery is transformed into the fash-
ionable gestures of starlets. Not only has he degraded the gestures, he has also pla ed
kits h ob e ts, su h as high-heeled shoes, into these hands. Li s work shows the ur-
rent ultural ir umstan es of ontemporary China s transformation of the elegant
into the ulgar.
The term Miss xiaojie has be ome a popular and o erused designation for
addressing a woman in market e onomy China in all orners of urban China, one an
hear someone alling Miss a sure sign of an o erde eloped ommer ial ulture .
Sun ing has hosen this word to represent his works: Miss Fashion Shishang wenhua
xiaojie , Miss Service Wei ni fuwu xiaojie , and Miss Avant-Garde Art Qianwei yishu
xiaojie . He has also used ob e ts dire tly asso iated with Miss : fashion garments and
a essories, as well as those o erly sweet greetings su h as at your ser i e, endless
en oyment, ha e a ni e dream, li e it up, and I lo e you, et .
I Love McDonald’s Wo ai Maidanglao) and Live Broadcast Xianchang zhibo ha e
ompletely aptured the most pre alent symbols of kits h: the repetition of the same
family eating hamburgers or in a supermarket-style broad ast program, thereby
emphasi ing the per asi eness of su h ultural trends. The artists hao in and Liu
ian ha e repainted the same s ene with people from all walks of life, peasants, stu-
dents, businessmen, male, female, old, and young, and loned them, gi ing them the
same e stati e pression. The authors humorously ridi ule the go with the flow
mentality and gi e a serious sub e t a sense of lightness a phenomenon uni ue to art-
204
ists born in the 1970s .

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Although Yin i has spent the last few years in China, his residen e in ran e has
gi en him a different perspe ti e on kits h. Yin has arefully photographed a sele -

tion of small kits h ob e ts, su h as bright butter y hairpins, pink plasti houses, the
Statue of Liberty bearing a strange e pression Yin laims it is a look of disgust . The
photos are shot like ad ertisements, beautifying the ob e ts and making these heap
goods into deli ate, pretty things. When these items are enlarged, the effe t is su h
that these small ob e ts are blown out of proportion and lose all sense of reality. Yin s
work glori es small kits hy ob e ts, and to a ertain e tent demonstrates a romanti
ren h humor.
...
Wow audy art is a omedy: li ely, happy, humorous, but like all good omedies
it possesses a riti al sense of sar asm. It reads the absurd side of our e isten e. What
we see on tele ision, omedies su h as Story of an ditorial ffice Bianjibu de gushi ,
I Love My Home Wo ai wo jia , and e en the talk show Be Honest Shihua shishuo) use
this kind of riti al stan e to a hie e the same result as audy art.
As in all good omedies, at some point a sense of sadness reeps in. The longer
and more deeply we appre iate a oke, the more we an feel sorrow. rom this per-
spe ti e, audy art is a desperate omedy for the end of the entury.
Notes
. Bei ing entry, in Cihai Dictionary Shanghai: Shanghai En y lopedia ublishing House, .
. orgetting, in Milan undera, Sixty-Three Words.
. Ideal entry, in Cihai Dictionary.
. See Li ianting, Youguan yansu yishu hengyin de buyi An Addendum to Contributing a tors to
audy Art .
. In , Li ianting and Liao Wen urated two e hibitions on audy art in Bei ing, and two su essi e
solo e hibitions of audy artists.
. See Li ianting, Bopu hihou: Yansu huayu yu fanfeng mofang After op: audy is ourse and
Satiri al Imitation and ui nongminshi de baofa uwei de fangfeng hongguo yansu yishu yu ing
shuping ubu arodying easant Style et- i h- ui k Taste and see Liao Wen. ingmin de shidai
de gui u bu ing yansu de wenhua pinwei he yishu pin hi The Noble Composition of the
eneration of the Common eople .
. Ibid.
. sing owers, and birds-and- owers as words i.e., homonyms e pressing good wishes , using gures as
words, or drawn or embroidered on. These were used as sites of elebration and well-wishing.
. its h, in Milan undera, Sixty-Three Words.
. An amusement park that features the world s s eni spots and histori al sites proportionally redu ed in
si e.
. Hu Yongfen, Taiwan yansu shenghuo shi ru i huangban Taiwan audy Boorish and ulgar as the
Makeup of Life .
. Laugh, in Milan undera, Sixty-Three Words.
E erpted from a te t originally published as Shenghuo ai yansu de wangyang dahai yansu yishu
fanfeng de pipan itai in Kua shiji caihong yansu yishu [ Ouh La La, Kitsch! Gaudy Art , ed. Liao Wen
and Li ianting Hunan: Hunan ine Arts ublishing, 1999 , 2 7 translation, 8 11. riginally translated
by Hong Huang, with proo ng by Lu y England.
Urban Destruction and Construction
205
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“CHANGCHUN, CHINA”: A REPORT ON A PERFORMANCE OF MAKING
RUBBINGS FROM BUILDINGS SLATED FOR DEMOLITION (1994)
By Huang Yan
A. The on ept and plan for making rubbings from buildings slated for demolition
a. Ar hite tural materials to be made into rubbings:

These in lude the buildings e terior walls, doorways, windows, stairways, orridors,
interior oors and walls, as well as the e eryday items and applian es that were aban-
doned in the relo ation of the inhabitants.
b. Three stages of making rubbings:

The rst is to make rubbings before the building is demolished the se ond is to make
rubbings during the pro ess of demolition and the third is to make rubbings after its
demolition.
. The types of buildings being made into rubbings:

ing-dynasty-style ar hite ture ar hite ture of the epubli an period ussian ar hi-
te ture apanese ar hite ture ar hite ture of the reat Leap orward and the Cultural
e olution ar hite ture after , and so on.
d. The period of making rubbings:

The duration of making rubbings is unlimited for now, it will last ten years, from
through .
Huang Yan.
Changchun China. 1994.
ubbing on ri e paper,
39 79 100 200 m .
Colle tion Hanart T allery,
Hong ong
B. Implementation of the plan to make rubbings of buildings slated for demolition
206
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a. refa e:
n May , , there were lear skies with s attered louds, light bree es, and the
onditions were fa orable for making rubbings. rom around : to : in the morn-
ing, Huang Yan made three rubbings in the ailroad Hospital at the interse tion of
Wusong oad and ong er Tiao Street in the uan heng istri t the rubbings measured
mm by mm.
b. The areas indi ated on the map:

n une , demolition would begin in the areas from Shengli A enue to ongsan Tiao
Street and from Shanghai oad to Ningbo oad. n une , Huang Yan made rubbings
of this area, whi h in luded the e terior walls, inner walls, oors, and some items from
the interior spa es. The rubbings are urrently underway, o ering appro imately one
hundred s uare meters. hotographs, slide lm, ideo re ordings, and audio re ordings
do umented the entire pro ess of making the rubbings. Additionally, some of the mate-
rials that rubbings were made of, su h as house numbers, bri ks, et ., were olle ted.
. A omparison hart of the si es of rubbings from bla k and red bri ks:
Type Length Width Height Length Width Height

ed Bri k . in. . in. in. mm mm mm
Bla k Bri k in. in. in. mm mm mm
d. rom May through uly , the artist atalogued the rubbings from demolished
ar hite ture.
riginally published as hongguo, Chang hun: ian huwu hai ian yu tayin ingwei baogao in
Heipishu [ Black Cover Book ed. eng iao un, Ai Weiwei, and u Bing, with eng Boyi Bei ing: pri ately
published, 1994 , 101 2. Translated by risten Loring.
’94 ACTION PLAN FOR DEBRIS SALVAGE SCHEMES FOR IMPLEMENTATION

AND RESULTS (1994)
By Zhan Wang
ate: tober 12 14, 1994

Lo ation: egion east of Wangfu ing Street, where the buildings were to be demolished
The ommer ial area in Wangfu ing Street is funded by businessmen from Hong ong,
where the old, small, and simple houses ha e e perien ed the i issitudes of time .
Although they were beautiful buildings that ombined Chinese and Western styles of
ar hite ture, they ould not es ape the fate of being demolished be ause the apital
needs moderni ation and a ommer ial distri t.
n tober 12, I had de orated the half-torn-down debris for a whole day.
The ob e ts and the ways I sa ed them:
. What was left in the debris was only one red pillar with a oist. irst, I brushed the
pillar with a brush to make it lean, then I painted the oist with red paint.
. Then I leaned the half-lefto er white door frame and painted it with white paint.
207
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han Wang. Ruin Cleaning.
1994. Color photograph of
performan e and installation
. I leaned the de orati e erami tiles with a pie e of loth.

. I de orated a wall with indoor oating materials.
Tools I used: Brushes, detergent, broom, loth, trays, arious olor paints, indoor oating
materials, et .
artner: An assistant.
esults: Late afternoon that day, bulldo ers began to tear down those houses, and a
few days later, there appeared a de astated tra t of land.
han Wang
1994.10.14
rom an unpublished manus ript pro ided by the author.
NEW MAP OF BEIJING: TODAY AND TOMORROW’S CAPITAL — ROCKERY

REMOLDING PLAN (1995)
By Zhan Wang
E ery orner of the apital ity today already displays hara teristi s of the industrial age,
but traditional arti ial ro kery jiashanshi still appears here and there. It used to be
that these small pie es of natural ro kery as arti ial mountains would be suf ient
for satisfying people s needs and desires to return to nature. But, be ause of the hanges
in the built en ironment, this traditional ideal is be oming in reasingly ill-suited for our
time. I ha e therefore hosen a kind of man-made, mirrored surfa e with a stainless-
steel material for my pro e t . upli ating and remolding the natural ro k, and utili ing
the shiny, ashy features of its e terior, I hope that this an supersede and perhaps tem-
porarily furnish a medium for a new dream. The plan for remolding is as follows:
. se the ity of Bei ing as the site of e perimentation. Sele t samples se eral e isting
arti ial ro keries in front of modern buildings and transform them. The pla es I
ha e hosen in lude the Bei ing Trade Center for S ien e and Te hnology, Bei ing
Tibetan High S hool, the unlun Hotel, the Tuan iehu residential ompound, China
hoto Ser i e at uanwumen, the Bai hifang oad o erpass, and the empty pla a in
front of Bei ing s West ailroad Station.
. se imported stainless-steel plates . . mm thi k to dire tly opy the original
208
ro k. irst, forge small pie es and then weld them together, forming a omplete opy
|
identi al to the original ro k. Buff the surfa e and make it mirrorlike. epla e the origi-
nal ro k with the opy.
. A transformed stainless-steel ro k has the following hara teristi s:

After buf ng, the stainless steel will ne er rust. This will satisfy people s desire for an
ideal material.
After buf ng, the stainless steel will re e t the olors of its surroundings. Nearly olor-
less itself, the ro k will hange its olors a ording to the en ironment.
After buf ng, the mirrorlike surfa e of the stainless-steel ro k will show the minute
details of the original model. Anything it re e ts will be distorted and turned into frag-
mentary images. This will inspire people s dreams and new hopes.
Compared with gold and sil er, stainless steel is astly heaper. But be ause it ontains
a tiny amount of gold, it appears brilliant, lustrous, and glamorous. sing this material
one an pay less for more.
In sum, the most important thing about the stainless-steel ro k is that it will be in har-
mony with the en ironment, and it will always keep up with the times be ause it is
only a re e ting surfa e
riginally titled Bei ing intu: intian he mingtian de shoudu iashanshi gai ao fang an unpublished
manus ript . artially translated in Wu Hung, Transience: Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the
Twentieth Century Chi ago: a id and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, ni ersity of Chi ago, and ni ersity
of Chi ago ress, 1999 , 135. emaining part translated by eggy Wang.
ONE HOUR GAME ( YOUXI YI XIAOSHI ) (1996 / 1997 )

By Liang Juhui
n a high-rise onstru tion site, I sat inside the workers suspended ele ator age and
spent a fren ied hour playing an ele troni ideo game. At the same time, the age
mo ed up and down at a high speed. Through the ourse of the game, I reali ed the
in ltration of the e panding publi spa e into the indi idual pri ate spa e, and fur-
thermore sear hed for a means to re on ile the passi e and a ti e onditions.
riginally published as You i yi iaoshi in Huipishu [ Gray Cover Book ed. eng iao un and Ai Weiwei
Liang uhui. One Hour Game.

No ember 199 . Color
photograph of performan e
at skys raper onstru tion
site, Tianhe, uang hou
209
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Newspaper arti les written
about hang ali s Dialogue,
1998
REPORT ON ZHANG DALI’S DIALOGUE (DUIHUA) (1998) pl. 31

By Jiang Tao
i i
Contemporary art is miles away from the narrowly defined concept of traditional art.
Contemporary art is closely connected to all aspects of society. For this reason, our reporter
interviewed Wang Dalun, commissioner of the Beijing Municipal Commission on City
Appearance. According to Wang, the numerous classified ads plastered all over the streets
of Beijing have already exhausted their energies. Now, there’s the emergence of graffiti,
such as the image of a head. All of this qualifies as illegal conduct.
Reporter: After the Ma en Ma e ent, ity residents ha e started to noti e the image
of a head s rawled e erywhere on the street. Some belie e that the image of the head
is an artisti performan e to be distinguished from the little ads on the street.
Wang: As far as we are on erned, the two are the same. Artisti performan e should
be ondu ted in galleries and not on publi stru tures. No performan e ondu t shall
brea h the limits of the law. Therefore, we are ertain it is illegal ondu t.
Reporter: How will you handle it
Wang: ursuant to Se tion 17 of China s City Appearan e, En ironment, and Sanitation

egulations, No indi idual or entity shall s rawl or ar e upon buildings, fa ilities,
and trees. Chapter 5 of the Bei ing Muni ipal Appearan e, En ironment, and
Sanitation egulations also e pressly stipulates: Those who shall s rawl and ar e on
buildings and other fa ilities are ordered to erase their markings and shall be admon-
ished and ned. A ordingly, we will demand him to lean up his graf ti and will
sub e t him to a ne within the range of 200 to 500 yuan.
Reporter: eople usually ha e to go through a pro ess before being able to understand
a ant-garde art, beginning initially with antipathy and gradually mo ing toward
appre iation. erhaps people ha en t reali ed its alue and will tolerate and under-
210
stand it in the future.

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Wang: It s hard to say at this stage. erhaps the law will hange in the future, but again
it depends on the situation at that point. We enfor e the law. Whate er the law allows,
we do whate er the law forbids, we take as illegal. egardless, graf ti iolates rele ant
administrati e regulations. Before the return of Hong ong, rele ant muni ipal depart-
ments organi ed people to lean up the image of the head under the o erpasses of
the Se ond and Third ing oads.
Reporter: Could you please estimate the amount of manpower spent and the s al
burden in urred by the leanup of the images of the head
Wang: We ha en t tallied the numbers, and an t gi e you a random gure.
i , v iv i i
Specialists from within the art world harbor as much admiration as resentment with regard
to the images of the head, but they all share the same understanding: contemporary art has
walked out of the ivory tower and is receiving increasing attention from society . . .
Deng Fuxing (Director, Research Institute of Fine Arts, Chinese ational Academy of
Arts): As a form of ontemporary art, it is somewhat lose to the relati ely well-known
work Red Umbrellas Hong san title is a tually Walk Red Zou hong Ed. from a ou-
ple of years ago. Be ause it s painted on the street, it s ery pedestrian, ery pop. op
means pedestrian and popular. The hallmark of ontemporary art is interpretation,
in luding the moti e and goal of reation. It s more widely pra ti ed in the West.
These head images are lose to the series of little gures you see in the New York sub-
way. They are symboli . But the symbol in Dialogue Duihua is simple. The head
images are painted alike, and the artist is ery pro ient in what he does. Here, what s
important is not the image itself, but the uni ersality of its e tension and the impa t to
the publi spa e. Moreo er, the ma ority of his head images are done on dilapidated
walls on the street, the ondu t of whi h is itself uite eerie. All in all, it belongs to the
ategory of op art, but it also in ludes elements from Con eptual art, performan e,
and installation.
Yang Yongshan ( ice-President, Central Academy of Arts and Crafts): I ha e a negati e

iewpoint on this in ident. It damages the image of our ity and falls far short of being
art. Art has to be beautiful, but this has no aestheti effe ts at all and instead in ites
disgust from our ity residents. Therefore, I belie e its lo ation and the method in
pursing artisti e pression are inappropriate. An idea is an idea, but you e got to on-
sider it in its entirety. In San iego, in the nited States, there s a pla e where graf ti
is allowed. I on e paid a isit ust to see it. Some of it is to protest ra ial dis rimination
some of it ust onsists of abstra t pat hes of olors. This is normal and within the lim-
its allowed in publi spa e. If a painter has some ideas and a desire to reate, he an go
paint some fres oes. o k paintings from an ient times also bear images. But, what do
these bald heads stand for Some say it s a skinhead. Also, the images use a lot of spray
paint. If only he ould e used it in proper pla es So, somebody better tell the artist
not to ontinue. It s senseless.
Zhang Zuying (Secretary, China Association of Oil Painting): I belie e it s performan e
211
art in terms of the artisti ondu t, but when artists reate, they ought to limit them-
|
sel es to what s allowed by law, and should not s rawl on the street. It s the same
o erseas as well. If one wants to de orate a building, he has to submit an appli ation
to the lo al go ernment, and an only pro eed when his appli ation is granted. The
performan e art of Red Umbrellas [ Walk Red a ouple of years ago in China, for
instan e, was permitted by the epartment of orestry and arks.
eople belong to so iety, and ha e to li e in so iety. Indi idual reation and the
sanitation of an entire ity need to be moderated. It s not permitted to damage the
look of the ity in order to satisfy some indi idual predile tions. urthermore, it
doesn t ha e mu h alue from an artisti perspe ti e.
Yin Shuangxi (art critic): This is a ontamination of the en ironment. S rawling one s
signs in front of a apti e audien e is an affront to our ision, and an in asion of indi-
idual ondu t into the publi spa e.
Ai Weiwei (avant-garde artist): An artist an t really be faulted for wanting to e press

his opinion through a ertain means. The artist belie es that his works need to be
painted on the street to be ontrasted with ommer ial ads in order to arouse anger,
displeasure, onfusion, or sympathy. E pressi e graf ti like this is ommonpla e in the
West, but is also limited by the law. It s hard to udge art with the yardsti k of the law,
and it s hard to effe t hange in the law by means of art.
i i v i
Do Beijing residents actually like it?
Wang Xiaohong (corporate clerk, 20 years old): When I rst saw them, I was repulsed. I
didn t understand what it meant the bald head. I didn t know who painted it or for
what reason. Later, a olleague told me that it s a sort of art alled graf ti and it s ery
popular abroad. Then I thought about it, and it doesn t feel that odd. Sin e anyone an
sing whate er song he likes on the street, why an t artists paint a few things When you
get used to it, it s not that bad. The formalisti signs are kind of hip.
Liu Zhiwei (worker, 25 years old): Those heads on the street, they are uite boring. What
the he k is it A head. What on earth is it for All the streets are lled with it. I bet the
guy has too mu h time on his hands and was trying to ome up with ways to amuse
himself. robably a nut ob too. I ha e no idea what s so good about those heads.
Unnamed government official (40 years old): Whether it s a street ad or it s perfor-

man e art, as a ity resident you e got to obser e the most basi rules of ondu t.
These heads ob iously harmed the look of our ity Bei ing and damaged the
image of our apital, and this is an un i il a t. I suggest rele ant go ernment agen ies
nd the artist as soon as possible and dire t him to lean it up. The ity of Bei ing
promulgated the Con ention of City esidents a long time ago. I belie e the key point
is enfor ement. E erybody should maintain good manners and bear publi
responsibilities.
Gao Quanxi (scientific researcher, 35 years old): rom the perspe ti e of so iety, these
head images are at odds with some so ial re uirements. But, from an indi idual
perspe ti e, I understand this type of ondu t. They are different from those trashy lit-
212
tle ads on the street. We should a knowledge that it s a type of performan e art.
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Artists paint outdoors on the walls of buildings to e press their parti ular feelings. They
ha e their reati e inspirations. I feel like artists are usually indi idualisti and e en
na e. We should be more tolerant. Howe er, artists should also ha e some self-dis i-
pline and shouldn t be too uns rupulous. They should do what they an to make their
works prettier. If artisti graf ti e pressed their reati e sin erity and beauty, it would
be ome a ultural attra tion for a ity.
Maomao (newspaper reporter, 28 years old): I m ne with it. E ery day on my way to
work when rossing Sanlitun, I en oy the way these images of heads omplement the
gray tone of the walls. I nd the modern ity to be ersatile and tolerant. The art of
graf ti may ery well be one type of ity ulture.
E erpts originally published in Lantian Zhongguo minhang bao [ Blue Sky: Civil Aviation Administration
of China Newspaper , Mar h 27, 1998. Translated by ela Shang.
A DIALOGUE ON DIALOGUE (2000) pl. 31

Conducted by Gou Hongbing with Zhang Dali
Gou Hongbing: I would like our on ersation to unfold starting from some detailed,
e en seemingly tri ial issues, be ause that may be the most effe ti e way to approa h
the truth. Would you mind if we start with some more penetrating uestions
Zhang Dali: Certainly not, be ause on ersation is an e perien e in its own right.
Gou: Let s talk about the signs you use. We already know what they stand for, su h as
money and iolen e, and the head represents on ersation, but do others understand
your signs How do they interpret your symbols
Zhang: I belie e that I used some of the most simple and ob ious symbols, like signs
used in the airport, waiting rooms, and other publi spa es. You don t need to think
about it they pro oke an immediate re e . They e en stimulate the entral ner ous
system in people s brains, telling you their meanings and blatantly demonstrating
their for e. In parti ular, when they appear repeatedly in a tumultuous ity that is full
of dramati hanges and unrestrained e pansion, they ast a stark ontrast with this
hanging ba kdrop. They hint at their raison d tre. I want to tell the publi that what
I mean is e a tly what they see. The pro le of this fa e is a mirror re e ting the ity
we re li ing in it re e ts the ity s psy he and the people s appearan es. I also want
to tell e erybody how in this most despi able and pro t-seeking en ironment, in a
pla e filled with red slogans you an ontrol yourself and not be ruined by
prostitution.
Gou: You must want to impa t so iety through your signs. What might that impa t
be A realisti , for e ample, riti al meaning Through your long-term artisti perfor-
man e, do you mean to point to a spe i kind of ethi s within the repetition of your
performan e Be ause the meanings of the signs are de nite, your art at least as
the formal medium of your artisti ehi le returns to strong so ial a tion then what
about art
Zhang: ight, it has already had an impa t, at least on e eryone who has seen it. At
213
this stage, I parti ularly emphasi e the publi aspe t in my work. or instan e, I all my
|
performan e Dialogue so that at the ery least it s not a sole indi idual s affair.

Contemporary Chinese a ant-garde art needs to oin the masses and be ome part of
people s li es. This is a problem of our era. A tually, the ontent of art today re eals
artisti initiati e. Art should no longer hide itself in an obs ure realm like an illegiti-
mate hild. It should make its stan e known. f ourse, it de nitely has moral and
riti al obligations. The foremost feature of ontemporary a ant-garde art is its riti al
potential. Its target may be art itself, or it ould be matters outside of art. Be ause art-
ists don t on ern themsel es only with the internal laws of art, things happening out-
side of art ne essarily find their way into artists reati e ideas. The on ern and
emphasis of a ant-garde art is on people s real-life e perien es and e isten e. It s
loser to our internal world. Sin e the day it broke free from aestheti formalism, it s
been a sword that makes some people and some groups an ious and uneasy, the most
dire t ob e tions being don t understand it, it s not art, this is a bad in uen e,
it s not pretty, so on and so forth. This kind of hildish udgment is nonsense and
makes one sound like an imbe ile. Contemporary art doesn t are what is beautiful
and what is ugly. In our so iety, uestions of onfusion, iolen e, and ultural inheri-
tan e that impa t our e isten e annot be answered in terms of what is beautiful or
ugly. What we see today annot be e plained by past aestheti e perien es. Artists
must take powerful measures to inter ene in so iety and make art that s no longer dull
and apid. Artisti initiati e must truly be ontrolled in the hands of artists, rather than
ontinuing to ser e as manuals for state apparatuses. The long-bygone i ory tower,
after undergoing demolition and restru turing, an no longer offer us a pla e of shel-
ter. Likewise, the notion of art ought to be rede ned a ordingly.
E erpted from an inter iew originally published as uanyu Duihua de duihua in Wenhua yu daode
[ Culture and Morality , 2000: no. 4, 35 3 . Translated by ela Shang.
Sociality in Contemporary Art
STATE OF EXISTENCE (1994)

By Zhu Fadong
resently, art has be ome a state of e isten e. To re ount or re e t upon this, an artist
must eliminate te ts and foreground his own onditions of e isten e.
hu adong. Zhu Fadong,

Missing Person Announcement.
1993. Collage of readymade
paper materials. 11 1
Mr. Huang Liaoyuan, Bei ing
Art Now allery
I always seek a mode of performan e that fosters a relationship between art and
214
the publi . This kind of relationship does not refer to the issue of whether or not the
|
work suits the publi s taste, but whether an artist has found some medium for on-
eying his art to the publi . The medium also makes known the artist s persistent atti-
tude and state.
In 1993, I ompleted the performan e Missing Person Announcement Xunren
qishi , in whi h I used my onditions of e isten e as the sub e t of my art, and
attempted to make it the medium itself.
In 1994, I began the performan e This Person Is for Sale Ciren chushou jiage mianyi)
in Bei ing, whi h was another e periment in my understanding of this issue. This pro -
e t will ontinue for one year.
riginally published as Sheng un huangtai in Heipishu [ Black Cover Book ed. eng iao un, Ai Weiwei,
and u Bing, with eng Boyi Bei ing: pri ately published, 1994 , 57. Translated by risten Loring.
12 SQUARE METERS (12 PINGFANG MI) (1994)

By Zhang Huan
The sour e for my reati e inspiration omes from the most in onspi uous aspe ts of
daily life, the matters that are easily negle ted. or instan e, in the ommon a ti ities
of e eryday life, su h as eating, working, resting, and defe ating, one e perien es the
most essential aspe ts of being human while also e perien ing a kind of ontradi tion
between human nature and the en ironment in whi h we li e. 12 Square Meters was
produ ed in this way.
ne afternoon, I went to a publi restroom in the i inity of the illage. I dis o -
ered that there was really no way of planting a foot in there, so I tried to shift my posi-
tion but, e en so, I de ided that I had better ride my bike to the la atory in the illage
of e. When I entered the restroom, all of a sudden there were ountless ies swarm-
ing e erywhere. I immediately ame up with the idea for this work.
I try my best to e perien e an e tant reality throughout the pro ess of my work.
nly when I nish a work an I nally reali e what I ha e a hie ed and what I ha e
e pressed. I loathed the performan e element within the work.
1994.
riginally published in Heipishu [ Black Cover Book ed. eng iao un, Ai Weiwei, and u Bing, with
eng Boyi Bei ing: pri ately published, 1994 , 71. Translated by risten Loring.
hang Huan. 12 Square

Meters. 1994. hotograph
of performan e.
Chromogeni print, 40 0
101 152.4 m .
hotograph by ong ong
215
|
Wang in. Ice ’96 Central
Plains. anuary 28, 199 .
hotograph of performan e,
heng hou, Henan.
72 50 185 129 m .
Sigg Colle tion, Swit erland
ICE • ’96 CENTRAL PLAINS (BING · 96 ZHONGYUAN) (1996 / 2000)

By Wang Jin
pon seeing Ice ’96 Central Plains in heng hou in the midst of the trade wars in en-
tral China, one ould say that the semanti s of this work are omple and multilayered.
It s not important to ategori e it as a parti ular style of art it is merely an attempt to
initiate a new artisti on ept through a mode of dire t ommuni ation with the audi-
en e. This prompts the audien e s riti al parti ipation while also re ealing their e al-
uations of pree isting e perien es and the rules go erning their li ing spa es.
In my iew, the importan e is not in the si e of the i e wall, nor does it lie in the
manpower, resour es, and s ale utili ed in the implementation of the work. ather,
the signi an e of the work is in whether or not it a urately grasps the arious rela-
tionships that ulminate from the form of the work. This means the possibility for
e tending and e panding upon the effe t produ ed by the ollision of thoughts
between the artisti sub e t and the audien e. The signi an e is not in the transpar-
en y of the i e, but in our ability to grasp the power of these materials and the a t of
free ing popular onsumer goods within the i e. There is a ertain riti ue behind this
a tion it re eals our attitudes and positions while gi ing the audien e an opportunity
to soberly and rationally re e t on their true alues. This is not only a omplished by
the isual effe t of i e, nor is it ompletely an allusion to i e water subduing re.
Instead, it seeks to use the i e to publi ly de lare a kind of oi e of reason, like going
through a baptism, using a rational approa h to address the present trade wars and
rampant onsumerism in China. The signi an e is not in the duration of this work of
i e, but rather in the moment of reemergen e of the onsumer goods that ha e been
bapti ed by fro en water. It is pre isely the interse tion between the e e ution of this
work and the trade war that intensi es the power of e pression and dissemination of
Ice ’96 Central Plains.
Ice ’96 Central Plains is groundbreaking in its ontro ersial on ept, the parti i-
216
pation of the audien e, and the publi s intimate e perien es with the on-site reali a-
|
tion of the work. The ery nature of the work surpasses the formal properties of its
s ulptural and installation materials. Howe er, the ob e ti e is not to surpass, but only
to pro ide a spa e to arry out Ice ’96 Central Plains. I pla e more emphasis on the
ommonalities between the hara teristi s of i e and the spirit of the artisti sub e t.
As long as the work radiated the spirit of its sub e t, its ontent ould be e tended
e en more broadly, and the material en ironment would manifest the state of its spiri-
tual en ironment.
This parti ular mode of performan e brings forth new perspe ti es on e amining
life. It is pre isely this mode that e pands upon this on ept it does not relate to a
parti ular theory. In this onte t, art nally has similarities to s ien e and philosophy.
Ice ’96 Central Plains takes on the weight of materialism and unpa ks it, yet it is ulti-
mately unrelated to its material onstitution it is not lipsti k or nail polish not per-
fume or a mobile phone not a handbag or a tele ision not a wristwat h or a gold ring
not powdered milk or shampoo not an aba us or a retiree ard not a photograph or a
re e tinguisher.
April 199 , Sanlihe, i heng istri t, Bei ing
ublished as uanyu Bing 96 Zhongyuan uopin. eprinted in Leng Lin, Shi wo [ It’s Me Bei ing:
China ederation of Literary and Art Cir les ublishing, 2000 , 13 37. Translated by risten Loring.
ON PAINTED SCULPTURES (1995 / 1997)

By Liu Jianhua
In the latter half of 1995, I began the is ordant series Bu xietiao xilie) and the
Con ealed series Yinmi xilie materials in lude: berglass-reinfor ed plasti , loth,
a ryli , and wa to re e t my internal psy hologi al state and un o er more about
performan e. These works possess a greater sense of ontemporaneity ompared
with former works and riti ality reality , sin e the oys, sorrows, et . of our li es, at
this moment and in this spa e, are all embodied in the works motifs. Through three-
dimensional, olorful, and emotionally pro o ati e forms, these arefree releases
e press and re eal an artist s indi idual emotional realm. This e perien e differs
from the e haustion of publi ity s ulptures. At the moment, publi s ulptures don t
gi e oi e to the free e pression of indi idual emotional meaning. Thus, indi idual
artisti performan es outside of publi ity s ulptures are entrusted with issues and
uestions related to so iety and life.
In re ent years, with the great ad an es in the e onomy, people s e ternal appear-
an es ha e signifi antly transformed from former times. It is worth uestioning
whether or not internally people ha e hanged orrespondingly. The plethora of
unstable fa tors in so iety may also be re ealed within beha ioral norms. All types of
olatile situations o ur in e ery kind of so ial en ironment, and the resplendent pre-
tenses of e ternal appearan es annot on eal inner emptiness and frailty. We now
o upy this kind of in omprehensible, ines apable, e tremely sus eptible reality in
whi h e eryone feels inse ure.
I ha e always belie ed that any material at one s ngertips ould be made into
the medium and method for one s artwork. Howe er, what is riti al is whether or not
one uses it to e press one s own ideas. In the is ordant series, an in omplete portion
of a human body and outdated, traditional, popular lothing seem unsuitably mat hed.
217
This auses isual dis ontent and strengthens its hidden nature, all of whi h o urs in
|
reality. Here, the traditional te hni ue of gla ing and the physi al form seem unre-

lated, and it is this point of ontradi tion that will make people raise realisti topi s for
dis ussion.
riginally published as uanyu aisu uopin in Huipishu [ Gray Cover Book ed. eng iao un and
Ai Weiwei Bei ing: pri ately published, 1997 , 45. Translated by risten Loring.
Wang insong. Standard amily. 199 . Color photographs of 200 families, dimensions ariable
STANDARD FAMILY (BIAOZHUN JIATING) (1996 / 1997)

By Wang Jinsong
The reation of Standard amily is based on a spe i and real ultural ba kground. I
sele ted three-person families ea h ha ing a set of parents with only one hild as
the sub e t matter and adopted a photographi method of dire t obser ation to por-
tray the most-popular family ar hetype of this generation. I also in estigated numer-
ous aspe ts of this ar hetype, in luding attire, o upations, life e perien es, geneti
information, and e en the reality and future of the family stru ture.
I ha e adopted a bystander s position to follow all of the interesting and intrigu-
ing spiritual phenomena within the real li es of the sub e ts. Through straightforward
and matter-of-fa t des riptions, I reate theatri al spe ta les beyond what one may
ha e e pe ted and endow them with a kind of intelligen e and distin ti e harm. This
approa h fa ilitates an entirely new sense of possibility aimed at establishing new on-
ne tions to ultural meaning.
riginally published in Huipishu [ Gray Cover Book ed. eng iao un and Ai Weiwei Bei ing: pri ately
published, 1997 , 33. Translated by risten Loring.
WHY DO I WANT TO PHOTOGRAPH THE STREETS OF GUANGZHOU?

(2002)
By Chen Shaoxiong
i i
The in ention of photography followed the image prin iples of the Western traditions
of painting, that is, the world is looked upon as though through a window. So lassi al
painting and modern photography both re uire a pi ture frame similar to a window
218
|
Chen Shao iong. Street Haizhu Square. 1999. Color photograph, 35 47

90 120 m . Colle tion the artist
frame , and e erything else that is going on in the surrounding area is unimportant,
apart from the instant taken by the amera shutter. No responsibility an be taken for
the before and after de elopment of the e ent. In this way, photographs are ust stills
from the drama of human life, with its ery omple plot.
In order to seek out these interesting pro esses, I in ented a type of photographi
ollage whose hara teristi s are: the spatial surfa e of the pi ture an be in nitely
e tended, and its temporal apa ity is e a tly the time that I am wat hing the great
drama of human life. ut of respe t for e ery indi idual being, e eryone is a leading
a tor in this play. Spe i ally what I do is photograph ea h person, e ery street sign,
e ery ehi le, e ery ob e t no matter how small or insigni ant, like the rubbish bins
in the streets of uang hou, make them into photographs of different si es a ording
to their proportions, then ut around the outline of these images to make them into
3 ard gures, and re onstru ted the street s enes at home. This Lilliputian photo-
graphi narrati e is my interpretation of reprodu ing real-life images.
’ i
I feel that the speed at whi h I photograph the streets of uang hou will ne er at h
up with the speed at whi h the streets of uang hou are hanging. I originally wanted
to re- reate a uang hou out of photographs, do umenting item by item, ob e t by
ob e t. eople ha e already pointed out to me that a lifetime would not be long
enough to omplete this. But, be ause the ity is not a stati ob e t, the a tuali ation
of this desire an only be thoroughly reali ed in a dream. This is indeed the limitation
of a person s temporal and spatial e isten e. or this reason, I don t dare to lea e
uang hou for long, but this is also a parado , for my li ing spa e has be ome e en
more restri ted.
e ently I was away from home for three weeks, and on taking a ta i ba k from
the airport I saw many young people by the side of the road sitting on plasti hairs
and holding iron pipes more than a meter long in their hands. They were dressed in
uniform, and behind ea h person was a large sunshade, with a signboard. They were
ery mu h alike in appearan e. A big uestion mark suddenly appeared in my brain:
What s happened to uang hou
I remember one summer I was suffering from mild agoraphobia and stayed at
219
home all day wat hing C s. Then, one day I went out into the street and noti ed
|
that all the women were wearing mu h more re ealing lothes than before and

regretted my ill-timed phobia . Again, I thought to myself what s happening to
uang hou I really ha e no idea. But I will work hard at this memorial to e ery
entity in uang hou that I want to set up, for it is ertainly mu h better than tradi-
tional photography, whi h only sele ts one single thing and lea es out tens of thou-
sands of others
E erpted from a te t originally published in Chinese Artists, Texts, and Interviews: Chinese Contemporary
Art Awards CCAA 1998 – 2002 Hong ong: Time one 8, 2002 , 95 9 .
Experimental Photography and Video Art
An important change took place in Chinese photography around the mid-1990s

that redefined it in the world of Chinese art. Before this, independent photogra-
phers who had emerged since 1986 basically followed the path of documentary
photography (jishi sheying) and favored the kind of realistic or romantic represen-
tation easily observable in mainstream photography. From the mid-1990s, how-
ever, “experimental photography” (shiyan sheying) flourished and became a vital
component of alternative contemporary art. A new generation of independent
photographers who embraced ideas of Conceptual art appeared and forged a
strong alliance with contemporary artists working in other mediums. Around the
same time, video art also developed from a few isolated projects into a sub-
branch of contemporary art practiced by an increasing number of artists.
Documents translated in this section are grouped into two clusters: one on
photography and one on video art. The first two essays in the photography group-
ing describe and contextualize the emergence of experimental photography. After
that, statements by some leading artists in this field highlight their interest in
photography as a visual technology and in the relationship between photography
and memory. The same bipartite structure is repeated in the video grouping: the
opening essay by Wu Meichun and Qiu Zhijie, who were instrumental in popular-
izing video art, recalls the development of this art in the 1990s. Project descrip-
tions by several leading video artists follow.
Photography
TRENDS AND STAGES OF PHOTOGRAPHY’S DEVELOPMENT IN

MAINLAND CHINA SINCE 1976 (1994)
By Li Mei and Yang Xiaoyan
Nineteen se enty-si was an e tremely important year in Chinese history. uring that
year, Mao died, the ang of our fell into disgra e, and the Cultural e olution ame
to an end. undamental hanges began to take root all o er China. Without e eption,
Chinese photography also de eloped with a strong impetus.
In iew of the trend of de elopment, the post-197 period of Chinese photogra-
phy an be di ided into three stages:
220
|
Luo iaoyun. Mainstay. 197 . Bla k-and-white photograph
i. i i : i i i
(1976 – 84)
. hotography in the April ifth Tiananmen Mo ement

The death of remier hou Enlai pro ided an opportunity for thousands of Chinese
to ent their dis ontent. uring the April ifth In ident, a number of young parti i-
pants ons iously and bra ely do umented this important politi al e ent. They left
behind olumes of aluable images to history. Their wish was ery modest: ust to
re ord the tou hing moments right before their eyes. Ha ing e perien ed the Cultural
e olution themsel es, they had a strong sense of so ial responsibility. oliti al on-
s iousness was their prime moti e to get in ol ed in the mo ement and re ord it
realisti ally. hotography was not a pursuit of aestheti s for them. ather, it was a
means to re ord history for future witness. By doing so, they marked a new era for
Chinese photography.
This new era of do umentary photography originated from politi s. It re e ted
the omple ities of ultural de elopment in China. rior to 197 , gi en China s parti -
ular so ial stru ture, politi s was the underlying theme of e ery aspe t of people s
li es. It was a shadow people ould not shrug off. The hea y politi al undertone in
photography was natural. We ould hardly imagine that do umentary photography,
whi h originated from the 197 histori al mo ement, ould break away from its own
limitations. rom 1949 on, the history of photography was merely a history of politi al
propaganda. In-depth do umentation, responsible reporting, or professional integrity
ne er got a han e.
. The April hotography So iety and the Nature, Society, and Man Ziran, shehui, ren)
photography art e hibition
Three years after the April ifth Mo ement, an unof ial photography art group April
hotography So iety was set up in Bei ing. Its members mainly omprised those who
had parti ipated in photographing the mo ement. n April 1, 1979, the April
hotography So iety held the Nature, Society, and Man photography e hibition in
Bei ing s hongshan Memorial ark. It stirred up a tremendous response. The e hibi-
tion went on tour in ma or ities through the help of lo al ommunity organi ations
and photography lubs. The uest for a Chinese photographi aestheti took off.
221
|
Some publi ations of the se ond Nature, Society, and Man e hibition, 1980, Bei ing
It was the rst time in history sin e 1949 that photography openly positioned itself in
an autonomous domain. The works in the e hibition also re e ted su h aspirations. This
indire tly and strongly protested obsolete politi al propaganda whi h had dominated
Chinese photography for many years. Most photographers in the e hibition showed their
passion for ordinary people and their humble li elihoods. They aptured their personal
serenity, gra e, and beauty. At that time, pure aestheti s was highly alued.
n e photography was no longer ust a politi al instrument, it be ame a pure art
form employed by photographers. The learning and adaptation of linguisti approa hes
from ne arts soon be ame o erdone. With the popularity of a formalisti and preten-
tious salon style as well as images awkwardly pa ked with philosophy, photography
wandered astray from spontaneous personal feelings into another on eptuali ation.
Many fa tors led to su h an out ome. The most ob ious one was people s repulsion
toward politi al dogmatism. A deeper e planation ould be the impatien e of photog-
raphers sear hing for an appropriate position in ne arts. To e plain the phenomenon
further, it might be due to the fa t that people still ould not distinguish between the
harm of ommer ial photography and the genuineness of do umentary photography.
Howe er, the real reason was the long-standing isolation from trends pre alent in the
rest of the world. They la ked a referen e system and a alid photographi tradition.
So, in their sear h for an art form, ons iously or not, they embarked on a salon style.
All at on e, petty salon photography be ame the mainstay of Chinese photography.
ii. : i i i i v (1985 – 88)

This was a time when China underwent the most a ti e de elopment in so iety and
ulture. It was also the eng iaoping era. In photography, a group of young and mid-
dle-aged photographers emerged, most of them turning professional. At that time,
the salon style ould no longer meet the growing e pe tations for the medium. eople
began to hastily adopt, borrow, or e en imitate foreign ideas. The uest for hange
and indi idualism infused the spirit of photography. All of a sudden, arious s hools
and groups emerged, reating a ultural e itement not seen before.
. Creation and ra is
After the natural disintegration of the April hotography So iety, the Modern hotography
Salon Xiandai sheying shalong , established in 1985, took the leading role in photography.
Ha ing re onsidered the status uo, a group of young and middle-aged Shan i
222
photographers took up the slogan ba k to realism. They belie ed that going ba k to

|
realism was a prere uisite for de eloping the di ersities of photographi art in this
new age. The ne ualities of photographi realism should embra e life, witness his-
tory, and propel li ing. nder the in uen e of su h thinking, in 1987 a national om-
petition, Journey of Hardship Jianju licheng , was organi ed. It aimed to make a
omprehensi e summary of photography o er the last ten years to ser e as a basis for
en ouraging people to make re onsiderations from a histori al perspe ti e. As a result,
they reali ed their situation and pa ed the way ahead.
At the same time, moti ated by e en more ontro ersial on epts, photogra-
phers of the new generation took photography through intense e perimentation.
They were less sha kled by histori al and ultural burdens, unlike those who had
e perien ed the Cultural e olution. They emphasi ed deri ing reati e passion from
personal sentiments or the e er-e ol ing Western modern art for inspiration. Being
e traordinary and outrageous, they again hanged old photographi pra ti es.
Howe er, they in ariably displayed a la k of maturity. It was hard to ome a ross any
reali ed works. Among these photographers, the upture roup Liebian qunti was
more self- ons ious and mature. They emphasi ed intuition, impro isation, and the
an ieties of irrationality and the sub ons ious. Their ompositions were bi arre and
reated awkward isual effe ts.
The League of North i er Beihe meng from Shanghai e pressed the solitude and
stress of modern ities through arious themes. Their photographs reated a kind of
absurdity and alienation.
radually, a new breed of photographer emerged from Si huan, Hunan, and the
northeast. Among them were some ne arts students. They borrowed a more forward-
looking perspe ti e from ne arts to stimulate the monotonous photography s ene.
. Theory Constru tion

Stri tly speaking, theories of Chinese photography only really ame into being during
the 1980s. p till that point, there had been no theoreti ians of Chinese photography.
hotographi theories were built upon a barren land.
At that time, a lot of photography periodi als, for e ample InPhoto Xiandai shey-
ing maga ine, started a more systemati and ontemporary dialogue. They dis ussed
issues of photographi art a ross a wide spe trum.
iii. i : i i (
) ( 1988 1994 )
rom 1988 to 1989, photography was basi ally at a low point. Many on e-a ti e pho-
tographers were estranged and at a dead end. By that time, they had to onfront their
limitations. Some people suggested two dire tions for hanging the situation. ne
was to learn from the history of photography: seeking a rm foundation for long-term
progress. The other was to study the language of photography: positioning photogra-
phy ba k at its origins photography for photography s sake with the amera
ser ing as a simple e tension of the eye.
Many photographers turned from e oti elements to their own life. hotography
hanged from so ial riti ue to on ern for humanity, and as it be ame a alm e plo-
ration with a histori al perspe ti e, it dropped its opportunisti fer or in due time.
With indi idualisti isual efforts, Chinese photography entered into the world arena.
In 1988, the ren h Arles hotography esti al rst organi ed a China Special
Exhibition. Besides holding a solo show for eteran photographer Wu Yin ian, e
223
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hang Haier. Self-Portrait.
1987. Bla k-and-white
photograph, 23 19
0 50 m . Colle tion
the artist
infamous young photographers were in ited. This mo e shook up the established

order in photography, populari ing styles not fa ored by the National Photography
Exhibition. Among these photographers, hang Haier from uangdong was espe ially
outstanding.
hang was a photographer with a personal style. When he rst took up photogra-
phy, he deliberately looked for his own standpoint. At that time, a group of more
mature photographers with distin ti e personal styles surfa ed. Ea h one had his own
way. They were: Lu Nan, Lin Yonghui, Hou engke, ie uanghui, eng hengge, iao
uan, Yong He, Han Lei, Wu ialin, Shen ian hong, Lu Yuanmin, and u heng.
Together, they be ame a strong urrent heading for New So ial o umentation, add-
ing substan e to Chinese photography.
The trend for So ial o umentation embra es the following hara teristi s: rst,
photographers be ame ery indi idualisti , looking for their own stylisti spe ialties,
minimi ing imitations se ond, so ial reality be ame their fo us. They tended to use
handy ameras to take snapshots, trying to reate an image ulture with humanisti
essen e third, they ga e up using a single frame to e press an idea. Instead, they used
multiple images to depi t a theme, reinfor ing their personal iews through e pression.
Stri tly speaking, the trend is still e ol ing and it is dif ult to make a on lusi e
udgment at this stage. Howe er, in the history of Chinese photography, the trend of
New So ial o umentation, emerging after 1988, attra ted global attention. And, it
onstru ti ely pa ed the way for Chinese photography to enter the world.
riginally published in Three Photographic Perspectives: Hong Kong, Mainland China, Taiwan Hong
ong: Hong ong Arts Centre, 1994 , 13 1 . Translation by uo a-Nian.
APPENDIX
224
ZERO TO INFINITY: THE NASCENCE OF PHOTOGRAPHY IN

|
CONTEMPORARY CHINESE ART OF THE 1990S (2002)

By Karen Smith
...
i
As I ha e suggested, through the rst half of the 1990s e en where artists were begin-
ning to employ photographi elements in their work, no one thought of being a pho-
tographer. Not e en ong ong, who was initially determined to be an oil painter.
Three failed attempts to enter art s hool persuaded him otherwise, and following
e periments with a rented medium-format Seagull amera the domesti Shanghai
brand he put an as aside in fa or of light-sensiti e paper pl. 32 .
When mo ing to Bei ing to begin photography studies at the Central Institute of
Art and esign, student po erty brought ong ong to an impo erished pla e, but
so ial omment did not yet interest him. He was drawn to the reati ity that the en i-
ronment spawned in the artists li ing there. The illage was home to hang Huan, Ma
Liuming, hu Ming, Cang in, the poet singer u hou, and numerous others, who
olle ti ely hristened it the East illage. The artists were almost entirely unknown.
ubli i ing e ents was not a sensible option. Thus, with only a limited audien e to
spread the word, ong ong s photographs be ame testimony to the East illage
mo ement. His stills su essfully aptured the tense an iety and bated silen e that
underlay all gatherings and the darker reality whi h these artists fa ed e ery day. Ea h
of these artists e entually a hie ed re ognition, but e ternal awareness of their art was
undeniably fast-tra ked ia the images taken by ong ong and ing anwen.
Ma Liuming later used a amera in his performan es with a self-timer that allowed
him to photograph himself with his audien e, but his work, like that of hu Ming and
hu adong, was primarily about performan e, not photography.
The performan e art mo ement gained urren y with the East illage s group ethi
from early 1994. That did not mean that other artists were not e perimenting with per-
forman e, nor with photographi do umentation of their endea ors. Here, Wang
insong, Liu Anping, and hang Shaoruo stand as early pioneers of performan e pho-
tography. Wang insong and Liu Anping re orded their oint performan e pie es in
images of aried uality. Where one was immediately aware that the photograph is of
an a t, the a t took pre eden e o er the photograph pls. 33, 34, 35 .
Wang insong a uired a amera in 1992, but it did not o ur to him to use it to
make art until 199 , when he produ ed Standard amily Biaozhun jiating , whi h we
will look at later. He had a fabulous eye and would be asked by many artists to apture
their performan es, like Wang in s Red Train Tracks Hongse tiegui , in 1994.
hao Shaoruo s early e perimentation with photography followed in the well-
trodden footsteps of of ial pra ti e of rewriting pi torial history by reordering politi-
al line-ups. He appropriated known images of Mao amongst the people, whi h he
re- reated, inserting himself as the radiant heart of the rowd. While this was not
great art, it was in line with the mood of the times. In ommandeering the same type
of politi al and ultural signifiers, hao Shaoruo s photomontages paralleled the
growth of oliti al op in painting. The te hni ue was instantly apparent to a non-
Chinese audien e, whi h delighted in a ant-garde works loaded with readable, daring
i onography. Espe ially as the artist ould ha e a ameo in his own photographs.
In summer 1994, at the home of artists Lin Tianmiao and Wang ong in, Wang in
presented a test print of Red Dust Hongqi qu , hot from the darkroom. It was a stun-
225
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New Photo Maga ine. 199 98
ningly arresting image of the artist standing on an idylli stone bridge abo e a gently
meandering stream, anked by lustily egetated banks somewhere deep in China s
agri ultural heartland. Wang in s then-long hair e hoed the ow of water, and the red
dust he was emptying from a sa k in his hands des ended to the tributary s surfa e like
a deli ate autumn mist.
Lin Tianmiao was mo ed to uestion the artist s moti e for what appeared a delib-
erate dese ration of the en ironment. Wang in, ultimately on erned with making a
isual impa t, denied dese ration. The ensuing dis ussion illustrated the arying atti-
tudes towards en ironmental issues amongst artists. Blissful ignoran e lay in pro ision
for what seemed almost moral anar hy in photo works of the late 1990s.
In 1994, Wang in also a graduate of he iang A ademy used photography to
re ord an e ent in step with East illage performers. He ontinued with works like To
Marry a Mule Gen yitou luozi jiehun 1995 and 100 Baifen zhi bai 1999 . The su ess
of these, parti ularly To Marry a Mule, added fuel to the re that laimed the photo-
graphi re ord as the all-important ash ow.
It was another e hibition in 1995 that effe ted the ne t alteration in iews held of
photography. Almost no photo works had yet been e hibited in China although se eral
had been published at home and abroad.
This rst e hibition highlighted the Bei ing art ir le s onser ati e per eptions of
the medium but did pre ipitate a degree of hange.
In tober 1995, Yan Lei and the fa t that he too graduated from he iang
A ademy suggests a pattern here showed photographs of two performan e works in
his solo show Invasion Jinru). The performan es were done in pri ate without an audi-
en e, so the photographs were the artworks.
If photography pur eyed truth, then mightn t it be apable of apturing images of
reality stranger than tion East illage performan e works were not always a orded
redibility as art, but the photographs that do umented them were ompelling for
the truth they depi ted. Howe er, the opening of Yan Lei s e hibition produ ed an
out ry against performan es fabri ated for the amera. It was urious gi en that
photographer-artists like Cindy Sherman and Yasumasa Morimura were at that time
riding high on the su ess of imitating and re- reating familiar s enarios for the amera.
There would be a 3 0-degree turn around in attitudes in 1998, but in 1995, standards
set by the brute a tuality of East illage performan es, meant that to be redible an a t
had to be authenti , no heating allowed.
Yan Lei s a tions were real enough yet the works were intended to on ey more
than the do ument of an e ent. He was deliberately tampering with truth, what it
was and how it was appraised. The aim was to play with audien e per eption.
226
nfortunately, at that moment, no one wanted to be toyed with. Artists did not wish to
|
be hallenged by other artists. Toleran e was low.

The breakthrough in altering attitudes was wrought by heng uogu, whose series
The Life of Youth in Yang iang Yangjiang qingnian de shenghuo), begun in 1995, ali-
dated play-a ting to the hilt. Anyone who took these images for real was plain na e.
heng uogu s nati e town was a stone s throw from uang hou, where the Big-Tailed
Elephant group Da wei xiang resided. The group was a primal in uen e in the region,
forward-looking in on ept and di erse in use of materials, whi h often in luded pho-
tography, primarily as stills. It was present in their ollaborati e and independent a ti i-
ties as do umentation and an element of a pie e like u Tan s rostitute series Jinü) or
Chen Shao iong s pro e tion works. The geographi al lo ation pro ided a spe i set of
in uen es for artists within its sphere. It was ust o er the border from Hong ong and
part of the earl i er elta region, a spe ial e onomi and trade one. aily issues
were more lo ali ed than the politi ally dri en ones that manipulated agendas in the
north. uang hou s youth were parti ularly ons ious of the unsuper ised s uander-
ing of ash and time en oyed by the progeny of the Hong ong elite.
E ploiting lo al responses in deliberately ob ious parodies of dressing up and
grown-up make-belie e, heng uogu relayed the narrati e of his stories through
negati e-si ed onta t prints pla ed in rows on a single sheet of paper like a story-
board for a lm. Cruel mo kery was made to appear as heaps of fun. He e en ena ted
his own ideal wedding suffused with the ideali ed roman e promoted on e ery bill-
board on e ery orner. The pra ti e of using multiple images to omplete one work
reated rhythmi ows that reinfor ed the far e of the romp. But soon his frames
started to appear like real life. r was it that real life had grown in reasingly fantasti al
and performed in line with his photographed performan es The mood be ame yni-
al as he manipulated fragmented porn images, making ugly distortions of that whi h
was meant to e ite. Whilst the poli e dealt with the nastiness of i e, heng uogu s
sub e t paralleled an of ial ampaign to oust distributors of pornographi material.
The artist hinted at the nastiness of minds that thrilled to manufa ture stimulation.
The issue ould ha e been interpreted in many ways. heng uogu was ust mak-
ing art. 1990s Chinese art played with ra y topi s in a syn opated fashion, groomed
and ombined for immediate impa t, a momentary erk of emotion and a lingering
nod to the gray matter that ne er uite e plained itself. heng uogu s photography
was ahead of itself, and his work inspired a be y of followers dedi ated to youthful
fantasy, like that subse uently employed by Yang Yong, whose photographi do u-
mentation of twenty-four hours in the life of bored but ute twenty-something
Shen hen girls of dubious employment owed mu h to the narrati e style e oked in
heng uogu s work. erhaps the most important ontribution heng uogu made to
the ad an e of ontemporary art photography in China was in e a uating the sense of
pre iousness that had rept into o erly posed images of artists performing. It was an
awareness that both he and Yan Lei would ontinue to e ploit though not always ia
the medium of photography. And he made the multiple key.
Note
. epartment of Chinese ainting, .
E erpted from Reinterpretation: A Decade of xperimental Chinese Art 1990 – 2000 , ed. Wu Hung
uang hou: uangdong Museum of Art, 2002 , 39 50.
227
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huang Hui. Shooting a Group Portrait. 1997. Color photograph, 3 4 24 11
101 7 0 m . Colle tion the artist
I ONLY CHOSE THE “GROUP PORTRAIT” (1997)

By Zhuang Hui
. A tually, I am not that sensiti e to differen es among ameras. Sin e I ha e ery

poor eyesight, all I see through the iew nder is a blur.
. I re all meeting some photographer friends at an e hibition one of them, Mr. , pulled
out a Lei a amera that he ust bought. They enthusiasti ally hattered on about this
amera s shutter, speed, aperture, et . they made me feel as if I had bumped into a
group of te hni ians from the state-owned fa tories. Howe er, there was a time when
I had a fondness toward a amera, a palm-si ed lympus, small but ery hea y. My
friend Ai pur hased it from an anti ue dealer.
. I still do not ha e a amera of my own as of today.
. The amera I used to shoot the group portrait works was originally a rental from The
eople s hoto Studio Renmin zhaoxiangguan , whi h is a famous photo studio. In the
early s, a photographer, Mr. Wang from Shanghai, traded an Ameri an ten gold
bars for this authenti Ameri an item. Later it swit hed hands se eral times and ended
up with Mr. Mai. Although the amera is ery old and shabby now, Mr. Mai treats it
with great are, as if it were his own eyes. It is a rotatable amera e uipped with an
ad ustable wooden tripod. n top of the tripod there is a motori ed head to fa ilitate
the rotation with a le el at the enter. The photographer ad usts the le el to the tri-
pod support, positions the amera, assembles the ba k and parts, uses the handle to
ne-tune e erything, arranges the people to be photographed a ording to the proper
alignment a -degree ar entered around the amera , and presses the shutter.
The amera pans from left to right until done. The amera e posure uses a thin thread
of light , and the me hani ed head rotates with the amera syn hronously to e pose
the lm. It is said that Shanghai Camera a tory manufa tured similar produ ts in the
early s, but stopped be ause of low demand. The Tian in Camera a tory had a
similar e perien e. Howe er, presently there is a master in Houma in Shan i ro in e
who reworks old ameras into this model, and the rotation of his produ t is battery
operated. E en though the rotation speed of his ameras an be une en be ause of
the oltage instability, many who want this type of amera pla e their orders there.
And ea h ma hine only osts se eral thousand MB renminbi .
. The lm is in hes wide, and the length an be e tended up to meters if needed.
228
The traditional de eloping te hni ues di tate that the negati es annot be enlarged or
|
redu ed, the prints will be true to the si e of the negati e.

. After shooting, I plan to use olor ink- et printing te hnology to enlarge the prints to
meter in height, and e tend the length a ordingly. Then I will e hibit them in differ-
ent ities in China and abroad. The uestions an be intensi ed only when these dif-
ferent group portraits are pla ed in the same spa e.
i , i i , i
. My father had a bright and heerful personality and was a hardworking professional
photographer. In the early days of postliberation China, he tra eled with his amera to
shoot portraits for lo al people. In the mid- s we relo ated from Henan ro in e to
the remote Northwest, Yumen, allegedly in order to es ape bandits. Later my father
opened a ery small photography studio, the only one in town. But, it did not last long
as it was absorbed by the state during the reat Leap orward. I an still re all, when I
was old enough to begin remembering things, my father was often in ited to go to
pla es far away to shoot portraits for the Agri ultural e lamation egiments stationed
at the northwestern border. He often took me with him. I always sat in an old eep,
peering around. It often took se eral hours on dirt roads in the obi esert for us to
rea h a group of barra ks. These pla es are all similar. E erything seemed to be s or hed
by the sun s re a dull barrenness e erywhere sa e for the rare green of a few rows of
poplar trees. In a temporarily a ated of e, my father would o er all the windows
with bla k loth. Those young fathers, mothers, and hildren were bu ing with e ite-
ment, as if it were the New Year. When the shooting started, the adults would be gi en
a number and alled on by a adre in a four-po ket suit. It took a long time, usually
from noon till dusk, to nish photographing the regiment. I often wat hed my father
sti king his head into the bla k loth, s uee ing the brown rubber ball in his hand.
Then the ash glared, followed by darkness. All these moments, like a series of mysteri-
ous signs, e entually be ame the permanent memory my father left with me, as he
departed from us in the winter when I was se en he died of septi emia.
. I often re isit the pi tures that my father left there are group portraits of my mother,
my sister, my brother, and of himself and his friends.
. I am mo ed by the tran uil and solemn omposure of the people in these portraits.
Why would people ha e su h an intuiti ely alm rea tion when fa ing the amera
When a friend from the nited States, Mr. W, paid his rst isit to my studio to talk
about my work One and Thirty Yige he sanshi ge we dis ussed some topi s related to
this uestion. The ery instant when one fa es the amera lens, there is a transitional
pro ess from psy hologi al a ti ity to spiritual a ti ity, be ause on e the photographi
image is de eloped and printed, signs of an indi idual s image and identity are ed in
the frame. This is a pro ess where the material world is spirituali ed, a ritual in whi h
people en ounter the material world fa e-to-fa e. Essentially, it dire tly stems from
e isting primiti e religious emotions. This is all losely related to people s re e tions
on e perien es with life and death.
. Then what about the group portrait It is a display of publi relations. or e ample,
when I hoose different groups of people to make the portrait, rst I ha e to deliberate
on the plausibility of this group being a group. A group of peasants an ne er ha e a
group portrait photographed with a group of s holars or a group of fa tory workers
although it was possible during the Cultural e olution , be ause differen es in their
di ision of labor, lifestyles, and worldly status are too drasti . Meanwhile, a group por-
trait with more than a hundred parti ipants refle ts a familial relationship among
ontemporary people. This type of group portrait, I suppose, is hardly a hie able in the
229
nited States. Mr. W replies, this is of ourse due to differen es between so ial systems.
|
The Ameri an indi idualist spirit stresses independen e, while Chinese so iety is based

on and guided by a proto group-oriented on ept. Although things ha e hanged sig-
ni antly sin e the opening and reform mo ement, I belie e this mode of the group
portrait is to be ome a pe uliar feature of the urrent so ial stru ture, but won t sur i e
too long into the future.
. I was asked by my friend ao to oin two other photographers on a trip to the oun-
tryside of the an ient ity of aming. That is the illage where ao grew up, and
e eryone there knows him ery well. It took the hief of the illage uite a long time
on a loudspeaker to gather the illagers about people in total into an empty
spa e in the lo al primary s hool ompound. It was rather dif ult to pose this group
be ause there were many unresol ed feuds and ghts among the families, neighbors,
and lo ers. Some e en uit be ause of dissatisfa tion with the positioning. After se -
eral hours Master Li alled for the shot to start, and the ma hine started to rotate.
Then I saw the amera skip a few times during the rotation, and my heart was in my
throat during the whole pro ess.
. I did not anti ipate that afterward the illage adres, se eral elders, and thirty-some
other people would be waiting for me to ha e dinner with them. I asked ao to help
take are of this matter. The only pub in the illage had prepared food for all these peo-
ple on the hief s orders before our arri al. ortunately, pri es are ery low in this part
of the ountry after ao helped arrange the matter, I left the money and ed in haste.
rankly I usually lo e to drink, but I anti ipated gra e onse uen es if I stayed there,
lea ing myself in the hands of all those people. It reminded me of the time when I shot
in Bei hi illage where during lun h I drank with a few lo al adres, hoping to settle the
arrangements for the afternoon shooting. My assistants failed to stop them from end-
less toasting if I refused to drink a toast, it would be deemed impertinen e . I begged
them to ha e mer y on my dri ers and photographers. But myself: we alled ea h other
brothers, ups went bottoms up, bottles went bottoms up I an t remember how
many bottles of li uor were onsumed. I don t e en remember the shoot at all. The ini-
tial plan was to shoot the workers from the small lo al oal mines, but it was impossible
to gather all these people, so we hanged plans to shoot the lo al shehuo Shan i s lo al
traditional folk performan e group. I was in a fog and an only faintly re all the boom-
ing sounds of some annons being set off. Later, Mr. Mai told me I almost died that day.
. When Mr. ao saw these pi tures, he asked, is this realism I told him it is not realism
in the on entional sense, be ause the on entional understanding is that artists are
nothing but instruments to represent and reate reality. How to plunge deeply into
life, depi t life, and re e t life is the theoreti al platform for realists. Howe er, my work
is simply to do ument dire tly and show real ob e ts and e ents thus, I think, I a oid
the biased error of personal e perien e to a hie e a more ob e ti e presentation of
reality. If one wants to emphasi e the realist signi an e of my work, then you ould
say that I ha e a different approa h to understanding reality, a neo-realist perspe ti e.
. I had an argument with Mr. hao during his isit. He said, if you are a realist, then why
did you painstakingly gather a group to shoot a portrait This a tion itself iolates the
real-life situation of ob e ti e reality. I answered that I think your argument is based
on a mis on eption. Some think a photographer ould pre isely and without error
re e t reality by simply pointing and shooting do umenting life with a amera in
hand. Howe er, the real situation is not so simple. We an analy e this as follows: at
the instant when a photographer presses the shutter, the spa e that used to be three-
dimensional and uid has a tually already been turned two-dimensional and rei ed.
When the negati es are de eloped, printed, and ut, the a t of photography itself has
230
already been transformed into a pro ess that turns reality into on epts and abstra -
|
tion. Therefore, some understanding of the meaning of reality or e en truth is depen-

dent on the photographer s personal taste and determined by the depth of his
understanding of things. I personally think the independen e and authenti ity of one s
mental state is where the nature of truth resides. Therefore, I deliberately arrange all of
my group portraits.
. The omple ity of modern multimedia. The transition between ideas old and new. In
fa t, photography has long lost its original fun tion. I emphasi e the independent,
irrepla eable, and proto-fun tions of the material and medium. I am on erned with
the primal reality of things.
. p to now, I still ha e not photographed a single one of my works with my own
hands. I only hose the mode of the group portrait.
riginally published as Wo in in uan e de shi heying in Huipishu [ Gray Cover Book ed. eng
iao un and Ai Weiwei Bei ing: pri ately published, 1997 , 57 0. Translated by Yin ing Liu.
FRAGMENTS (1998 / 2004)

By Rong Rong
In the summer of 1998, on the morning of one of Bei ing s hottest days, e hausted
but unable to fall ba k asleep, too la y to mo e, I started dreaming again. Ha ily, I
don t know when, my body was on e again o ered in sweat, all I ould do is get up,
sternly telling myself, I an t sleep anymore. What s that in my head I an t remem-
ber, there are ust some noises from outside, the sounds of Bei ing, nothing spe ial,
anyway for the past few years there s been onstru tion going on day and night . . .
But there was one thing, it made me tremble. That summer in 1998 I walked aim-
lessly into an empty house, the owner had mo ed away long ago . . . and I saw some-
thing une pe ted . . .
ong ong. rom the

ragments series. 1998.
Hand-dyed gelatin-sil er
print, 20 24 50.8 1 m.
In a orner of the empty room I found a pile of negati es, ut into tiny pie es and
231
wrapped in some paper. My heart shuddered, why would somebody want to destroy
|
them I looked losely at the negati es not one remained whole. I held the negati es

to the sun in uriosity I wanted to see the pi tures. But the pie es were too small.
My naked eye ould not distinguish the images. I se retly took them home, where that
night I ouldn t help myself from putting one of the pie es of negati es into my
enlarger, turning on the light. Although I had thought about it, I was still surprised to
see the images a breast in one fragment, an upper thigh in another fragment . . . all
from some dismembered bodies. There was not a single omplete image, but blowing
them up in my enlarger I ould tell that it was a man and a woman. I stayed up all that
night going o er the hundreds of pie es of negati es. I was both e hilarated and
uneasy. I was dis o ering tra es of something . . .
These fragments, destroyed and thrown out, they would ne er dream this ould
happen: they ha e fallen into my hands, and I ha e e posed them to the world . . .
riginally published in Wu Hung, Rong Rong & inri: Tui-Transformation Hong ong and Bei ing:
Time one 8, 2004 , 78 79. Translated by Wu Hung.
A FEW WORDS ON THE PHOTOS (2002)

By Hai Bo
e olle ting bygone days is one of my most fre uent pursuits. This purely pri ate and
indes ribable state has be ome an important part of my spiritual life. As time passes,
the power of re olle tion has be ome so strong that I e had no hoi e but to nd a
way to e press su h memories.
These photos are the result of my work o er the past few years. Most of the peo-
ple in them are my friends, my parents, and myself. By re omposing old photographs
and stri tly adhering to the way that they look for e ample the people in them must
stay in the same positions , I mean not only to show the hanges that ha e taken pla e
in people and so iety, as well as the passage of time e en more importantly, I mean to
re- reate the past, if only for the moment the shutter snaps, I am en hanted by the
fragran e of time.
These photographs are obstinate re- reations of past times. Maintaining this kind
of unreali able dream is my understanding of what art really is. To look for and nd a
meaningful photograph, then to seek out the people in it, is in one respe t a more
meaningful pro ess than the a tual making of the photograph itself. When you are
Hai Bo. They No. 6. 1999. Bla k-and-white photograph and olor photograph, ea h 1 24 40 0 m.
Colle tion etty Museum, Los Angeles
immersed in life and time, art is a tually ery insigni ant. Also, I am apti e to an
232
indes ribable desolation. This style of dire t e pression without regard to photo-
|
graphi te hni ue or aestheti taste, without deep onsideration, is the way I like
to work today.
I mean to take photographs that e ist on the line between art and life.
I found a pi ture totally by han e and in the left orner were the words: or the
future 1973.5.20. Suddenly, a not-so-distant generation be ame so familiar that it seemed
to be engra ed on my bones. Those girls in the photograph whose hearts were full of
longing. What were they doing and where were they now Then I thought of the idea to
bring them all ba k together again, and photograph them all in the same position as they
were in the original, and take them and myself ba k to 1973 for 1 125 of a se ond.
I like on ise and simple works of art, some of whi h e en fuse with the ordinary. I
belie e good art is born on the line between art and non-art. These photographi works
are the produ t of this belief. I hope that they approa h my ideal through penetrating
the theoreti al fog and presentational te hni alities and enter into people s hearts.
riginally published in Chinese Artists, Texts, and Interviews: Chinese Contemporary Art Awards (CCAA)
1998 – 2002 Hong ong: Time one 8, 2002 , 101 2.
Video Art
APPENDIX
THE RISE AND DEVELOPMENT OF VIDEO ART AND THE MATURITY OF
NEW MEDIA ART (2002)
We an say that, a ross the board, Chinese art arries enormous estiges arising both
dire tly and indire tly from on erns present within so iety through the 1990s. These
were ompounded by the artists instin ti e responses to the allure of ommer ial ul-
ture and the popularity of postmodern theories. Against this, indi idual preferen es
for ideo art in China sprang up in a fragmented way, being neither on oined to, nor
bereft from, the so ial en ironment. n o asion, works pro ed to be uite su ess-
ful. ideo art might appear to ha e ourished in re ent years, yet one must re ogni e
that there was a great deal of ersat work produ ed. Su ess is a hie ed only when the
onditions are ripe, and a ertain le el of progress has been rea hed.
In 1990, rofessor Mi ka of the Hamburg Institute of Art brought to China a num-
ber of ideotapes that had been shown on erman tele ision to mark the nine-
hundredth anni ersary elebrations of the ity of Cologne. The ideo works were
shown during two le tures to the tea hing staff and students at Hang hou s he iang
A ademy of ine Arts renamed the China National A ademy of ine Arts in 1995 . This
was the rst time a meaningful onne tion had been made between ideo and art in
China. In a striking ontrast, representati es from pro in ial tele ision stations a ross
China were simultaneously holding a meeting at Hua iashan Hotel in Hang hou, dur-
ing whi h the ideotapes were also shown. The industry professionals showed not the
least bit of interest in the works, and the s reening was abandoned after one hour.
These e ents were a springboard that was responsible for stru turing the basi
de elopment of ideo art in China. ideo art was immediately a epted and utili ed
by artists. It was ne er employed as an a ti ely politi al medium as was the ase with
early Western ideo art. nlike The Street ideo roup in ermany in the 19 0s,
Chinese artists were not interested in do umenting news, re ording so ial reform, or
233
ghting the museum system. n the ontrary, Chinese artists took ideo as a new
|
mode of indi idual e pression, pla ing emphasis on its aestheti alue.

In 1991, hang eili, one of the organi ers of the Garage Art Exhibition Cheku yishu-
zhan in a storage spa e in Hengshan oad, Shanghai, showed the work Document on
Hygiene, No. 3 [ Wei zi 3 hao . This was the rst showing of a ideo work produ ed by a
Chinese artist in China. It showed the artist repeatedly washing a hi ken with soap and
water in a basin. In the e hibition spa e, hang eili pla ed se eral rows of red bri ks in
front of the tele ision monitor to e oke the sense of a meeting. This orresponded to
oliti al op, whi h had not yet be ome a re ogni ed genre yet it was more de ious
and ingenious in its use of language. hang eili produ ed three ideo works in 1992:
Assignment No. 1 Zuoye yihao), Children’s Playground Ertong leyuan , and Water: The
Standard ersion Read from the Cihai i tionary Shui Cihai biaozhun ban .
Assignment No. 1 was an installation onsisting of si ideotapes showing blood
samples being taken from human ngers. It was similar in tone to the breaking of glass
in 30 30 1988 , and the hi ken-washing e er ise in Document on Hygiene, No. 3.
Water showed a professional news broad aster from CCT China Central Tele ision ,
reading e ery e planation of the hara ter water from a di tionary. hang eili re-
reated the same lighting, ba kground, setup, and fa e of the nation as an a tual
news broad ast, but with the ontent repla ed by a non-e pressi e and neutral le i-
on. Mo kery is the timed spirit of 1992, further demonstrated in the way that hang
eili synthesi ed the filmed se uen e of washing the hi ken to a soundtra k of
an ient musi entitled Chun jiang hua yue ye Blossoms in the Moon over Spring River .
After graduating from he iang A ademy of ine Arts, Yan Lei ame to Bei ing,
where he produ ed the works Dissolve Huajie , Clear Away Qingchu 1993 , 1500 cm
and Beijing Haw Beijing hongguo 1994 . Dissolve showed two hands repeatedly play-
ing ariations of at s radle. Clear Away followed the artist as he bent his head in on-
entration while plu king armpit hair with twee ers. 1500 cm was shot in four
segments, ea h fo using on a spe i yet mundane a t of human beha ior. The a t
employed 1500 m of rubber bands, whi h he washed, measured, for ed into his
mouth, and then pulled ba k out again as magi ians do with handker hiefs. In a similar
style to hang eili s Assignment No. 1, Yan Lei s three ideo works were all ompiled
of long shots taken with a ed fo us from a single amera position. There was almost
no narrati e within these e ents be ause with the aim of re ording fa t, truth itself
was demonstrated to ha e no ob ious pro ess. Con ersely, where the mere re ord of
an ob e t is meaningless, a tion be omes truth on the s reen. In this regard, the sin-
gle, ed-fo us, lose-up shot then is a ompelling medium.
If this interesting approa h was found in the work of two artists alone, we might
suppose some kind of ollaboration or aestheti in uen e to be at work between them.
Yet, it soon be ame lear that more and more artists were also e ploring this approa h.
In 1994, Living with Jika Yu Jika tongju by Li u huan, and Watched Sleep Bei zhushi de
shuiyan) by Tong Biao, among others, re ealed that this phenomenon was the result of a
problem: the la k of any other personal in lination. At the same time, if we take a wider
iew, the situation of that moment largely denied the artists ready a essibility to editing
and postprodu tion e uipment. Cameras themsel es were often borrowed, so the origi-
nal on ept of these works was aimed at a oiding the subse uent problems of editing.
This was a smart mo e. na oidably, the deliberate and repeated paring down of te hni-
al elements under these dif ult onditions resulted in unbearably simpli ed work. A
lo e of minimalism, an interest in e treme simpli ation, and an obsession with pro ess
further pro ided a seemingly profound and self- on dent basis for this.
ideo art had ust oloni ed an area within isual awareness when it ame up
234
against limitations within te hnology and material. More reati e artists a ti ely engaged
|
in the medium by e ploiting the ir umstan e that they found themsel es in.
The element of timely rele an e has always been key to iu hi ie s approa h. In

1992, after three years of ontinuous work, he ompleted the pie e Assignment No. 1:
Copying the “Orchid Pavilion Preface” a Thousand Times Zuoye yihao: Chongfu shuxie yiq-
ian bian Lanting u . This was a ideo re ording of fty o erwritings of the famous te t. A
hand-held brush was deli ately mo ed a ross a sheet of paper, whi h was in reasingly
bla kened as multiple layers of the te t built up. It engendered a strange, disturbing ten-
sion. ollowing this, sensiti ity towards the images be ame a parti ular feature of his
ideo works: intense mo ement, dramati altering pro esses, life e perien e e oked
from the physi ality of a re orded ob e t, et . The interests re ealed in his works dem-
onstrated less about ontemporary on epts than about his broader awareness. iu
hi ie s installation works were often pi oted on on ept and notable for their philo-
sophi al inspiration and inferen e. These aspe ts of the works re e t the diorama of his
spiritual life. By the time he saw Buried Secrets by Bill iola, whose work represented the
S at the 1995 eni e Biennale and who would ui kly be ame the main for e inspiring
and dri ing ideo art in China, ideo art had be ome the entral fo us of his art.
As the 1990s progressed, ideo art ourished in the Western world, and be ame
embra ed by audien es as an independent medium. Howe er, it was something uite
beyond the imagination of ordinary Chinese people. Although the ir umstan es of
the moment were dif ult, an e hibition of ideo art seemed ne essary. By 1995, the
growing pra ti e around the ountry, albeit s attered, indi ated the importan e ideo
art was beginning to assume. At the end of 1994, hu ia produ ed his ingenious work
Forever Yongyuan , e e uted by ing a small amera to the edge of a atbed bi y le s
wheel as the artist pedaled through the streets of Bei ing. The image of the streets
easelessly spins round and round with the hanging speed of the atbed bi y le.
When Forever was later e hibited in Hang hou, the images were a ompanied by a
soundtra k of loud snoring.
In 1995, Li Yongbin nished his rst ideo pie e by pro e ting olor slides of his
de eased mother onto buildings and trees immediately outside his apartment in the
early hours of the morning. As the dawn broke, the image faded and e entually disap-
peared. His se ond work, ace No. 1 Lian 1 , was shown at a group e hibition in
Hang hou the following year. Here, a ideotaped image of an old man s fa e is pro-
e ted onto the fa e of the artist. The two superimposed fa es sometimes oin ide
and sometimes dislo ate. Within the realm of ideo works omposed of long shots, Li
Yongbin e ol ed his own rationale and would ontinue e periments with pro e tions.
Wang ong in and Lin Tianmiao li ed in New York for ten years prior to their
return to Bei ing in 1995. Wang ong in produ ed his rst ideo installation work, Sky
of Brooklyn Bulukelin de tiankong pl. 3 , soon after his return. or this, he dug a
well within their ourtyard home and pla ed a tele ision monitor at the bottom, whi h
showed the ideotaped image of a blue sky o er Brooklyn. A oi eo er says: What
are you looking at There s nothing to see here in a strong Bei ing a ent. The under-
lying metaphor of the work illustrated China s uriosity about the West and the ele-
ment of desire inherent to that attitude. It appealed to the audien e to draw near and
then repelled them with a olt.
In September 1995, Yan Lei held a solo show titled Invasion Jinru) in Bei ing. The
ideo works 323 cm and No. 031007 were less about art than his Clear Away. These
largely fun tioned as do umentation, relaying on the pro ess of an e ent that had
already taken pla e.
Chen Shao iong, an a ti e member of the Big-Tailed Elephant group Da wei
235
xiang) in uang hou, has a uni ue approa h to working with the ideo medium. With
|
a strong apa ity for logisti al organi ation, his work is hara teri ed by two tenden-

ies. His ideo installations are tight ontrapositions of images ombined with lambent
editing. This is ounterpoised by his awareness of the physi ality of isual e perien e.
The former impels him to reate intri ately on gured installation works, to fre uently
use elements to reate a kind of rationale, or to follow his preferen e for forms like
word games. The latter allows him to su essfully translate what might originally ha e
been relati ely uninteresting epistemologi al issues into a dire t, easy language and
a tual physi al e perien e. Chen Shao iong began work on the Sight Ad uster series
Shili jiaozhengqi in 1994, and has persistently pushed the sub e t to its limit, as dem-
onstrated in the work presented for the e hibition Image and Phenomena Xianxiang,
yingxiang in 199 .
In September 1995, Weng en and female artist Yan Yinhong held an e hibition
titled A Talk Between a Man and a Woman Nanren dui nüren shuo, nüren dui nanren
shuo) in Haikou. This ontained elements similar to a work of Chen Shao iong s, The
Bride Changes Her Mind When the Television Channel Is Changed Gaibian dianshi pindao
bian gaibian xinniang de jueding) 1994 . Liu Yi from Shen hen showed her work Who
Am I? Shei shi wo in Bei ing. It showed a number of the artist s friends talking about
her, whi h pla ed an o erriding fo us on linguisti s within the work. The problems
that underlie the works by these artists indi ate a similar risis: that their authors were
ontent to fo us on terribly simple ideas of little signi an e.
We nd a similar problem in the work of Bei ing artist Song ong, but his obses-
sion with tiny details omes loser to being en. Song ong held a solo e hibition
titled Uncovering Xiankai in Bei ing. The work shown took the form of pro e ted
s enes or lose-up shots of lifting a loth o ering arious ob e ts. This straightforward
methodology be ame a fertile ground for his work. The installation Shut p and Listen
to Me Bishang zui, ting wo shuo) arried a so ial metaphor. Song ong pla ed two
tele ision monitors fa e-to-fa e, ea h one playing footage of a lose-up shot of one
mouth that appeared to be speaking to another, one in English, one in Chinese. His
approa h was similar to that of Weng en but the effe t was more on ise.
In 1994, Shi Yong and ian Weikang gained re ognition through a series of e hibi-
tions in Shanghai. In ian Weikang s installation works he often u taposes an ob e t
with the image of it on the s reen, portraying the a tual ob e t as a simple physiologi al
phenomenon, or e en physi al phenomenon. He was not in lined to make e plorations
of so iety, ulture, and politi s. Compared with him, Shi Yong was more of a humanist,
although his work e hibited the same kind of straightforward form, smooth surfa e, and
di erse pro esses. The materials he hose often imbued the work with metaphor. or
instan e, he approa hed lm and sound based on his attitude toward the mass media.
This engendered an independent relationship with ele troni media.
As we approa hed the mid-1990s, hang eili s persistent efforts in the eld of
ideo art were paying off. He had gained an in reasing number of opportunities to
e hibit internationally. As ompared with the instin ti e spontaneity in his earlier
pra ti e, his works now re ealed the greater input of resear hed te hni ues from
Western ideo art. hang eili regularly used multiple s reens in e hibiting his works
as an installation in a gallery spa e. Compared with the lose-up shots, ed amera
angles, and repeated mo ements that hara teri e his earlier works, he began to re-
ate a dire t isual impa t a ross the s reens. If he merely arranged the monitors and
ele tri al omponents of his installation to onstru t the desired effe t, then ob iously
it would be more dif ult to imbue the work with histori al onte t and the thrill that
deri es from the integration of other ob e ts. These generally appeared to be more
236
deli ate. As an e ellent artist, hang eili fre uently breaks ground with his instin -
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ti e sensiti ity and a urate grasp of te hni ue and motion, reating a sensation of life
with the simplest e uipment. A representati e later work of this period by hang eili
is Uncertain Pleasure Bu queqie de kuaigan , produ ed in 199 .
After mo ing to Bei ing in 1994, iu hi ie spent mu h time thinking about his ear-
lier work in Hang hou, whi h was a series of on eptual works, fo used only on pure
a ademi notions. He redu ed the enormous olume of ontent about so ial ulture, at
the same time trying to differentiate his work from other small-minded approa hes to
ideo, so that his works began to emphasi e ertain physi al sensiti ities, as in Washroom
Weishengjian) and Hands of Escher Aishe’er de shou . This ta t learly runs through
hang eili s works, whereas iu often takes pains to a oid blankness in his ideo work,
and turns the pro ess to fo us upon the body, or impels the body to adopt the gestures
suggesting a more dramati plot when the hara ters perform in front of the amera.
E perimental ideo as a medium emerged nationwide in China around 199 , and
on the odd o asion was in luded in e hibitions. It was e ident that more people
were be oming interested in this eld. The e hibition Image and Phenomena arose
from this situation.
When iu hi ie and Wu Mei hun de ided to take up this hallenge, the biggest
problem onfronting them was funding. They had absolutely no e perien e of fund-
raising, yet through the friendship and trust of their friends Lin Shiming and Hong
Lumei, who were doing business in Shanghai, they found sponsorship ommitted to
the e ent. Without their generous a t, we would ha e had to wait a ouple of years to
ontinue the story. As it was, we were able to reali e it in April 199 . Artists ollabo-
rated to produ e two atalogues that were translated into English, but the most
important work was to pro ure the e uipment re uired and to insert an a ademi
stru ture into the e hibition.
In a non-publi ly distributed e hibition atalogue, e hibition urator Wu Mei hun
outlined her thinking on a ademi ism in Image and Phenomena: What possibilities
does ideo art bring to ontemporary art oes ideo art e ist as the image of the
phenomenon or the phenomenon of the image
When e erything was prepared, the group of artists parti ipating in Image and
Phenomena in luded nearly the entire roster within the field of ideo art at that
moment. We wished to take a more a ti e stan e in fa ing reality. We ould not sit
ba k and wait for a general ele ation in the uality and uantity of ideo works. We
de ided to take an e hibition as the starting point for e ploring ideo in art. Neither
the works nor the a t of organi ing an e hibition itself was a response to reality. Su h
eal tended to spoil things with its e essi e enthusiasm and idealisti outlook that
refused to a knowledge the reality. ollowing the e hibition, the e ploration of ideo
be ame a hot topi nationwide. Meanwhile the stru tural defe ts and dif ulties that
were e posed during the preparation for the e hibition pro ided an impetus for fur-
ther efforts. The e hibition itself and the response to it be ame a landmark in estab-
lishing a healthy system and en ironment for reati ity that is little more than the
predetermined goal of the urator.
The works in the e hibition may be di ided into two groups a ording to trends
e hibited. irst, the works that were introspe ti e in regard to the medium itself, and
whi h were generally simple in stru ture. Se ond, the intri ately stru tured s enes,
whi h pushed at the boundaries of the ideo s image by adding ri h layers and a ner
per eption. epresentati e of the rst were works su h as Uncertain Pleasure and Focal
Distance Jiaoju by hang eili, Breath / Breath Huxi huxi) by ian Weikang, Forever by
hu ia, Face by Li Yongbin, The Afternoon of August 30th 8 yue 30 ri xiawu by Tong
237
Biao, and Absolutely Safe Juedui anquan by Yan Lei. epresentati e of the se ond,
|
installation works, were Present Progress Xianzai jinxing shi by iu hi ie, Baby Talk

Yingyu by Wang ong in, Fish Tank Yugang) by Yang hen hong, and Integrated
World Wanzheng de shijie by eng ianyi.
Image and Phenomena showed a group of unforgettable ideo works and initiated
a series of resear h and e hange a ti ities. The two atalogues produ ed, Documents
of Video Art Luxiang yishu wenxian) and Art and Historical Consciousness Yishu yu
lishiyishi), presented a ompendium of important information about ideo art in China
and abroad. The popularity of the two atalogues demonstrated the impa t upon peo-
ple s understanding and a eptan e of ideo o er the ne t few years.
ollowing Image and Phenomena, whi h was held at the art gallery of the China
National A ademy of ine Arts in Hang hou in 199 , many high- uality solo e hibi-
tions sprang up in Bei ing, su h as Wang ong in s Myth Powder No. 1 Shenfen yihao ,
Song ong s Look Kan , iu hi ie s Logic: Five Video Installations Luoji: wuge luxiang
zhuangzhi , and so on. This indi ated that Chinese ideo artists had not only be ome
fo al points within the artisti ommunity but had also started to use more mature
and indi idual methods to redraw the map of ontemporary ulture. Within China,
people from different ba kgrounds su h as do umentary lmmakers, writers, and
those engaged in e perimental musi or drama began to enture into ideo art, and
arious new possibilities for the art form began to de elop. E ually, e uipment
be ame more affordable with ea h te hnologi al ad an e, and artists were able to
a hie e ri her effe ts using their own C to arry out postprodu tion if determined
to do so. With the reno ation of and hange in ideo te hnology, this be ame a trend,
along with the use of domesti digital ameras and non-linear ideo editing systems.
The results were displayed in Demonstration of ideo Art ’97 China 97 Zhongguo
luxiang yishu guanmozhan , an e hibition urated by Wu Mei hun. In the atalogue
essay Curator s Thoughts, she wrote: The real uestion we fa e on erns the uses
to whi h ideo art an be put, not what ideo art is. It is too early to de ne. Although
standards for ideo art appear to be falling into pla e, they are not a epted by e ery-
one. The inherent hara teristi s of the medium make it powerful yet heap, intimate
yet easy to opy and disseminate. It an e pose the truth and be sensiti e to the imag-
ination. This e hibition is an attempt to show e erything and not to sele t work to
illustrate a spe i theme. It is broadly in lusi e in its sele tion and indi ates our our-
age to e ist in the world of media.
Wu Mei hun mentioned that standards for ideo art are onstantly hallenged by
a multitude of e periments. At the end of 1998, Huang Yan urated 0431 China’s
Video Art 0431 Zhongguo luxiang yishuzhan) in Chang hun. And, in 1999, Chang
Tsong- ung urated ast Shots: China, Hong ong and Taiwan ideo Art Kuaijing: Zhong
Gang Tai luxiang yishuzhan in Ma ao. The ore elements took their lead from Image
and Phenomena.
The a ti ities of Chinese ideo artists had begun to attra t the attention of inter-
national art ir les. In 1997, new media works by Wang ianwei and eng Mengbo
were e hibited in Documenta X in assel. In 1998, iu hi ie parti ipated in the Berlin
ideo festi al Transmediale 98 and the speranto 98 e hibition in New York, and
re ei ed in itations from important ideo festi als in Bonn, Helsinki, and arious other
pla es. Chen Shaoping and iu hi ie both parti ipated in Videos from International
Artists held at the Ludwig Museum in Cologne Song ong and Wang ianwei both
parti ipated in Infoart in the wang u Biennale, urated by Nam une aik. In 1999,
hu ia and Li Yongbin attended the Worldwide Video Festival held in Amsterdam. New
media art festi als and institutions worldwide were e pressing strong interest in hold-
238
ing an e hibition of Chinese ideo art. The Museum of Modern Art in New York and
|
the Berlin ideo orum ea h olle ted ideo works by hang eili and iu hi ie, and
the works of China s new media artists began to appear fre uently in festi als of new
media art all o er the world.
Meanwhile, members of the international art world made fre uent isits to China.
udolph ilindas, dire tor of the New Media Art Center in ermany, ga e se eral le tures
introdu ing new de elopments at the oethe Institute in Bei ing and Shanghai. obert
arn, the poeti master of ren h ideo art, isited the China National A ademy of ine
Arts twi e, and left a profound impression on the students. Barbara London, urator of
lm and ideo at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, tra eled to China in the fall of
1997. She was ama ed that China not only had e ellent ideo artists, but also absorbed
information at a ery rapid speed. An essay of hers was later translated into Chinese,
ommenting that the ourishing of China s ideo art is the starting point of a new ir le
sin e the ir umferen e was already losed around new media art in the West.
...
Notes
. Cihai Sea of Words is the name of the best-known and most- omplete Chinese di tionary.
. Wu Mei hun, Image and henomena, in a pri ately published e hibition-related book.
. Ibid.
. Wu Mei hun, Curator s Thoughts, in Demonstration of ideo Art ’97 China [ 97 Zhongguo luxiang yishu
guanmozhan , e hibition atalogue, Central A ademy of ine Arts , .
E erpted from a te t originally published in Reinterpretation: A Decade of Experimental Chinese Art

1990 – 2000 , ed. Wu Hung uang hou: uangdong Museum of Art, 2002 , 52 0. Translated by
aren Smith.
SELECTED VIDEO WORKS OF THE 1990S (1992 – 97 / 2008)

By Zhang Peili
ater: The Stan ar er ion ea rom the Cihai Dictionary (Shui Cihai
biaozhun ban)
1992
ideo re ording
Sound, olor, 19:35 minutes, AL system
ro e t summary: This work shows the Chinese of ial media newsreader in hibin
reading all of the entries beginning with the word water shui from the Cihai di -
tionary at a standard pa e from beginning to end. The image is based on the typi al
hang eili. Water: The

Standard ersion Read from
the Cihai i tionary. 1992.
Single- hannel ideo, olor,
sound, 19:35 mins.
portrait seen in Chinese news broad asts. The Bei ing Media Tele ision Center was
239
entrusted with manufa turing the shot.
|
E hibition method, one of the following three options:
a. Wall or s reen pro e tion the width of the pro e tion is at least . meters
b. Broad ast on a - to -in h C T ideo monitor
. Broad ast on a - to -in h LC ideo monitor
E uipment needed, one of the following three options:

a. ne pro e tor of lumens or higher one player one audio system
b. ne - to -in h C T ideo monitor one player
. ne - to -in h LC ideo monitor one player preferably a monitor with a
bla k e terior
Spe i ations: a ideo aspe t ratio of 4:3 ontinuous broad ast
Do ument on ygiene, o 3 [ ei i 3 hao ]

1991
Single- hannel ideo re ording
No sound, olor, 24:45 minutes, AL
ro e t summary: This is a ideo re ording of washing a hi ken: pla ing a wet hi ken
in a washbasin, and then endlessly s rubbing it with soap and water. This a tion is per-
formed for 150 minutes, until the ideotape runs out. The s ene is the same.
ilm segment: Non-stop re ording interior spa e with natural lighting lose-up shots
the amera and lens shift positions and are a ompanied by sound.
ilming e uipment: anasoni HS-M3000 amera
ilming lo ation: An of e in the Hang hou S hool of Arts and Crafts
ilming personnel: Li ian tea her
ostprodu tion: The re ording was ut from 150 minutes to 24 minutes, 45 se onds
hard ut sound was remo ed
Editing e uipment: HS re order HS re order Beta am editor Apple omputer 5
Editing software: inal Cut ro 4.9
utput medium: HS tape
Editors: The artist and Huang iguang
E hibition method, one of the following three options:

a. Wall or s reen pro e tion the width of the pro e tion is at least . meters
b. Broad ast on a - to -in h C T ideo monitor
. Broad ast on a - to -in h LC ideo monitor
E uipment needed, one of the following three options:

a. ne pro e tor of lumens or higher one player one audio system
b. ne - to -in h C T ideo monitor one player
. ne - to -in h LC ideo monitor one player preferably a monitor with a
bla k e terior
Spe i ations: A ideo aspe t ratio of 4:3 ontinuous broad ast
e t e ore 8 8 199 ( aoxian i 8 8 199 )
240
1994
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ideo installation with 4 ideos, 20 tele isions

Sound, olor, 10 80 minutes, AL
ro e t summary: There are four ideo omponents in this work: a disse ting the
hi ken and getting rid of the internal organs: after utting the feathers off of the
body with s issors, the internal organs are remo ed, and then the wings, legs, and
head are dismembered b ontinuously tearing apart the meat ontinuously li k-
ing the meat d ontinuously stuf ng one s mouth full of meat and hewing. The
installation in ludes: suspended tele ision sets, hi ken soup boiling in aluminum
pots, and ele tri sto es. The pots and sto es are pla ed in front of the tele isions.
rom the opening of the e hibition, the sto es are set to low heat to boil the hi ken
soup. Water is added e ery day until the e hibition on ludes the date is indi ated
in the title of the work .
ilm segment: Single amera, interior lighting, lose-ups ed amera lo ations am-
era lens does not oom in or out no sound
Cameraperson: an Li
ostprodu tion: Taking parts a, b, , d, and making them all slow motion
Ba kground audio: Blossoms on a Spring Moonlit Night Chun jianghua yueye)
Editing e uipment: Sony -Mati S
Editing software: None
utput format: HS ideotape
E hibition method: Tele ision monitors are pla ed in the middle of the spa e and sus-
pended appro imately 40 m from the ground. players, power supplies, and
ords are spread out underneath the tele isions.
E uipment needed: 20 20-in h tele ision sets, 4 players
ther materials: 8 ele tri sto es that are e uipped with temperature ontrol, 8 alu-
minum pots, hi ken drumsti ks, seasoning
Te hni al needs: Ea h player is hooked up to 5 tele ision sets ideos are broad-
ast in a ontinuous loop, with different start times tele isions sets showing different
ontents are e enly dispersed a ross the ground, and the audio on ea h tele ision
should be ery faint, barely audible to a iewer standing dire tly in front of it
ppo ite Spa e (Xiangdui de kongjian)

1995
Sur eillan e ideo installation
oom dimensions: 5 m l 2.8 m w 3.5 m h
ro e t summary: Two rooms are di ided out of one spa e and share a orrelati e
relationship of seeing and being seen. The rooms are built from wooden planks
the dimensions of the two spa es are the same a sur eillan e ideo amera is installed
in ea h side of the wall separating the rooms 14-in h tele ision sets and motion-sen-
sor spotlights are installed on the walls. When iewers enter a room, the spotlights
turn on through the sur eillan e ideo amera and tele ision set, the people in one
room an inspe t what is happening in the other room. At the same time, they are
being iewed in the other room . The doors to the rooms ha e spe ial bolts. After
one enters, if no one else enters again from the outside, then the door will remain
241
lo ked for one minute. The ontent displayed on the tele ision is the audien e in one
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room looking at the audien e in the other room the ontents are broad ast in real-

time, not ideotaped.
E hibition method: Build a spa e, di ided into two e ual areas, a ording to pro e t
spe i ations. In the two spa es, install identi al e uipment a ording to the ondi-
tions of the site, the dimensions of the room an ary.
E uipment needed: 2 sur eillan e ideo ameras, 2 14-in h tele isions sets, 4 motion-
sensor spotlights, 2 numeri ally ontrolled door lo ks
E hibition history: 1995, Art from China Exhibition, Santa Moni a Art Center, Bar elona,
Spain
n ertain Plea ure [ u ue ie e uaigan ]

199
ideo installation with 10 tele ision sets, 10 ideos
No sound, olor, 30 minutes, AL
ro e t des ription: The work shows ideos of different it hy body parts being
s rat hed: shoulder, ba k, waist, leg, ne k, foot, hand, et . . . mo ements are arried
out with uniform speed, ontinuous, repeated, and with for e. The images on the
tele ision sets i ker.
ilm segment: Single amera, interior lighting, lose-ups, arious ed lo ations, no audio
ilming e uipment: Sony 900E amera
Shooting lo ations: Hang hou S hool of Arts and Crafts dormitory where the artist
resides he iang S hool of Silk Engineering now the he iang S hool of S ien e and
Engineering dormitory where eng ianyi resides
Cameraperson: The artist
ostprodu tion: 10 sets, ea h tele ision set will show two different ideos of differ-
ent body parts being s rat hed, between the different ideos shown for 30 se onds ,
the monitor will be bla k 10 se onds, the ideos fade in and fade out
Editing e uipment: Beta am S
utput format: HS tape,
Editor: Huang iguang
E hibition method: Arrange tele ision sets together as a ideo installation: remo e the
outer asing of the monitors showing e posed interior ir uit boards and ele troni
omponents , distribute tele ision sets a ross the oor within a 10-s uare-meter
parameter, the s reens should be fa ing in different dire tions, with different distan es
between the sets.
E uipment needed: 10 14 20 in h tele ision sets 10 players
Te hni al re uirements: E ery player is onne ted to one tele ision set loop
ea h ideo, stagger start times.
Diary ( i i)
242
1997
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3 multimedia slide pro e tions

Sound, olor, appro imately 3 minutes
ro e t summary: A slide show of a ariety of personal e eryday items tongs, s issors,

toys, photographs , publi items re e tinguisher, dentist s hair , publi spa es air-
port waiting area, air eld, itys apes, et . , natural en ironment sky with louds,
et . . . the slides are shown at a set pa e, edited together with audio. These unrelated
s enes and ob e ts are assembled together to reate some kind of narrati e onne -
tion, reating an audio- isual diary.
ilm segment: In one day, the artist ontinuously shot photographs in personal and
publi spa es of arious unrelated ob e ts and settings olle ted dis arded photo-
graphs negati es from other people
hotographi e uipment: enta 135 amera
hotographed lo ations: Hang hou, Bei ing
Cameraperson: The artist
ostprodu tion: sed a omputer to olle t the arious photographs, edited them
together, and added audio
E uipment needed: Multislide system
Editor: apanese 1 ASE lm and audio ompany
utput format: Slide show
Te hni al needs: 3 s reens for pro e tion, simultaneous montage, si e of the s reen
should not be smaller than 3 meters
E erpted from Zhang Peili yishu gongzuo shouce [ Artistic Working Manual of Zhang Peili uang i:
Lingnan Art ublishing, 2008 , 152, 154, 188, 194, 214, 238. irst two translated by risten Loring, nal four
translated by eggy Wang.
SIX VIDEO WORKS (1997)

By Wang Jianwei
epro u tion (Zai chansheng)

tober 1995
Kwangju Biennale (InfoArt), wang u, orea
ideo re ording, tele ision, omputer, y ling installation, model
00 m 350 m 100 m
Reproduction omprehensi ely utili es an array of di ergent natural resour es of pro-

du tion. While on the one hand, it doesn t hange the material attributes of produ -
tion, on the other hand it auses them to a hie e an integrated output of in reased
mass within a mutually e ploited spa e.
The array of produ tion in ludes: the human body and elements of its produ ti e
apa ity physiologi al gestation data, re ords fun tional elements of knowledge and
te hnology the ertainty of reprodu ti e knowledge, designations of the body s on-
dition elements of e eryday life onditions for marriage, family makeup . Humans as
humans, or de ned as other ulture, so iety, symbols, relationships , make produ -
tions on this foundation of omparati e me hanisms, and use modes of information
243
within a state of ompound masses. In this state the parallel de elopment of differ-
|
ent masses, different substan es, and homogeneous transformation pro ide a tem-

porary site. asionally, an ambiguous omposite body emerges from organism
and on ept, biologi al phenomena and design. The future tense produ t of a kind
of integrated dis ourse simultaneously, ontingen y pro ides a progressi e, inde-
terminate erbal relationship and ogniti e state.
n i ent Pro e , State (Shi ian guo heng, huangtai)

1993
Hong ong Arts Centre, Hong ong
ideo re ording, tele ision, glass, pipes, inorgani matter, organi matter, te t
00 m 400 m 180 m
Incident Process, State takes our e eryday beha iors within a ed period of time
and through an apparatus randomly samples them and transforms them into ele-
ments. These elements are uanti ed and input into a system whi h separates them
into two se tions: 1 the material, omposed of transmitted or load-bearing media 2
the regulated, omposed of pro edural and fun tional settings. The two se tions
simultaneously use a ed pro ess to e ol e and transform the input material into a
ontinuous state that is ontrolled by the system.
Incident Process, State is a hypothesis on potentiality, and uses pro ess and
state namely, the integral reading of pro ess and state as a means of testing ea h
target, attempting a pro ess of synthesi ing ob e ti ation and the potential inter-
pretation of its entirety. The goal is to onfront the dissimilarity of mutual orrelation
produ ed between identi al targets udgment, alue, signi an e the uni ue in i-
dent gi en rise to by the simultaneous ontinuity of the two, through the te ts re -
ogni able by the medium, uses a omparati e method to olle ti ely interpret the
reali ed portion of identi al ualities shared by the two.
mport Export (Shuru hu hu)

August 1995
New Asian Art Show, saka, Tokyo, apan
lasti and metal whistles, tele ision, s ienti hart, a tion of e hange
Method:
abri ate the mold of an ear m . m . m , based on this mold, produ e
plasti ears
Mount a metal whistle on ea h ear
In a publi spa e, the audien e an e hange any arti le for an ear. With regard to
organisms and the rationality of fabri ated skills, established on the ommon me h-
anisms of ommuni ation and modes of information deli ery, Import <-> Export
pro ides a metaphor for produ tion through pro ess and transformation. It is a
symbioti e pansion in a biologi al and yberneti sense. In the pro ess of om-
muni ation fa ilities and information many paths produ e Import <-> Export.
Consumption and symbols, meaning and e isten e are inter hangeable during utili-
ation inter hange auses the nature of matter to be ome inde nite.
244
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Wang ianwei. Circulation

Sowing and Harvesting.
tober 1993 May 1994.
erforman e
ir ulation Sowing an ar e ting (Xunhuan hong hi)

tober 1993 May 1994
Bei ing and Si huan
In one orner of China Yong uan Township, Wen iang County, Si huan ro in e
I agreed on and signed a ontra t with farmer Wang Yun to ollaborati ely plant wheat,
to obser e and re ord the omprehensi e pro ess of planting. In terms of the
Circulation Sowing and Harvesting pro e t s orresponden e to art, its implementation
is an ahistori al dedu tion, namely an e periment in the re ersibility of entropy. The
openness of an unbalan ed state thoroughly tears down any empiri al e iden e with
regard to general illusion and dominant logi .
Through the de elopment and dedu tion of a omprehensi e system and the
o erlap between pro ess and method the ontrast between eldwork and the te t ,
Circulation Sowing and Harvesting simultaneously pushes art s method of produ tion
and means of e isten e into an a tion spa e of a omposite nature. In a on rete rela-
tionship and on rete material state, the isomorphi biologi al signi an e of produ -
tion and de elopment, all the systems biologi al and ogniti e tend toward an
entropy of time, the internal system s indi idual and organi ation ome to a dead
stop, the network of mutual dependen e disappears, and new possibilities for e is-
ten e are produ ed. Through this stru ture, Circulation Sowing and Harvesting
245
shares this pro ess. Art and e ology are mutually systemati ed by design and the
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oalition of biology so iety, ulture, organi body, organi ation .

Mo el (Moxing)
tober 199
The Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, Australia
ideo, pro e tor, tele ision, medi al e uipment, ir ular power installation, mold
500 m 200 m 200 m
Model omprises three parts:

ideo: A reprodu tions of Chinese and Western s ienti instru tional lms on
human de elopment and physiology, medi al s enes of physi al e aminations and
tests. B At the same lo ation, do umentation of the daily life of a li ing organism
y . C Medi al e uipment: pre iously used medi al art gurney pro ided from
a hospital of the e hibition lo ation Brisbane, Australia .
The e hibition spa e ueensland Art allery pro ides a stru ture ast iron
frame 400 m 200 m 200 m , the medi al art gurney pulled by the for e of the
installation mo es ba k and forth within the frame, the body on the gurney the
intermediary of a physiologi al and te hnologi al body e perien es limited hange
and is ontrolled by the stipulated dire tions engineering and manufa turing inter-
ene . At the same time, the a ti ity of the li ing organism y enters this physi al
spa e through a reprodu ti e medium pro e tor .
Model takes a step toward onfronting omple ity by using on ept and
method. The ef a y of the work is syn hroni ally restri ted to the simulated appear-
an e of a target. Through the use of phenomenologi al materials matter and or-
relation non- orrelation , dia hronism and ontingen y, the indi idual and the
uni ersal are integrally hanneled into the totality that the model emphasi es total-
ity is uestioned . An ob e ti e is established on the general sense of the prere uisites
of human knowledge and e eryday modes of dis ourse, with methods that onform
to amplified e periential patterns dedu ed at the e hibition s ene. The game
be omes the parti ipants sole reason for parti ipating, while it simultaneously
e poses the rules of the game. Naturali ation loses its foundation, any legitima y is
alled into uestion. The approa h of Model is: right here, right now . . .
Pro u tion (Sheng han)

tober 1997
Documenta X, assel, ermany
ideo
Production hooses the immedia y of other on-site materials and on-the-spot

produ tion methods. Copying a produ tion line that manufa tures meaning,
namely through modes of produ tion the masses, news media, manufa turing te h-
ni ues and methods , manufa turing pla es, e eryday life, pillars of dis ourse , on-
suming e hange and lo ation , and simulating the o erall dynami response of
man-made manufa turing. In the applied pro ess based on these limited resour es,
the most e onomi al means of produ tion transformation are the foundation and
me hanisms, e uipment and produ ts of repetiti e manufa turing.
Production uses the most minimal language to reate s enes highlighting the ir-
246
umstan es of linguisti impo erishment. Production is an in estigation into ultural

|
and artisti modes of produ tion, a uni ersal repetition that uses otherness to inter-
ene, an artwork that also imports its e onomi ing prin ipals, and e ports the
e aporation of the pro ess.
riginally published as Wang ianwei uopin ishu in Yishu jie [ Art Life 1997: no. 11 12, 38 41.
Translated by Lee Ambro y.
AN ARRANGEMENT OF A FEW IDEAS AND SOME WORK (2002)

By Zhou Xiaohu
. Two problems fa e the e perimental methods of new media: one is the reati ity,
enlightenment potential, and de elopment of the methods of new te hnology the
se ond is the reality of the uestions it is aimed toward. The ad ustment to the use
of new media tools will most likely reate a new isual e perien e, a new irtual
form, and new politi al onne tions. rom this we will also gain new paths and new
methods. This an help me su essfully present a few issues: I an take e eryday life,
so ial life, and histori al e ents and turn them into stagelike street performan es,
hange them into a puppet show that an be manipulated and ontrolled.
. I like the on ept of e erything s politi s. I take this to mean all sorts of ompli-
ated mutual relationships: the inner relationships of the artwork, the relationship
between the artwork and the audien e, and the relationship between personal psy-
hologi al spa e and so ial psy hologi al spa e. In the eld of art, I an establish
relationships between my personal fantasies and so iety, histori al e ents, or ul-
ture and e onomi s. I an show the on i ts of arrangement, status and power, and
ontrol in the work, and moreo er I an use this to dis uss the staying power or
something of the desires and e itements that arise from people s state of e isten e.
When artists use an attitude of appre iation to look at a series of politi al e ents,
they will be de ei ed. The only thing artists an do is use artisti methods to alien-
ate and surprise this an probably be des ribed as a kind of so ial aestheti s.
. I belie e that the power of e pression is ontained in the method of e pression. My

art usually omes from the e itement of a fantasy or idea, or onfusion surrounding
a ertain problem this will be ome the fundamental moti ation for my shooting a
pie e. I an use the work to ontemplate these things, if the problem has a on rete
answer, then there is no need for e periment. I think the methods of e perimenta-
tion in artisti work are similar to the original artisti games. At that time there were
no burdens of knowledge ba kground, e pression was a essel, and now the birth
of new methods of dis ourse and new rules for the game are born from new meth-
ods of thinking. Artisti games an help us ad an e and widen our self-knowledge
and understanding, and also our understanding of the limits of human life. If we an
pro ide a new e perien e, a new way of self-e amination, and an understanding of
the methods we use to reate the world, then that is wisdom and a ontribution.
. If you keep persistent, e en ruel, attention on problems of humanity, so ial life,

and history, this will help in the dynami s of artisti thinking and re elatory meth-
ods. In my installation The Age of Lies Huangyan shidai , I used models of
247
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hou iaohu. Face-Lifting
Arch Veranda. 1997.
ideo installation and
intera ti e performan e,
installation 7 3 4 7 9 11
220 140 300 m .
ele tri hairs, they were pla ed in the formation of a meeting room, the le iglas
under ele tri lights was ashing and blurry, but this was a beautiful trap. The
ideo installations Plastic Surgery Hallway Zhengrong gonglang) and Listening in on
the Plastic Surgery Hallway Lingting zhengrong gonglang were a form of self-
imposed losed ir uit. This work needed an audien e before it ould be omplete:
iewers entered the operating hair under the monitor but the audien e member
ouldn t see himself in the monitor. The sounds from the ar hed hallway were trans-
ported to a different spa e the audien e ould listen through headphones to hear
what had been re orded. I kept taping the messages up around the spa e and by
doing this I got two s enes, one of Plastic Surgery Hallway and one of Listening in on
the Plastic Surgery Hallway. In the ideo installation Really Not Evil Intentions Bingfei
eyi there were two monitors fa ing ea h other, playing a tape of two boys e press-
ing their iews on women in China. There was a large leather trunk on the oor that
had women s a essories s attered all o er inside it, and there was a monitor inside
broad asting a girl going about her pri ate business e ery day.
. The ideo Beautiful Cloud Meili yuntuan was an obser ation of obser ation. In
the ideo I used -animation software to reate a group of naughty hildren and
had them wat h a mo ie that showed the mushroom louds reated by nu lear
and hemi al weapons and the ruel aftereffe ts. The beautiful louds looked sort
of like e pressions of human dreams, but they were real. Ha ing a group of young
hildren wat h the game of self-destru tion reated by man is ruel, but is their
fear, a oidan e, and mistrust due to the training they e re ei ed, or is it natural
The ideo Children’s Rhymes Tongyao filmed hildren playing a game alled
assing Words: the game pushed forward the idea of the un ertainty of the future,
ontaining hints of the fa t that we an ne er return to the starting point in life.
The on i ts that de elop in the hildren s games also bring in grown-up thought
and beha ior, making politi al games more gamelike.
. The idea for reating Travel in Desire Xinyu zhi lü ame from lothes hanging
248
out to dry. They don t ha e the feeling of lothes when they re up against people,
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but they still preser e the shape of the human body. Their reality was su ked out of
them. The feeling of ha ing human beha ior without souls e ited me they pointed
to some states and memories that are ery hard to des ribe. The whole lm of the ani-
mation The Gooey Gentleman Mitang xiansheng was ompleted on a human body. A
mutual relationship was formed between the body of the model and the images in
the animation. They interfered with and harmed ea h other. The ideo Parasite
Qisheng was a group of s enes of people s pleasures in life, but in the end
e erybody nds out that it has all been taking pla e on an enormous steel frame that
had been hung up, and their happy li es be ame a performan e on a stage.
. The ollage ideo installment Wax Museum Laxiangguan was an interesting

play within a play performan e. It was also a stage performan e like derision of
histori al memory. My image kept reappearing, with a female model that was per-
forming all sorts of symboli roles in a group of wa gures. I no longer represented
myself instead it was all sorts of puppetlike roles and refra tory essels. The series
orm and Shadow Aren’t Separated Xing ying buli ame from the game kids
play when they imitate the spee h and beha ior of another person. The game usu-
ally ends up making the other person feel embarrassed and awkward. When I started
fa ing another me all day, it led me into an unbearable hysteria. After I lmed the
li e imitation of my own beha ior and then turned the lm into large images and
put these pi tures in the area where I had taken them originally, I on e again lmed
the same thing. In the end I a hie ed the effe t of shadow of a photo and form of
the pla e, be ause I ouldn t ompletely get them straightened out, it ga e the illu-
sory feeling of looking in a mirror.
riginally published in Chinese Artists, Texts, and Interviews: Chinese Contemporary Art Awards (CCAA)
1998 – 2002 Hong ong: Time one 8, 2002 , 75 78.
Overseas Chinese Artists

From the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, several thousand young Chinese artists
emigrated abroad. Among them were some luminaries of the 1980s contempo-
rary Chinese art movement: Chen Zhen (1986, to France), Wenda Gu (1987, to
America), Cai Guo-Qiang (1987, to Japan), Huang Yong Ping and Yang Jiechang
(1989, to France), Xu Bing (1991, to America), Wang Du (1991, to America), and Wu
Shanzhuan (1991, to Germany). They soon established themselves in their new
environments and began to appear in numerous exhibitions. From the mid-1990s
onward, they received many honors and awards, and were often considered by
international curators and critics as the best “Chinese artists.”
Two factors separated this group from those artists who remained in China.
First, whereas the most famous overseas artists of the 1990s came out of the
1980s avant-garde movement, the most active domestic artists in the 1990s
belonged to a younger generation. These two groups were therefore divided not
only by geography and culture but also by a generation gap. Second, after emi-
grating abroad, overseas artists directly participated in international contempo-
rary art, and they developed projects in accordance with their new environments
and audiences [ pl. 37 . Many such projects had a strong international flavor (like
Wenda Gu’s Monuments of the United Nations series) and derived philosophical
concepts from Eastern philosophy (like Cai Guo-Qiang’s Project for Extraterrestrials
249
series). Others aimed either to harmonize different cultural traditions (like Xu
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Bing’s S uare or alligraphy) or to highlight global political and economic

issues (like Huang Yong Ping’s at Pro e t and Xu Bing’s Toba o Pro e t). Such
special foci began to define a branch of contemporary Chinese art which tran-
scends strict national borders. Other overseas Chinese artists developed closer
ties with their specific environment and participated in debates concerning race,
multiculturalism, and the Chinese diaspora, a trend exemplified by a series of
works that the San Francisco – based Hung Liu has been creating in the United
States since the late 1980s.
ENTROPY, CHINESE ARTISTS, WESTERN ART INSTITUTIONS: A NEW

INTERNATIONALISM (1994)
By Hou Hanru
...
iii
It is true that the dis ussions of the relationships between the self and the other, as a en-
tral topi of multi ultural studies, ha e often been seen as resear h into national and
traditional identities. A dis o ery of self-esteem for the repressed ther. But this has
sometimes been e aggerated to be ome a refusal of the possibilities and ne essities of
international e hange and in uen e. In other words, the relations between the West
and the Non-West, between the olonial master and sla e ha e been in reasingly
broken down, rather than positi ely ad usted to building up a new and onstru ti e inter-
nationalism. An e treme e ample of this tenden y is that some Bla k ower a ti ists
de lared that only bla k people an write their history, and i e ersa, that the only good
and imaginati e art is made in the Western Euro entri ultural arena. In both these
ases, multi ulturalism has led to the risk of falling into a religious fundamentalism.
By ontrast, most ontemporary Chinese artists onsider ultural identity as an
open pro ess. They are de eloping their own ultural tradition by means of a epting
in uen es from other ultures with onsiderations of ontemporary and indi idual on-
te ts. Cultural identity is onstru ted with reati e re iews, and interpretations of one s
own ulture and that of the others in real life. It is a kineti shifting between identi a-
tion, non-identi ation, and re-identi ation. It goes beyond the histori al limits of
national ultures and is seen by ertain artists as a positi e impro ement and ontribu-
tion to international e hanges in art. It is with su h a ommon understanding in mind
that some artists ha e de ided to lea e China and settle abroad where they an under-
stand the problems of identity in a more profound way and with a wider ultural per-
spe ti e. Chen hen, one of the most a ti e artists in ol ed in the 85 New Wa e
A ant-garde mo ement of Chinese ontemporary art, has been li ing and working in
aris for years and e hibiting in different Western art institutions pl. 38 . He argues:
It is interesting to withdraw from one s own usual onte t and meet a new world,
espe ially today, when ultural and ideologi al Hybridi ation has be ome an irre-
ersible fa t. The problem is not ust that of understanding the work of art super-
ially, but also to try to effe ti ely understand it with ma imum lues. A uote
from Chinese army strategy te hni ues and symptomati of my attitude is often
used in different onte ts: The winner is the one who masters the two sides of
the battle eld.
He goes on:
250
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art of my resear h is in rereading Chinese ulture in a Western onte t. It is not at

all a nostalgi re iew of my grandfather s heritage, but a resear h of ontemporary

geneti elements in traditional ulture and of the primary elements in human
de elopment seen from an ontologi al point of iew. What is interesting is to
e pose arious relationships and ontradi tions between tradition and reality.
Another artist, Huang Yong ing pl. 39 , who was e ually a leader of the Chinese A ant-
garde mo ement and now li es and works in aris, has e pressed a similar attitude:
In my eyes, intera tions and mutual in uen es between different ultures are ery
important. West, East, I, ther are not ed on epts they an shift. I was
ery interested in the West when I was in China. I onsidered it as something outside
me and it pro ided a sour e for my imagination. n the ontrary, I talk more about
China now that I am in the West. This is probably be ause of the Western onte t.
iv
To onsider identity as a pro ess of ultural e olution in a li ing onte t does not imply
that artists abandon their own ultural heritage. They always keep a riti al eye on the
tradition itself. It is in the pro ess of international dialogue that they be ome aware
that among the most important uestions they are fa ing are not only the possibility of
reali ing dialogue but also, the uestion of dis ursi e power, or the politi al problem
in international ultural-artisti e hanges. ntil now, the mainstream of international
ulture and art has been West- entri . This situation should hange in iew of urrent
global ultural de elopments. It is why onstru tion of a New Internationalism,
whi h should take the pla e of all the pre ious forms of West- entri Internationalism
or ni ersalism, be omes urgent and absolutely ne essary. It is also a epted by the
Chinese artists as a new starting point to de elop their work at an international le el.
Huang Yong ing is one of the most representati e among them. In his work he often
introdu es the an ient Chinese di ination system, the Yi Ching The Book of Changes
whi h has been an important resour e for traditional Chinese philosophy. It not only
suggests a pro ess of onstant hange in the uni erse, the duality and inter onne ted-
ness of ne essity and han e, of the rational and irrational, ulture and anti- ulture,
but also a strategy to laun h atta ks on the legitima y of the West- entri monopoly
in intelle tual and e eryday life. In his omments on his work Should We Constru t
Another Cathedral whi h aims to uestion the politi al power en oyed by su h art
world super stars as oseph Beuys, annis ounellis, En o Cu hi, and Anselm iefer,
Huang Yong ing e plains:
howe er, Yi Ching has pro ided me with the reason of reation in order not to fall
into the dif ulty of personal hoi e. i ination plays a de isi e role here. It lets
me be guided by itself instead of being guided by the taste or ideas of myself and
those of the others. . . . In fa t, today, freedom of art is no longer possible. ne
has to identify with ertain riteria. Then, bow to ontinue to work. We ha e to
fa e the hoi e of others and oursel es. The pro ess that I resort to, the Yi Ching,
in terms of thinking about how to make hoi e has brought the Yi Ching into
ontemporary problems . . . In ontemporary times, The Yi Ching pro ides us with
alternati e information that is beyond the reality reated by ontemporary mass
media and fa tual reality. It is another reality.
By introdu ing an alternati e reality, Huang Yong ing pro ides a resistan e and
251
alterity to the e isting on ept of reality founded on a West- entri ideology. In his
|
more re ent work, he raises uestions of artisti -linguisti and politi al power to on-

front international politi al repression in so ial life. He systemati ally uestions the
established on epts of knowledge and politi s, institutions and iolen e, freedom
and repression. or e ample, in his installation at the Centre for Contemporary Arts
in lasgow 1993 , he re onstru ted an airport passport ontrol point in order to
uestion the meaning of national- ultural borders. At the Museum of Modern Art,
ford 1993 , he installed a tent in whi h iewers witnessed a battle between differ-
ent inse ts as a hallenge to the olonialist preo upation with Asian people. In the
We ner Arts Center, Columbus, hio 1993 , he e posed the reality of Chinese Boat
eople, an e ent unfolding on the Ameri an West Coast at the same time as he was
preparing his e hibition.
E ually, Chen hen, Wenda u, Yang ie hang, and Wu Shan huan, among others,
ha e, dire tly or indire tly, hallenged the global-s ale oppressi e in uen es of Western
onsumerism and other ideologies by resorting to their own ultural heritage, and pro-
posing possible alternati es to Western- entrism. Their work is often pro o ati e and
e en sub ersi e. They open themsel es up to a kind of haoti ision of the world, or
more e a tly, the world based on the order of Western-rationalism. Su h a ommon
strategy, rooted in the diale ti s of Chinese philosophi al ideas of the world, is also
dire ted towards the de elopment of international ommuni ations. Towards nally
re ealing the truth that the future world order will be born out of a ertain entropi rule
that a new internationalism will repla e the e isting West- entri domination.
If the main embodiment of isual arts are the modernist-postmodernist dis ursi e
systems and their institutions, then to impel the system and institutions to fall into dis-
order is a onstru ti e pro ess to break down West- entrism and to reali e an alterna-
ti e new order. Huang Yong ing s work at the Museum of Contemporary Art, rato,
Italy, in 1992, is in this sense a perfe t e ample, In the entral room of this postmodern
museum, he onstru ted a wooden ontainer like passage in whi h he pla ed 450 kg
of ooked ri e along the 14 meter long oor. It showed the transition of ri e from fresh
to rotten. Naming this work An Indigestible Object, the artist re ealed a pro o ati e
diale ti that impli ated the work itself. Cooked ri e, the most digestible and ommon
Chinese food be omes an indigestible ob e t for the art institution on e it is brought
into a museum. In ontemporary art dis ourses and institutions a line separating the
art ob e t from e eryday ob e ts ontinually e ists. Material su h as ri e, that engages
in arious pro esses from un ooked to ooked, fresh to rotten, digested to e reted, is
usually re e ted by the highly odi ed onstru t of art dis ourses and institutional
pra ti es. It is also dis riminated against as non-art, and so in bringing this non-art
ob e t into the most glorious pala e for art, it performs a sub ersi e hallenge.
Huang Yong ing atta ks with a two-edged sword sin e, while uestioning the
de nition of art in Western ontemporary dis ourses and institutions, he also proposes
an alternati e pro e t to the institutional system itself. The work has a double fun tional
stru ture. It an be used as a essel and as a passage. It offers the possibility of e tend-
ing time while en losing and ing an ob e t. The passage be omes a metaphor for
transformation, a pro ess in whi h all those who pass through e perien e not only the
alteration of the material itself but also a hange in their assessment of both art and
institution. This transformation is an irre ersible pro ess. It is an entropy to reate a dis-
order and breakdown of the e isting ultural-artisti system. If the fun tion of the on-
temporary art museum is usually to separate artworks from the progress of time in
order to de ne, e aluate, and legitimi e them in the rationalist ulture, then Huang
Yong ing s work has e erted a double de onstru ti e fun tion. By demonstrating its
252
intention to surpass an established art system and to go beyond West- entri ism itself,
his work e entually pro ides an opening towards a New Internationalism.
|
Note
. Hou Hanru, An Inter iew with Huang Yong ing in Jiangsu huakan [ Jiangsu Pictorial , no.
: .
E erpted from a te t rst published in Global Visions: Towards a New Internationalism in the Visual
Arts, ed. ean isher London: ala ress in asso iation with the Institute of International isual Arts,
1994 , 79 88. eprinted in Hou Hanru, n the Mid-Ground: Selected Texts, ed. Yu Hsiao-Wei Hong ong:
Time one 8, 2002 , 54 3.
DOES A CULTURE IN EXILE NECESSARILY WITHER? — A LETTER TO

LI XIANTING (1991 / 2003)
By Fei Dawei
reetings I ha e read the letter that you sent. Thank you

I ha e already ompleted the draft that is to be gi en to the apanese ournal Art
Notes [ Bijutsu tech . It would de nitely not be suitable for Art Trends [ Yishu chaoliu .
Sin e the ournal s readership is different, the writing style should also be different. The
draft that I am sending to apan primarily ser es as a broad outline introdu ing China s
New Wa e art and the situations of the e artists parti ipating in the e hibition. In it,
I do not gi e an introdu tion to the ir umstan es surrounding this e hibition, nor do I
put forth any parti ular iewpoint. Su h a draft annot re e t the onditions of the
e hibition, so I an only write a separate draft for you.
In your letter, you showed a ertain degree of apprehension about our a ti ities
abroad, and you e pressed your opinions about a few issues. I feel that we ha e uite
a few differen es in our iews. The urrent en ironments in whi h we are respe ti ely
situated are ompletely different. ur differen es of opinion are de nitely related to
the dis repan ies that e ist in our indi idual e perien es and surroundings. In order to
dis uss our iewpoints with some depth, it might be interesting for us to fo us on a
few spe i issues. Hoping to learn from you, I would like to dis uss here my own ur-
sory thoughts about the issues that you raised.
In your letter, you argued that if art lea es its ultural motherland, it ne essarily
withers. In saying this, I think that you are pointing to the unfortunate e perien es
that ha e befallen many artists who ha e left China in re ent years. It is ust like the
popular saying from se eral years ago: The whole army was ompletely annihilated.
After mo ing abroad, a large group of artists who had formerly en oyed great prestige
in China has made no headway in their art. But, an this fa t lead us to a uni ersal er-
di t that denies the possibility of artists from China or of other ountries working as
artists in foreign ountries I belie e that the ma ority of Chinese artists who go abroad
annot display their skills in the West as well as they were able to do at home. Besides
the uestions of language and daily life, the main reason for this lies in the fa t that the
parti ular uality of thought and the manners of thinking with whi h the artists were
raised in their ultural motherland pre ent them from engaging in ontemporary
ultural uestions in their new en ironment.
This kind of withering of reati ity is the result of artists la king the means to
transform the things that they learned in China into something that an ross ultural
boundaries while still remaining alid and effe ti e. And this la k of means is a
onse uen e of the artists ha ing been in ul ated o er a long period of time within
253
the parti ular losed and onser ati e ultural spirit of Chinese so iety. Thus, I think
|
that your words ould be ompletely re ersed: If art does not lea e its ultural moth-

erland, it will ne essarily wither. f ourse, what I mean by lea e is that it is only in
ha ing some trait that trans ends lo al ulture that art is able to de elop. The world
today is urrently e perien ing an age of globali ed ulture. nly by per ei ing and
be oming in ol ed in ommon issues that trans end ultures and that possess a er-
tain uni ersalism an we dis o er our own uni ueness and only in doing so an we
ensure that our lo al ulture a hie es itality.
elying on losed doors as a self-referen e is ust like a person spending all of his
time ga ing at himself in a mirror. No matter how he might udge himself, in the end,
he only on in es himself of himself. Although one may gloss o er su h a phenomenon
as preser ing lo al ulture, when one shuts one s eyes and loses one s ears for a long
time, this be omes a self-destru ti e habit. I think that now only by allowing lo al ul-
ture to walk away from lo al ulture an it be ome true lo al ulture. In the 1930s,
Lu un proposed the slogan the more national, the more international but we ould
in ert this motto to say instead, the more international, the more national. The world
is hanging, and so is the nation. We only ha e to obser e the s ale of international ul-
tural intera tions, the depth of their in uen e, the number of foreign artists working in
e ery ountry in the West, the di ersity of nationalities, and the in nite hanges that
are appearing in reati e a ti ities, then perhaps we would not rea h su h a hasty on-
lusion as the notion that if art lea es its ultural motherland, it ne essarily withers.
Howe er, withering is a uni ersal, normal phenomenon. o not both China and the
rest of the world ha e a number of artists who are urrently withering Maintaining
the itality of one s reati e for es does not primarily depend on whether one is at
home or abroad. Although the dif ulties and problems that one en ounters in these
two pla es are e tremely different, the fundamental uestions of artisti reation tran-
s end national boundaries. No matter where they might be, good artists an make use
of the uni ue hara teristi s of their en ironment, ausing these spe ial traits to ser e
their own reati e a ti ities as mu h as possible. Changes in the ultural en ironment
an themsel es be ome fountainheads of inspiration.
...
In the past few years, our a ti ities abroad ha e not embodied any sort of pursuit
of nationalism, but we ha e not eliminated the use of our national ulture. After dis-
entangling oursel es from de ades of being losed to the outside, what we first
fo used on doing was diligently eliminating the losed nature that ontemporary
national ulture had formed within us. If we were to ask what problems ultural on-
temporaneity has raised following the se ond half of the twentieth entury, I would
say that one of the most important has been the issue of o er oming years of national-
ist biases in order to reate new dialogues. We ha e already rea hed the irre ersible
phase of a global olle ti e life. What we want to destroy are not the traditional ul-
tures of different peoples rather, we want to destroy the on ept of ine uality among
all ra es, as well as the related issues of ultural egotism and narrow-minded national-
ist pre udi es. We, as elements of non-Western ultures, are melding into the pro ess
of the e er-in reasing opening up and de onstru tion of Western ulture. ur a ti i-
ties are enri hing the twin mo ements of the internationali ation of Western art and
the internationali ation of Chinese art. We are hanging the West is hanging. In this
pro ess, we are ertainly not merely being passi ely and simplisti ally dissol ed. When
we ompare ultures, working under different ultural onditions an help us to dis-
o er the limits of ea h parti ular ulture, and it an gradually help us to ast off the
pre udi es that form within a parti ular ulture be it the ountry in whi h we were
254
born or the ountry in whi h we urrently nd oursel es . Thus, we neither want to

|
oppose tradition, nor do we want to pursue Westerni ation rather, we ha e a

foothold in pursuing the ommonalities among ontemporary ultures. As I under-

stand it, this is also one of the pre onditions for the moderni ation of national ulture.
In other words, what we want to do and what we are doing is using dynami and re-
ati e means to take the problems produ ed within our Chinese onte t and gradually
transferring them into the broader eld of international ulture. We will ause them to
undergo a pro ess of uni ersali ation or e pansion. This is a ne essary pro ess for
learing away the detritus that has a umulated atop national ultural traditions also,
it is ne essary for resus itating our national ulture. After the twentieth entury, the
arts in many of the ountries of the West will ha e e perien ed this pro ess of e pan-
sion, but the art worlds of many Eastern ountries will still ling to themsel es, unable
to understand what nationality is, remaining a hindran e to themsel es.
...
No need to waste paper in response ,
aris, 7 e ember 1991
riginally published as Liuwang wenhua biran ku ie ei Li ianting de yi feng in in Piping de shi-

dai [ Era of Criticism ol. 1, ed. ia ang hou uang i: uang i ine Arts ublishing House, 2003 , 153 2.
Translated by hillip Bloom.
ON WORDS (1999 / 2000)

By Xu Bing
What most interests me now is staying at home to pra ti e my own alligraphy and to
study opybooks of earlier alligraphers. If I did not always ha e to go out to deal with
e hibitions, I really ould be ome someone like a hara ter-writing master, on en-
trating on alligraphy and wel oming those who ame to my door to seek my ins rip-
tions. In fa t, from the time that I began writing those strange, yet legible, English
word- hara ters, more and more people ha e asked me for them. Besides reating my
alligraphi works, I also sometimes ins ribe signs or nameplates for ertain organi a-
tions, and I periodi ally brush the titles for e hibitions or atalogues I e en ha e writ-
ten lines for ad ertisements. I nd this phenomenon interesting, for the on ept of
ins ribing did not e ist in the West in the past.
Be ause I ha e borrowed the pre ious spa es of art museums, galleries, and
publi tele ision stations around the world in order to tea h my English alligraphy to
the lo al people, this has generated some feedba k. Thus, I often re ei e letters writ-
ten with these word- hara ters, or I get to see the results and e perien es of people s
pra ti ing my English alligraphy . Some people ha e said, Your e hibitions are
ui kly be oming study lasses I say this is as it should be. This is mu h more inter-
esting than reating that kind of so- alled art that is made only for use in e hibitions.
Art fundamentally ought to be for the masses. It originates in life e en if it trans ends
life, it still originates in life. This was Mao edong s philosophy, and this was the earli-
est edu ation that I re ei ed in artisti thinking. Today, I still belie e that it is a sensible
proposition, parti ularly with regard to targeting the maladies and faults of ontempo-
rary art now. Currently, there is too mu h ontemporary art that is standardi ed, that
255
|
u Bing. An Introduction to
Square Word Calligraphy:
Square Word Calligraphy
Classroom. 1994 9 . Mi ed-
media intera ti e installation:
desks, hairs, opy and
tra ing books, brushes, ink,
ideo, and halkboard.
Installation iew at the Third
Asia-Pacific Triennial of
Contemporary Art,
ueensland Art allery,
Brisbane, Australia 1999
is e e uted too nely, and that is impossible to understand. There is no need for me to
do more of this kind of work. I hope that the things that I make are approa hable and
are bene ial to so iety. I also hope that they are uni ue and that they pea efully
en ourage people to embra e the unusual elements within the works.
In a ertain sense, I would be more willing to say that the reation of my New
English Calligraphy Xin yingwen shufa was a matter of a typographer s ompleting a
set of new English letterforms and that it was a matter of general edu ation. These
were the most meaningful parts of the work. You might say that I ha e begun to lea e
the domain of ontemporary art, yet I feel that I am nding a new path for this seem-
ingly boring domain. The further one gets away from a system, the loser, perhaps,
one omes to the goal of true art.
Establishing rules for a new set of hara ter-forms and ensuring that omprehen-
sible standards are laid out for the pla ement of ea h hara ter, these are not only
ideas, but also on rete tasks. ur prede essors did not lea e behind their referen es
for s ripts like those used in the Orchid Pavilion Preface Lanting xu) or the
Prabhutaratna Pagoda Stele Duo baota . Last year, during the ollo uium at the
Taipei Biennial, an old man riti i ed me, saying: That guy who does alligraphy his
hara ters are so unsightly, yet they ha e been sele ted for e hibition I think that it
may ha e been that the old man still had not understood my new kind of alligraphy,
for there is no way to nd a orresponding referent by looking in the model books that
we ha e now. Later, I on e oked that through years of pra ti e, I ha e be ome the
person who urrently an write these word- hara ters better than anyone else in the
world. But in the future, there undoubtedly will be people who write better than I,
and there may, in fa t, ome to be many people who write in this style of s ript.
When I was utting the type for A Book from the Sky Tianshu) pl. 14 , friends said
that I was ra y now, when I write these word- hara ters that seem to be a bit off-
tra k, they all say that it feels right, that it s like something I would do. Bowing my
head in re e tion, I reali e that in fa t, throughout my life I ha e always been entan-
gled with writing, but my relationship with writing has not always been normal. The
rop of us artists and intelle tuals who emigrated from mainland China would ne er
dare to say that we are literati we were born in rather unfortunate times, and our
edu ation had ertain de ien ies. But the absurdity of my own life lies in the fa t that
e en though I am not a ultured person, I ha e brushed more than ust a few hara -
ters. As a hild, I was taught by my father, who had me tra e hara ters e ery day
later, this be ame a habitual a ti ity for me, though it was interrupted when I was
256
for ed to go work in the ountryside. Yet in all that time, I had ne er done any alli-
|
graphi reation, for tra ing hara ters was simply a means of pra ti ing writing, of
re ei ing the lessons of systems of ultural ritual. I had ne er felt it was art. But this bit
of raftsmanship was put to use during the Cultural e olution: i k up your brush to
use as a weapon Con entrate your repower to sweep away the Bla k arty. My
father was a Bla k arty gangster, and my lass status was not good, but my hara -
ters were onse uently, with some dif ulty I be ame a useful person a hara ter-
writing tool within the ma hine of the whole re olution. With regard to politi s, I
was ompletely bemused, but I worked as hard as I ould. Writing hara ters or paint-
ing ontinuously for se en or eight hours in the politi al works of e was ommon-
pla e for me. The hara ters that I engra ed for newsletters looked like printed type.
The hara ters I painted for posters were done in one shot, and I ne er had to bother
to do drafts. Indeed, I wrote too many hara ters. I e en found that if I took the har-
a ter i ama ing in Liu Shao i s name and put it on its side, it ould be written as
the hara ter for gou dog but ould still be read as i. This was not my dis o ery
no, it was the reation of the re olutionary masses as they determined whom to lo e
and whom to hate. At that time, ompiling a handbook of pra ti al artisti alligraphy
was what I dreamed in pri ate of doing.
uring the latter part of the Cultural e olution, I was sent down to a farming il-
lage, and it was that remote, ba kward pla e that transformed me into an intelle -
tual. Besides banners and posters, there were also arious assignments for ins ribing
things for weddings and funerals, New Year s and other festi als, and publi pro lama-
tions. Some of the peasants wanted me to reate a single made-up hara ter from the
four indi idual hara ters in the e pression ten thousand taels of yellow gold and
another made-up hara ter from the four in the e pression be kon fortune and enter
into treasure. This, too, was not my own dis o ery it was the reation of the wisdom
of laborers.
Calligraphy and artisti writing do not ount as my spe ialty I studied printmak-
ing. E entually, I used a great uantity of type to print hara ters and books. Copying
hara ters and utting type for books is my profession, but be ause I fundamentally
had nothing really worth writing, I reated what be ame A Book from the Sky.
A Book from the Sky, whi h I reated a few years ago, and my later New English
Calligraphy are like half-brothers: they appear similar, yet are ompletely different.
E ery hara ter in A Book from the Sky has a familiar fa e, but I am unable to say their
names. They treat e ery person e ually they do not engage in any sort of ultural
bias, sin e no one, not e en I, is able to read them. Stri tly speaking, we must not pay
attention to the fa t that they are alled a form of writing, e en though their e te-
rior is that of ompletely ommon, typi al writing for this writing does not possess
the essential hara teristi of writing namely, the ability to transmit information
through parti ular word-meanings. New English Calligraphy is true writing, but these
words ha e passed through a ertain kind of disguise, through a form of e treme
dupli ity, as their thoroughly Eastern appearan e a tually e ists at the ser i e of om-
pletely Western ontent. Appearan e and essen e ontradi t ea h other, ausing us to
ha e dif ulty in de ning the status of these word- hara ters. They are familiar yet
foreign, foreign yet familiar. When writing, we do not know what kind of words or
hara ters we are writing.
These word- hara ters that wear a mask these things that are hara ters yet
are not hara ters are like iruses inside a omputer: they inter ept the part of the
brain that people are used to using with these indeterminate on epts the system is
disrupted, reating hindran es that are onne ted to e pression. Be oming a us-
257
tomed to ertain on epts and styles is in fa t the result of la iness. eriodi ally, one
|
needs to destroy and re- reate on ention by opening spa es that history has ne er

tou hed and by retrie ing the points of origin of thought and ognition.
Coming to su h a on lusion, this thing about writing hara ters has be ome
ompli ated again.
riginally published as uanyu i de ishu, in Wenhua yu daode [ Culture and Morality , 2000: no. 4,
19 21. Translated by hillip Bloom.
FACE THE NEW MILLENNIUM: THE DIVINE COMEDY OF OUR TIMES;

A THESIS ON THE UNITED NATIONS ART PROJECT AND ITS TIME AND
ENVIRONMENT 1 (1995 / 2003)
By Wenda Gu
introduction: an ongoing worldwide art project: united nations (1993 – )

united nations is an ongoing, worldwide art pro e t initiated early in 1992. from that
point until late 1993, i de eloped the original on ept and reated an e e uti e plan
forming a omple strategy and methodology. during this long meditati e period, i
had immense doubts on erning my personal abilities to su essfully de elop and
e e ute this on eptually, physi ally, timely, politi ally, and ra ially dif ult art pro e t.
howe er i rmly maintained my ision as i learly foresaw the profound nature and
hallenge of this pro e t for me and for related ra es and their i ili ations. i also felt
that as a result of the inordinate risks that i would be taking with the united nations
pro e t, it ould pro ide an e traordinary opportunity for me as an artist.
for its duration, the united nations art pro e t will tra el throughout e onti-
nents, to appro imately twenty different ountries whi h i ha e sele ted due to their
histori al and politi al importan e. by utili ing the hair of the lo al li ing population, i
strongly relate to the histori al and ultural onte ts to reate monumental installa-
tions and land art to apture ea h ountry s identity. the monuments draw from pro-
found e ents in ea h ountry s history. these installations are ea h indi idual national
monuments of the united nations series whi h e plores su h notions as trans ultural-
ism, transnationalism, and hybridi ation that will be manifest in the nal eremony of
the pro e t. onstru ted in the twenty- rst entury, the nal monument will be a giant
wall omposed of pure human hair integrated from all of the monuments in the series.
the wo en human hair and world pseudolanguages will oe ist on the wall as a great
utopia of the uni ation of mankind, a utopia whi h probably an ne er e ist in our
reality but will be fully reali ed in the art world. parado i ally, the human wall will not
only maintain ethni identities, but also a oe isten e of different ultures through the
reation of pseudo world languages in orporated into the hair wall. from hina s great
wall to the berlin wall, walls ha e been a metaphor of separation, but the impli ations
of the united nations art pro e t will be a true uni ation of mankind. at the nal real-
i ation of united nations, there will be thousands and thousands of different li ing
ra es present on the hair wall, supported by many ultural institutions, lo al barber-
shops, and most of all, li ing populations around the world.
the following are e erpts from moni ue sartor s and kim le in s essays in the at-
alogue for united nations italian division renamed united nations italy monument:
god and children whi h was e hibited in milan at enri o gariboldi arte ontemporanea
in 1994:
258
|
Wenda u. The United

Nations Monuments: Babel
of the Millennium. 1999.
Installation of human hair,
glue, rope with pseudo
Chinese, English, Hindi, and
Arabi languages, 75 high
34 diameter 22.9 10.4 m .
Colle tion San ran is o
Museum of Modern Art,
ift of i ki and ent Logan
This new issue leads to new artisti issues, pro oked by the e pansion of a trans-
ultural reality in our world. n e again, mankind is entering a new age, a new his-
tori al time, whi h now an be a tually de ned as planetary, and Wenda u s
pro e t united nations is learly symptomati , maybe in a temporary anti ipation,
of the entering of this new on eption and elaboration of ulture and ultural
differen es, that he pun tually de nes as trans ulturalism.
Is this another dawning of the age of A uarius A multi ultural update on the altru-
isti impulse that o er de ades has spawned su h artisti e ents as the family of
man and we are the world or is it a ree amination of the late twentieth entu-
ry s intensi ed and rapidly mutating on ept of ethni ity and nationalism
concept, strategy, methodology: otherness alienation difference, bio geo

cultural fusion
the monuments of the united nations series be ome a forum, a physi al and psy hologi-
al spa e that in ites a on ersation on the many ultural and artisti issues of our times,
whi h are of growing intensity in our global reality. from the beginning, the pro e t has
attempted to be a three-dimensional mirror re e ting global bio geo ulturally shift-
ing en ironments. from the long de elopmental pro ess of the pro e t s globali ation,
its aim is to sum up all of the possible phenomena resulting from the monuments and
unite them, bringing them to our ommon destiny based upon our modern humanity.
it is su h a spe ial ourney to reate the worldwide art pro e t united nations. a
ourney that has de eloped through ultural, politi al, ethni , and artisti e perien es:
as a red guard who painted re olutionary posters during mao s ultural re olution for
more than ten years working in hina and si teen years in the rest of the world as an
indi idual artist. en ountering di erse ra es and world ultures while reshaping their
monuments, this path has gi en me a han e to onfront what i ha e always been fas-
inated with: the egyptian pyramids the myths of afri a the roman empire the ameri-
an ad enture the berlin wall and hina s silk road and great wall. these spirits ha e
always been the sour es of my inspiration.
this on ept has brought about se eral intense dramas along the pro e t s ourney
259
in different ountries. i like to e uate some of my e perien es to two famous hinese
|
histori al referen es. on e when hina was made up of many indi idual ountries, on-

fu ius wanted to publi i e his do trine throughout the land he tra eled around these
arious ountries spreading his idea of how to go ern until his beliefs were ad o ated.
mao repeated this strategy in his red army s infamous military milestone known as, the
twenty- e thousand kilometer long mar h, through endless grasslands attempting to
es ape the pursuit of the formal party s army. along the way, he on in ed thousands
and thousands of peasants to belie e and support his re olution. thus he e plained,
the long mar h is a propaganda team it is like a seeder. . . . these two histori al refer-
en es ser e as an e en more important metaphori methodology for today s
bio geo ultural en ironment.
with the united nations pro e t and its many monuments, i want to push the oppo-
site e tremes: personal and politi al, lo al and global, and timeliness and timelessness.
based on rapid global bio geo ultural transitions that are fast approa hing our new
millennium, the on eption, strategy, and methodology of united nations sets up se -
eral formulas.
the entire pro e t is di ided into two parts: national monuments and the united nations
nal monument.
ea h national monument is di ided into two parts: lo al people s hair and lo al histori-
al onte t on ept .
it pro ides dire t physi al onta t, intera tion, integration, and onfrontation with the
lo al population olle ting hair and their ultural histories on eptual referen e .
instead of imagining or reading about ultures and then working from that informa-
tion in the pri ate studio, i strongly belie e that a tual physi al e perien es are far
more authenti and important than literary interpretations.
i as the initiator and e e utor. my bio geo ultural identity be omes the de i e that
shapes the ultural dialogues, onfrontations, and possible battles. this position on-
stantly reates who i am to who i am not whene er i am buried in a monument with
the e eption of the united nations hina monument. it also pro ides an international
e patriate for e eryone to relate to in e ery orner of our planet.
all four formulas ha e reated an absolutely authenti situation whi h pre isely ts our
bio geo ultural transition whi h goes beyond otheri ation, regionali ation,
trans ulturali ation, and so on. under this on eptual working pro ess, the identity of
the lo al ra e and its ulture is being otheri ed by me as the stranger. at the same
time, my own identity is being otheri ed and in so doing, merges with the strangers
and their ulture: a double otherness.
one of the striking hallenges of the united nations pro e t is that it uni uely deli -
ers an intense histori al and ultural, psy hologi al parado for me and the lo al audi-
en e. when the lo al audien e is before the monument, omposed of their hair and in
their histori al onte t, there is on one side a deep sense of national pride, and on the
other a feeling that their ulture is being in aded and o upied by a stranger. this
brings about a deep ontradi tory and parado i al dialogue and a rede nition of the
self between the lo al iewers and my position as the reator that is ery signi ant
and intriguing. an unusual intera tion is un eiled. thus, as one art riti e plained in a
positi e tone, the united nations pro e t is parodying the role of the ultural olonial-
ist. as the whole working pro ess harts its ourse with its e tremely di erse ra es and
ultural en ironments, the intelle tual and physi al working situations will be de ned
as: in and out inwards and outwards integration and separation identity
and otherness respe t and atta k and parado and harmony.
in one parti ular instan e, a united nations audien e member suggested, it is our
260
people s hair, it should be done by our hands. these simple words learly present
|
both sides as the lo al ulture and i are otheri ed, ust like being in a pure o ygen
bo both sides be ome identity-less on a psy hologi al le el through the reation of

the new. it also lea es a ery strong desire to rede ne identities a wonderful and
e iting parado . there is the ontrast between this singular body material, hair and
plural ra ial identities throughout the whole pro e t and yet, this single body mate-
rial will be transformed into multi ultured hair. i all this a great simpli ity whi h
will trans end to a uni ersal identity. it is great be ause of its di erse ri hness it is
simple be ause it uses the single material of human hair.
moreo er, the united nations national monuments are not totally separate entities.
They are like a hain with ea h su essi e monument building upon the pre ious
ones. ea h be omes more omple and di erse e entually rea hing a nali ation that
will unite all of the national monuments. o asionally i link two or three of the monu-
ments together to heighten the disparities on erning ertain world issues. for instan e,
the ombined swedish and russian monument addressed the building onfrontation
between eastern and western europe in the post- old war era as part of sto kholm s
international e hibition interpol 199 . a triple-fo used egyptian hinese italian
monument ould make strong referen e to three distin t religious and ultural mile-
stones of i ili ations. and a mighty hina usa oupling ould broa h the paramount
ideologi al and so iologi al stru tural oppositions between two world powers. ulti-
mately howe er, all of these monuments and their respe ti e on erns will blend
together in the ameri an-based nale of the united nations pro e t.
Notes
. This is an updated ersion of Wenda u s thesis statement on the united nations pro e t The
i ine Comedy of ur Times, whi h was originally written in . The artist hose to present his
written words entirely in lower ase letters.
. Moni ue Sartor, nited Nations, in United Nations Italian Division Milan, Italy: Enri o ariboldi
Arte Contemporanea, , unpaginated.
. im Le in, Splitting Hairs: Wenda u s rimal ro e t and Material Misunderstandings, in United
Nations Italian Division Milan, Italy: Enri o ariboldi Arte Contemporanea, , unpaginated.
. anielle Chang, nited Nations Ameri an i ision, in United Nations American Monument
New York: Spa e ntitled, , unpaginated.
E erpted from Wenda u, fa e the new millennium: the di ine omedy of our times a thesis on
the united nations art pro e t and its time and en ironment in Wenda Gu: Art from Middle Kingdom to
Biological Millennium, ed. Mark H. C. Bessire Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT ress, 2003 , 30 33.
WILD FLIGHTS OF FANCY (1998)

By Cai Guo-Qiang
I want to thank Cherng in allery in ad an e for gi ing me this opportunity to re iew

some of my unreali ed pro e ts from the past few years. I use the phrase in ad an e
be ause prior to this, I had already started to make plans to publish a small book alled
The Unrealized Century at the Turn of the Millennium, at the in itation of apanese
friends. I want it to be a book for people to read on the ommuter train, helping to
alle iate the ordinary iewer s fears about approa hing modern art and to en ourage
them to partake in the thrill and auda ity of the artist s ights of fan y. I didn t e pe t
that I ould use my mother tongue to do this in ad an e. Ne ertheless, limited by
time, I ha en t been able to arry it out in a systemati and omprehensi e manner
these fragmentary thoughts ser e as a start. Anyway, my original plan to alm my mind
and ondu t a omprehensi e re iew at the turn of the millennium was in fa t ust a
261
ight of fan y as well. or I know that by that time I will be ust like I am right now,
|
busy reali ing my fantasies while making new ones.

f ourse, e eryone knows an artwork annot be made by ights of fan y alone.
The artist has to dare to implement, and implement with pre ision, resolution, ingenu-
ity, pain, aggression, et . This is another topi . And I annot really e press it well.
I li ed in my hometown uan hou for more than twenty years. It is on the oppo-
site side of the Taiwan Straits. When I was a little boy, I used to indulge myself in wild
ights of fan y. The more forbidden and unattainable, the more irresistible it be ame. I
e en thought of plans to stow away for Taiwan. I didn t know what I wanted to do in
Taiwan, maybe ust take a look there. Now, although I ha e been to many ountries
and passed through ustoms many times, I don t think it gi es me the e itement and
thrill of being a stowaway. Se eral years ago, the international highways in Western
Europe abolished their ustoms he ks . I used my leisure time to dri e from one
ountry to another se eral times, risking being arrested. Howe er, I got little from this
illegal ourney. ne of the few impressions whi h still remains in my mind is that
there are far fewer highway lights in Holland than in Belgium. er the years, I ha e
produ ed a lot of supranational pro e ts.
When I was in mainland China, I ould do nothing but dream. With my hands and
po kets empty, dreaming was also all I ould do in my rst years in apan. When I learned
the language, I began making friends with people, in luding astrologers, seismographers,
e perts of life s ien es, shermen, di ers, et . f ourse, I also be ame a uainted with
some gunpowder e perts and artists. We dreamed dreams together, and many ha e
been made into reality. So, when I immigrated to the nited States, I was able to bring
many portfolios of my work with me. But, I ould hardly speak any English. Though
there were translators to help me at work, most of the time I ust wat hed and thought.
Some fantasies ha e ome true, some are to be reali ed, and some ha e been tried
but failed. And there are still some pro e ts whi h are unreali able, su h as the ones that
I plan for outer spa e or other planets. Maybe in the distant future, they will be reali ed.
I ha e only partial knowledge about Eastern osmology and Western astrophysi s. I ha e
been obsessed with superluminal speed, bla k holes, and espe ially e traterrestrials, for
whom my fas ination knows no bounds. I hope to be freed from Earth s gra ity, to
deta h myself far from the human world in order to think in a greater s ale of time and
spa e arth S TI Base Project . Sometimes, I dreamed of the lympi ames held on
another planet . . . reams do sometimes transform into reality, I a tually did make se -
eral pro e ts on erning athleti gatherings. The pro e t for the opening of the Asian
ames Hiroshima was to use a strong fuse to onne t the tor h stand with the heli op-
ter 00 meters abo e. Through T , people ould see li e the moment when the player
ignited the fuse in the heli opter. Then, a ray of ame would drop down from the sky at
the speed of one hundred meters per se ond. Si se onds later, the tor h on the stand
would be kindled. The human re des ending from the sky ould gi e the ity a narra-
ti e of destru tion or beauty. Howe er, after numerous publi and pri ate debates, the
pro e t was aborted due to some ompli ated politi al onsiderations. Among the opin-
ions from both the pro and on sides, the most impressionable arguments were: This
pro e t is a han e for Hiroshima to shed the painful shadow and embra e a rebirth,
and Howe er theoreti ally persuasi e, the re from the sky, e en ust reworks, will
ause physiologi al pains. Later, the pro e t The Earth Has Its Black Hole Too was real-
i ed and performed at the old site of the pre ious apanese Landfor e Command head-
uarters under the auspi es of artisti abstra tion, ambiguity, and within the artisti
institution. In the pro e ts for the lympi ames in Sydney, I planned to use a ying
balloon arrying a bird or a hea enly steed soaring a ross the skies, or a tiger with two
262
wings. And I also planned to ha e a shower of 25 gold medals falling from the sky
|
with a heli opter in the losing eremony to let all parti ipants ha e some fun. erhaps
the fake gold medals would ha e more signi an e than the real ones.
Some pro e ts are temporal. The one I ha e worked on for the turn of the entury,
Placid Earth, is a ase in point, as well as the pro e t to make a mushroom loud in all
the ountries whi h own nu lear weapons. If I miss the right time, I will be ome less
enthusiasti . Many artisti works gain the reputation of being timeless, but the author
himself is a produ t of his age and so ial ba kground, from whi h he obtains stimula-
tion and nourishment.
Some pro e ts are less temporal but need a spe ifi lo ation, for e ample, the
Sinking and Rising pro e t at the ia a San Mar o, eni e the Time Space Reversion
Project at Sakura ima ol ano, apan and the Air Pyramid pro e t at Mount u i. After
thirty years, the rubbish dump at Hiriya, Israel, a umulated into a hill 80 meters in
height and 2 kilometers in diameter . The Israeli go ernment de ided to stop using it,
but the hill remained unsightly, espe ially to the international airliners that passed right
o er it. Therefore, they e pe ted to transform the hill into an artisti work. When I
went to sur ey the dump site, my rst words addressed to the media, in luding those
from the military, were that artists an also do garbage. My pro e t was to a oid simply
using an artisti work to o er up the fa t that it was a hill of refuse. The general plan
was to ulti ate on the hill all the plants and herbs that esus had used for medi inal pur-
poses, thus reating a hill of herbs for a ountry that pra ti es modern medi ine today.
isitors to the hill would be able to read the Bibli al re ords about ea h herb and its
urati e effe ts they ould plu k some herbs, on o t them into a potion and drink it,
or pur hase them to take home. Moreo er, the hill would pro ide artists with the oppor-
tunity to produ e some more on ealed works. ne of my pro e ts was to dig out an
in erted obelisk, whi h would re uire isitors to lower their heads in order to iew it,
and the lighting would be su h that the fault of the thirty years of dumping would be
re ealed. Then, the e humed garbage would be ere ted into a trash obelisk on the hill
of the National Museum in erusalem. The earliest obelisks were built by the an ient
Egyptians se eral thousand years ago. ne of them was taken away by Napoleon and
reinstalled in aris. There is also one outside the White House, Washington, .C.
belisks are e erywhere in ome. They are monumental symbols of human i ili ation.
Some pro e ts are both time and lo ation spe i , for e ample, the plan Rebuilding
the Berlin Wall at the fall of the real wall and the Project to Extend The Great Wall of
China by 10,000 Meters. If this plan were to be reali ed now, it would be far less risky
and lose mu h of the original tension, and it would be glossed o er by the dri e to pro-
mote Chinese ulture and ad ertise tourism. The same rings true for the pro e t titled
Obelisk of Tolerance intended for the European A ademy of S ien es and Arts last year.
It was an unpre edentedly ambitious pro e t. The sponsors in luded artists, ar hite ts,
and mostly politi ians. They intended to emulate the Statue of Liberty and pro ide a
memorial for this entury haunted with disasters and animosity while also looking
ahead to a new epo h it ould also be understood as a token of re on iliation with the
ewish people. The site was intended to be Mo art s hometown. In order to be isible
from both downtown and the airport, the 0-meter-high obelisk would be built on the
top of one of the peaks of the Alps. At the ery beginning, I e pli itly e pressed my
opinion that it is ery dif ult for an ob e t of su h height to e press the spirit of toler-
an e therefore, I proposed the pro e t Peaceful Clouds. I don t understand how the
a epted pro e t e presses the idea of toleran e persuasi ely. Though I am often in ited
to parti ipate in on ei ing pro e ts, I understand well that important pro e ts fre uently
in ol e substantial problems far beyond the ategory of art, and the de iding fa tors
263
are often ery ompli ated. I am always ery ompla ent about an interesting proposal
|
and don t are whether it is reali ed or not. Whether it is something that I planned

myself, like the Extend China’s Great Wall pro e t, or something that I was ommitted
to do, like the Tolerance pro e t, I gi e 100 per ent and follow where the pro e ts take
me. I wander all o er the world, e erywhere I go I am taken are of and blessed with
wise guidan e. or e ample, when I was in Israel, they designated a rabbi to gi e me
lessons. I put down my roots in the soil all o er the world, and nd that e ery road
leads to the same fundamental truth, as if I ha e ne er departed.
or some pro e ts, the right opportunity is far more important than the right time.
My rst proposal for the uggenheim Museum s China: 5,000 Years e hibition was Yu
Gong yi shan The Foolish Old Man Moves the Mountain . I intended to use a rowd to
arry ro ks down a hill in China, then pa k them and ship them to New York along
with the national treasures and e hibit them side by side. After the e hibition, they
would be shipped ba k to China and restored to the original hill. This proposal was
ery thought-pro oking, prompting uestions like: who is Yu ong what was mo ed
what is a mountain Thoughts ould run all o er the pla e. The urators and I had
been mo ed by this foolish idea for more than one year, until later they de ided to
remo e the ontemporary art se tion from the uggenheim e hibition site, and as a
result, this proposal lost its signi an e.
Some ideas originated in my opponent the urator. In 1992, when I performed
my Fetus Movement II at a military base near assel, ermany, I isited an Hoet s
o umenta e hibition. I thought then that if I had been in ited to that e hibition, my
pro e t would ha e onsisted of shing by a stream. Later, I ollaborated with an on
se eral e hibitions. At one e hibition, I made a bamboo bridge. The isitors were to
mount the bridge at a kindergarten, go o er a wall, and des end from the bridge into a
gra eyard. When an saw the bridge, he told me that it had been onstru ted too well,
and he felt that I had ruined the pro e t. He was only reassured when he himself
rossed o er the bridge and felt the an iety of the e perien e our little debate e en
made the news on T . Another time, he in ited me to his museum to make a pro e t
there. I used e plosi es to make a fty-meter-long dragon on the wall of his olle -
tion room, for my work titled True Collection. No sooner had the smoke disappeared, I
began to bargain with him in publi , we signed a ontra t on the pri e of this work,
and he agreed that it ould not be loaned out. He offered me an opportunity in 2000,
whi h o erlapped with the opening of this e hibition at the Cherng in allery. He
wanted me to see the potential site for my performan e, but the trip would ha e been
ust a few days before the opening of this e hibit. I ould not make the trip, and as a
result l ha e yet to start on o ting some ideas about this proposal. an s on den e
and ambition about art often make the artist s fan ies e en bolder and wilder.
Some pro e ts were made possible by the on uen e of the right time, right pla e,
and right people and fa tors. or e ample, the theme of the 1995 eni e
Biennale whi h oin ided with the 700th anni ersary of Mar o olo s ourney home
from my hometown uan hou happened to be trans ulture. Both the urators
and the sponsors had strong trans ultural intentions and sophisti ated organi ational
abilities. The uan hou lo al go ernment also fully understood the signi an e of
releasing a small sailboat out of its harbor. Conse uently, Bringing to Venice What
Marco Polo Forgot entered the anals of eni e on time like a . I was sitting on the
boat without sweat and was deli ered to the e hibition site like a tourist. Before this
performan e, I had se eral proposed ollaborations with the urator umio Nan o that
had ne er been reali ed. In 1994, he had an e hibition alled Seascape. My proposal
264
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Cai uo- iang. Fetus Movement II:

Project for xtraterrestrials No. 9. 1991.
unpowder and ink on paper, mounted
on wood as eight-panel folding s reen.
7 22 4 200 80 m . Museum of
Contemporary Art, Tokyo
Cai uo- iang. Fetus Movement II:

Project for xtraterrestrials No. 9.
une 27, 1992, 9:40 p.m., 9 se onds.
unpowder 90 kg , fuse 1,300 m ,
seismograph with nine sensors,
ele troen ephalograph, and ele tro ar-
diograph. Land area 15,000 m . eali ed
at Bundeswehr-Wasser bungsplat
military base, Hann. M nden, ermany,
for the e hibition Encountering the
Others, assel
was to make a ring at the bottom of the sea resembling a meteor landing or a rater,
whi h would be isible abo e from the museum on a lear day. Nan o said that to use
dynamite under the sea would kill many sh, and the publi a used us of potentially
arrying out en ironmental damage. I e plained that it was pre isely my intention to
show ase the beauty of the natural en ironment through the lear isibility of the air
and seawater. This year s biennial e hibition in Taipei is my se ond ollaboration with
him. He told me that in spite of my laims to e press the rise and fall of Asia s e on-
omy, the iewers would ine itably asso iate my performan e with mainland China s
missile maneu er. I answered that it was the ery missile maneu er that ga e me inspi-
ration for this pro e t. He asked, how do we reassure Taiwan s publi that these mis-
siles were indeed not from the mainland I said that I would write on the missile this
is not a missile from mainland, whi h made him roar with laughter. Later on, I found
that these missiles already bore the original insignia, Made in Taiwan.
Sometimes I find it diffi ult to sti k to my original ideas. Before I had gone to
Bar elona to sur ey the site for an up oming performan e, I already had an idea: to draw
a small transient halo with smoke abo e the ross on the top of a small ountry hapel.
The halo would then softly oat into the sky and be ome a loud. But, when I got
there, I was entran ed by the white athedral on the mountain near the ity. The ross
on the top of the athedral was in the shape of esus e tending his hands. wing to its
enormous si e the statue was ele en meters high , it ould be seen from the ity. I
hanged my original idea and de ided to make a large halo pro e t there. The urator
osa Mart ne was also e ited about this idea. When we isited the athedral, I was
surprised that the ar hbishop also appro ed of this pro e t. Both osa and I were
e hilarated and on luded that this pla e was the only hoi e. Howe er, so many
troubles and dif ulties followed, as the pro e t had to go through many authorities.
As far as artisti performan es are on erned, if the preliminaries are too ompli ated,
it is usually dif ult to perform the pro e t naturally, if reali ed at all. In retrospe t, I
should ha e adhered to my original idea of a small ountry hur h. Later, when I ol-
265
laborated again with osa at the Istanbul Biennial, she showed more pruden e about
|
my interest in the Euro-Asian strait. In fa t, I intended to understand the realisti on-

dition of this Biennial through a huge and dif ult pro e t. The result was that I gained
tremendous respe t for the sponsors of the Biennial for the dif ulties and risks they
ha e to fa e as the pioneers of modern ulture in the Islami world. I made two ideo-
tapes. ne was Floating, in whi h I skipped tiles on water from Europe to Asia, and in
the other I skipped tiles from Asia to Europe. I also let the iewers throw self-made
paper planes freely in the great san tuary of a deserted oman hur h. Con ersely,
there ha e also been pro e ts en ouraged and emboldened by the sponsors. or
e ample, initially in my pro e t to blow up the power station in ohannesburg, I made
a autious proposal to blow up only the obsolete fa tory walls. To my surprise, the
muni ipal of ers asked me, wouldn t it be more meaningful to also blow up an oper-
ating power station I ertainly ouldn t refuse that. When a on ept resonates with
the lo al people, it will in turn go e en ra ier.
Shifting Continents proposes an idea that is restri ted by te hni al limitations, and
thus an only be fore er admired in se ret.
But, the limits imposed by natural onditions an be e en more dis ouraging. In
1994, the pro e t Making a Ladder to the Earth was su h a ase, e en more so than the
re ent pro e t in Sweden titled Parting of the Seas. In 1993, my pro e t with a id
Elliott in ford titled The Oxford Comet ended in a terrible failure. After he be ame
the dire tor of Sto kholm s Moderna Museet, he in ited me to gi e it another try at
the opening e hibition of the museum. This time, I set my sights on the i e on the sea
outside the museum. I plotted to make a light beam resembling Moses s parting of
the seas in the i y seas of Northern Europe. nfortunately, who would ha e e pe ted
that this year there would be no i e on the sea Shortly before the opening, we
hanged the plan to ondu t the performan e on water. But, I did not promptly adapt
myself to the new situation and ignored many te hni al problems. n the day of the
opening, it was raining and the site was o erwhelmed with a huge rowd of spe ta-
tors. When it was time for the e plosion, I ounted down with a id through mobile
phones: 9, 8, 7 . . . Ignite But, the gunpowder on the sea simply would not e plode.
The 300 kilograms of gunpowder and the 7000-meter-long fuse we ordered from the
prestigious Nobel Company had been soaked through. We were all ery grateful that
a id dealt with the spe tators with su h great omposure, and asked us how soon
we ould gi e it another try. i e days later, e uipped with a whole new set of te h-
ni ues that we had de eloped, we went ba k to the site. It was a sunny day, but the
sea was roiling. inally, it almed down a little at sunset, but by then lusters of i e had
oated o er and were hitting against our boats. Although it was a good idea to ha e
the boat ro king along with the oating i e and the work, and the work was nished at
last, a id s guests were not present. What was most de astating is that I did not man-
age to gi e his museum an auspi ious opening. I indeed ha e mu h to re e t on
There are many proposals that e ol e une pe tedly. When Iwaki City Art
Museum in ited me to an e hibition, I had nothing in mind. I found the sunken ship,
dredged it up, but I still didn t know what to do with it. When the e hibition began,
Forest of Towers made of the ship s hull be ame San Tower. Then the tower ew up
to the sky and be ame a ro ket. I told the olle tor of this work a foundation in
ree e that the work ould be further de eloped in e ery e hibition a ording to
the situation of the site. It was also in lwaki that the residents olunteered a sugges-
tion: during the minute when my Horizon Project was performed, all the residents
along the ri er would turn off their lights to parti ipate. This suggestion helped me to
on ei e of the Placid Earth pro e t. As for the Taihu garden ro ks, I e long been
266
harmed by their fantasti al nature and their ethereality, but I had no idea how to use
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them. Then, I found the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art had a gardenlike layout, so
I de ided to insert my garden into its garden, inad ertently laun hing a pure e per-
imentation of installation language. Later, in New York, when the retired Ameri an
warship needed for the Trap pro e t ouldn t arri e in time, and my interest in Taihu
ro ks was growing stronger, I worked out the Cultural Melting Bath with a high-te h
Ameri an a u i bath. e ently, those ro ks were mo ed outdoors to the seashore
and be ame a publi artwork. It seems as if ideas for works ha e their own destiny,
unfolding step by step. In fa t, my pursuit for the freedom of reation so alled
ruleless rules and al hemy also has it own rules.
It is a great fortune to be an artist, for he an ha e wild ights of fan y regardless
of his age, and speak or a t them out at will. I often tell my daughter about my arious
imaginings rst. If she doesn t ha e any rea tion, then I am disappointed. I think when
I run out of dreams, I will try to nd work at a primary s hool, where I an always lis-
ten to the hildren telling me their ights of the imagination.
1998.4.20
riginally published as Husi luan iang in Cai Guo-Qiang: Day Dreaming Taipei: Cherng in allery,
1998 , 4 17. riginally translated by Wu Chang- ye, re ised by Yin ing Liu.
AI WEIWEI DIALOGUE WITH ZHUANG HUI (1995) [ pl. 40
Zhuang Hui: Had your personal style fundamentally taken shape following your e pe-
rien es in the nited States
Ai Weiwei: When I reali ed the issues of art s metaphysi al e isten e, I gradually

be ame interested in artisti languages. After that I made some works related to this.
or e ample, under what ir umstan es will a shape or a state of being ser e a fun -
tion, and why will it ha e a fun tion Why do we feel differently when we see a work
of art and a ommonpla e, e eryday ob e t What o urs when we see this differen e,
and what kind of e perien e a ompanies this I was e perimenting with these ideas.
Zhuang: In your works from this period su h as the de onstru ted shoes, in whi h
you remo ed a part of the shoe, and then sewed it together again you took ordinary,
publi isual forms and hanged their basi uality, and the result for ed iewers to
reali e a hange in their mode of thinking.
Ai: The power of art is a psy hologi al one: powerful art is not about the si e of your
work, how old it is, or how far it has ome. The uestion is how does this thing fun -
tion in our mind. This is be ause no matter what you say about art, it is always about
the human a t of thinking, and the power of thought an be in nitely great at least
that s what we think . The importan e of anything is also determined based on
whether or not we belie e it is important.
Zhuang: What kind of role do you belie e artists should play in so iety
Ai: In a rational so ial system, artists should play the part of a irus, like a omputer
irus. A small pro e t has the ability to effe t de nite hange in a rational so iety, and
the haos that results from su h a hange is the pro ess of making a rational world more
267
alert. That is an important fun tion in art today. therwise, if art were merely re e ting
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publi morals, then its out omes would be far inferior to s ienti a ti ities. Art is one

of humankind s inordinate ambitions. We li e amidst a series of ideologies, all of whi h
were reated by ed on epts. or e ample, a building may ha e ten thousand oors,
but it still re uires a standardi ed bri k to build it a good pro e t is able to hange one
bri k, and transform the building s entire omposition. This kind of sub ersi e on-
s iousness, in terms of ulture and psy hology, is the strength of an artwork.
Zhuang: Artists should ha e this sub ersi e mentality, and sub ersion doesn t merely
imply destru tion, it pro ides people with new possibilities.
Ai: The formidable system surrounding us is ust now taking shape. With the entire
world falling within its parameters, this system s standardi ation of language and
hopes, and its monopoli ation and systemati ation of information, will lead to the
o erall disappearan e of the strength in the alue of personal will and indi idual spiri-
tual e isten e. The speed at whi h these are disappearing is faster than the e tin tion
of ungles and the endangered animals within them. This is a problem that should
strike terror among the human ra e.
Zhuang: o you belie e that the a ant-garde still e ists If so, where does it manifest
Ai: I belie e that signi ant a ant-garde mo ements in China are nearly non-e istent,
be ause China hasn t formed a strong base of support on the home front. Any ideology,
if it features new and independent opinions, is a ant-garde. Howe er, China s ultural
situation has been outside of the e onomi perple ities and the hea y weight of its
own ultural burdens o er the last entury, and it still has trouble dealing with other
issues. This makes for the pe uliarity of Chinese artists. The problems that Chinese art-
ists fa e are not only ultural, they must ght for a string of issues: freedom of e pres-
sion, a spa e in whi h to e ist, et . China la ks a true lass of intelle tuals. It la ks a
popula e that has re ei ed a good edu ation. Talking about Chinese art, we must
in lude a dis ussion of its ultural milieu, and onditions for sur i al this is be ause we
ha e already learly felt that the safeguards for the artist s most basi lifestyle are prob-
lemati , whi h has a dire t result on the moral hara ter and thinking of most artists.
Zhuang: You e pla ed many issues within ery on rete parameters to re ogni e and
implement ideas this is a ery effe ti e method.
Ai: Contemplating what I truly want to say and what my ideas truly are, in most of my
art there is a de nite language that belongs to me. My work Fur Pimao was a kind of
e periment, I pla ed two different- olored pie es of fur on a small surfa e it was a
traditional method that e oked the familiar feeling of when an audien e onfronts a
painting. Making the audien e belie e it is an artwork, and not a so- alled eadymade
is at on e an e tremely natural and e tremely unnatural thing natural things must be
surrounded by an e tremely unnatural en ironment. I also did a number of paintings,
all of whi h were based on this idea. ur pa e of life is too fast, and this has blurred
on epts of big and small. We should learn arefully from our own life e perien es,
and begin with art s fundamental problems, resol ing one or two small problems, and
de ise a style. If e eryone wanted only to be the minister of ulture or guide trends,
then our so iety would be rather boring.
Zhuang: How do you see the issue of the so- alled enter and periphery
268
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Ai: The so- alled enter and periphery are relati e. If a person already does not
a knowledge the e isten e of god, then the indi idual is entral.
Zhuang: Many problems arise from here, we are always on erned with irrele ant
issues like East-West dialogue, nationalism, et ., but we do not fo us on oursel es.
Certain people are always attempting to grasp the trend toward uniformity of differ-
ent so ieties, and after reworking ertain topi s they use methods of ommer ial
manipulation to try and make them into trends, whi h at its ery essen e is astrat-
ing the artist.
Ai: So ietal disputes ha e their own respe ti e ob e ti es, and an often bring a pra -
ti al bene t to people. The obligation of the artist is to use a pro ess of self- riti ism
and self-negation to gradually arri e at a orrespondingly harmonious and rational
method. ther people aren t able to pro ide you with an answer. Always distrust
authority, be suspi ious of entralist theories, doubt your alleged ultural in uen es.
Zhuang: Is ulture eternal and un hanging If your answer is no, I would ha e a ery
dif ult time understanding that many artists put the ma ority of their energy into the
re ent upsurge of sear hing for roots, isn t this ad antageous for the onstru tion of
today s Chinese ulture
Ai: There s no need to e essi ely dis uss ultural problems. China s ultural history
doesn t ha e any bene ial out ome on our a tual onditions, and humanity no longer
needs to aunt its impressi e ultural history to a hie e su ess. This point has already
been dis o ered and demonstrated by many nations and peoples. We are a pragmati
people, and owing to many years of unfortunate en ounters, most people do not dis-
dain to e en onsider things that don t immediately produ e a benefi ial result.
orgetting about ultural issues and paying more attention to the surroundings we e ist
in, seeing how other peoples re e t on their problems, will perhaps ha e an enlighten-
ing effe t on us, bringing us ba k to our problems in the fastest way possible.
Zhuang: We all know Warhol was the most in uential artist after the 19 0s, to the
point that people ha e prophesied that Warhol s emergen e would ause ontempo-
rary art to be fa ed with a profound re olution.
Ai: Warhol was an enlightened person, and he understood the arri al of the ommer ial
so iety. Indi idual personalities disappeared and alue ould be repetiti ely manufa -
tured and produ ed afresh, people s in reased demands aused the lowering of stan-
dards of uality. or e ample, if she uses a perfume, you also use it he drinks this brand
of ola, you also drink this brand. Warhol grasped this kind of anishing of the indi idual
in modern so iety, he ne er onsidered himself to be an indi idual, he ga e you what-
e er you liked, whate er you wanted. I ll produ e as ui kly as possible whate er you
think is trendy his entire mode was the negation and omission of indi idualism.
Warhol turned himself into an all-absorbing sponge he wanted to be permeated
by e erything in his surroundings. No matter who or what, he would photograph and
re ord them his life was like an eternal dinner party, where anyone ould show up.
Warhol reated an Ameri an kind of mythology, absurdity, and boredom, but the
Ameri an lifestyle itself was absurdist and ery boring. Be ause of him, that absurdity
and boredom be ame enri hing. Looking ba k on twentieth- entury art, I belie e that
269
Warhol is the primary spirit ontinuing the work of u hamp. His popular style, stan-
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dardi ation, and ommonality be ame the main hara teristi s of art in this period.

So- alled op art is something populari ed, it is a different on ept from China s op.
E erpted from ang Ai Weiwei, in Baipishu [ White Cover Book ed. eng iao un and Ai Weiwei
Bei ing: pri ately published, 1995 11 15. Translated by Lee Ambro y.
STATEMENT (1989)
By Hung Liu
i e-thousand-year-old ulture on my ba k. Late-twentieth- entury world in my fa e.

Capp Street near Mission. My alien number is 28333359.
Being a resident alien is like trying to wat h a mo ie while reading subtitles one
is positioned in the pla e, time, and a tion the dramati unities of a new en iron-
ment whi h is both onstantly hanging and re uires endless on entration on its par-
ti ulars. In my Resident Alien installation, done for the Capp Street ro e t in 1988, I
tried to represent this split ons iousness in the form of a Tai Chi dan er, drawn dire tly
on the walls and repeated in a hain of stop-a tion poses around a room whi h
in luded mural-s ale paintings and eremonial Chinese artifa ts. A kind of unifying
frie e, the dan ers symboli ed the tension between the ontinuity of mo ement and
the ity of single moments, and felt like the differen e between inema and photog-
raphy, between the urrents of history and the do uments by whi h we fi and
remember them
Su h ongoing a tion, as it uts through time and pla e, is a metaphor for the migra-
tion of people, languages, and ustoms. Yet one an identify ertain ru ial moments of
pause and fo us in a histori al hain whi h gi e history its fa e and its human s ale. or
Asian immigrants to Ameri a, those moments an be seen in family and histori al pho-
tographs, passport and reen Card mug shots, go ernment re-entry papers, politi al
artoons, the artisti ideali ation of the homeland, and e en in the bilingual street signs
whi h mark Chinatown.
My responsibility as a lassi ally trained Chinese artist in Ameri a is not to assimi-
late, but to e press my Chineseness as learly as I an. By doing so, I hope to ontrib-
ute to my new home, whi h is a land inhabited by old and new resident aliens.
riginally published in Visions all 1989 : 34.
ABOUT RESIDENT ALIEN (2000)

By Hung Liu
I see myself as a witness to history: urrent e ents, rights, and in usti es all on ern me.
I am a iti en rst and an artist se ond. It is not enough that an artist an portray some-
thing, paint a portrait or a model. That s too shallow. . . . I resear h and re o er materi-
als I re y le old images and then reuse them in my works.
Resident Alien 1988 was painted before I returned to China to lo ate old histori al
photographs. It is my self-portrait on an enlarged green ard. I substituted ortune
Cookie for my name, a se ual slang term for Chinese women and also the dessert ookie
ser ed in Chinese-Ameri an restaurants. I saw the fortune ookie as a hybrid and a
270
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Hung Liu. Resident Alien.

1988. il on an as, 75 90
178 228 m . San ose
Museum of Art, California
metaphor of my situation at the time e isting between ultures, not Chinese and not
Ameri an. I also re ersed the last two numbers in my date of birth, making it read 1984,
the year that I immigrated to the nited States.
riginally published in Revealing and Concealing, Portraits and Identity Los Angeles: Skirball Cultural
Center, 2000 , unpaginated There was a misprint in the te t s title as originally published. Ed.
Debates over Using Animals and the Human

Body in Making Art
This controversy emerged in the late 1990s and early 2000s in reaction to a series of
unofficial exhibitions in which animals, corpses, and the artist’s own body were
used as art materials.1 The curators of and participants in the exhibitions defended
these projects for exploring the boundaries of contemporary art, arguing that such
“taboo” materials provided the most effective means to challenge conventional
definitions of art that were bound to unexamined morality. Not all artists shared
this view, however; and the art establishment found this a good opportunity to
condemn the “immoral” nature of contemporary performance art in general.
Examining these exhibitions in the context of contemporary Chinese art, we
find that they appeared as counter-actions to an effort to “legalize” this art. As
will be discussed in the “Extrinsic Perspectives” section, this effort intensified in
the late 1990s as a growing number of artists and curators explored various pos-
sibilities to work with government institutions and private sponsors, in the hope
of bring contemporary art to the public. Against this tide, some radical artists
and curators insisted that efforts to popularize contemporary art would inevita-
bly compromise its experimental spirit, and organized unofficial exhibitions to
showcase “extreme” and challenging works. Their experiments with using live
animals and human corpses to make art were part of this counter-movement.
Since these experiments would almost certainly be prohibited by the government
and denounced by the public, they justified the necessity for alternative exhibi-
tions planned exclusively for insiders within the experimental art circle.
The texts translated in this section reflect three different views. Qiu Zhijie
and Wu Meichun organized and supported such experiments. In sharp contrast,
Chen L sheng lists ten reasons to condemn these art projects; such criticism is
given legal authority in the Ministry of Culture document. The last text, by Zhu Yu
and Wu Hung, focuses on a single project, in which Zhu used his own body as the
site of performance. Through reconstructing and analyzing the project’s concep-
tualization and realization, the text provides a detailed account of a representa-
271
tive work in this trend.
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Note
. These e hibitions in lude Culture. Life Wenhua shenghuo , Supermarket Chaoshi zhan , Post-
Sense Sensibility: Distorted Bodies and Delusion Hou ganxing: yixing yu wangxiang , Art as Food
Yishu dacan , Infatuated with Injury Dui shanghai de milian , and a series of Man and
Animals Ren yu dongwu e hibitions onward . or an introdu tion to these shows, see Wu Hung,
Exhibiting Experimental Art in China Chi ago: a id and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, ni ersity of
Chi ago, , .
POST-SENSE SENSIBILITY: DISTORTED BODIES AND DELUSION (1999)

By Qiu Zhijie and Wu Meichun
istorted bodies are the onse uen es of physi al mutations, aused either by nat-
ural diseases or by arti ial transformations. iseases su h as an er, sar oma, and
birth defe ts may all produ e aestheti sensations while arti ial transformations
su h as osmetology, plasti surgery, tattooing, and geneti ontrol always heighten
the sub e t s inse urity. When these two kinds of transformation oin ide, their
unpremeditated meeting inspires artists to make distorted bodies through their
artisti e perimentation.
elusion means the mutation of the mind. In re ent years, artists ha e fre uently
and deli ately staged psy hologi al dramas in their works dramas related to syndromes
su h as oyeurism, e hibitionism, maso hism, and paranoia. In so doing, they ha e trans-
formed mental syndromes into artisti representations, and ha e blurred the boundary
between normal and abnormal psy hology. Thus, when delusion be omes artisti illu-
sion, it also be omes a means of healing and ridding of e il. istorted bodies and delu-
sion are the main tenden ies in this e hibition. The original English translation of the
Chinese title in the e hibition s atalogue is Post Sense-Sensibility: Alien Bodies and
Delusion. The editor has hanged alien bodies to distorted bodies be ause the latter
term more pre isely on eys the meaning of the original Chinese term yixing Ed. .
The most intense and dire t representations of distorted bodies utili e human
orpses as material, deliberately transgressing the di iding line between reality and
artisti representation:
In hu Yu s installation, an arm ut off from a dead body is suspended from the
eiling, holding a long rope that winds and winds to bury the entire oor of a room. To
ross the room, members of the audien e ha e to walk through the sea of ropes, feel-
ing the ground disappearing beneath their feet and themsel es suspended in the air.
This work seems to pull spe tators in two different dire tions that keep negotiating
with ea h other: while they must respond to the installation s material i.e., the human
arm , their response must also be destabili ed by their imagination inspired by the
installation s form.
Sun Yuan has fro en a dead fetus in a huge i e bed, whi h an be asso iated
with a tomb, the womb, or both. The sho king ontrast between the enormous bed
and the tiny fetus mesmeri es the audien e, who e perien e sharp pain in their hearts
but annot take their eyes away. in a s s ulpture a attened horse lying in a bed
fa ing up employs an e pressionist mode. What it e presses is parado i al: there is a
life-and-death struggle and an outburst of energy, and there is helplessness and despair.
This emotional drama is intensi ed by the horse s bla k shape being made of human hair.
iao Yu has onstru ted a tional reature by sewing together parts of human and
272
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Sun Yuan. Honey. 1999.

Bed, i e, spe imen of a
dead fetus and a dead man s
fa e, 7 9 10 4 11
200 300 150 m .
bird skeletons hang Han i has used pigskin to onstru t a human form. What these
two works e press is a profound mistrust of the notion of a natural body.
Wu Ershan deliberately positions arious kinds of fruit, egetables, and li e animals
together to ompose different images of se ual inter ourse. The in ol ement of ani-
mals heightens the re elry in this sumptuous ban uet of se and materials to another
le el of primal roughness. Shi ing s 1999 dire tly uses images of numbers to obliterate
and rewrite people s handprints. The abrupt break in the life line e iden es a onspir-
a y between prophesying misfortune and new media. Behind it lies an an iety-ridden
self-e amination.
ushing toward the per ersion of bodily e perien e, one an t be satis ed with the
material aspe t of distortion. Instead, one must use a distorted iewpoint to gauge
the body. In iang hi s humorous ision, the hin has be ome a spa e for imaginati e
e pression. This strange game is at on e na e and i ious. In Liu Wei s absurd iewpoint,
small, pitiful bodies tear about like wild beasts they wrestle and struggle, always busily
s urrying along like inse ts, ompletely la king in self-awareness and thus la king
meaning. The eye that peers o er this s ene is not ne essarily ons iousness either.
iffering from Shi ing, Wang Wei s self-s rutiny positions the human body in an en i-
ronment of almost intolerable e tremes. Beneath the iewer s feet are images of people
pressed up against the oor gasping for air pl. 41 . They ser e as the unstable ground on
whi h the iewer stands. This is not only a self-e amination. This mode of installation
also urges others to arefully e amine us. Through this kind of dynami re onstru tion of
the relationship between the self and other, we dis o er that the distorted body has
already entered a state of delusion.
istorted bodies, in fa t, are delusions of the body or we an say that these are a
kind of physi al, orporeal delusion. But bodily delusions do not ne essarily use the
orporeal form. Strewn all o er Yang Yong s bathtub are ra or blades, ausing an imme-
diate rea tion of an iety and tension in one s skin. The installation is a kind of instru-
ment of torture, whi h has emerged from the artist s alm, dispassionate delusion.
Chen Lingyang suspends an old-style of n within a tunnel, dripping with some kind of
a thi k mysterious uid. ao Shiming, ao Shi iang, and Lu Lei together installed a pri-
ate spa e replete with a sense of instability a room o ered with traf signs and
streets densely lled with tire marks. eng iaoying similarly des ribes an illusory indi-
idual e isten e. He ombines it with absurd material ob e ts to reate a delusional
e eryday life: a toilet omposed of a tele ision s reen and a oating gold sh. In this
work, the referen e to the body isn t dire tly through the physi al body itself, but rather
through the utensils and apparatuses that the body employs. Yet, it is the plasti ity of
the spa e that is e en more organi , its site-spe i ity is e en more distin t the form
and stru ture of its model don t e haust the imagination, instead, the artist has thrown
273
most of his energy and sensiti ities into onstru ting an atmosphere that referen es the
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phenomena of e isten e.

In 1994, Yang udong was still a student at the Central A ademy of ine Arts. He
suddenly announ ed that he was going to suspend all use of language as a medium for
intera ti e e hange. After three months, the palm of Yang s hand was o ered with dif-
ferent substitutes for words. This kind of loss of language is not a natural phenomenon,
but rather is a man-made design dire ted at the i id e perien e of life elsewhere. This
kind of perple ity toward the body is also distin tly e ident in eng ianyu s photo-
graphs. Interpreting an in ersion of the positi es and negati es of the omposition leads
to a repeated e pe tation of negated details. Within a attened time and spa e, illus-
trated gures ha e se ret, ungraspable identities. In Weng en s ideo installation, bod-
ies take ight in trees and in the ity their wings are made from plasti and loth. Why
not make a ho ering superman using the sophisti ation of omputer te hnology, why
toil away at making a kind of rude pseudo-self Simple and rude materials gi e promi-
nen e to allowing delusion to run wild. In Chen Wenbo s paintings, the hands that sud-
denly appear in the frame seem not to belong to the painted bodies. This reates an
othering uality to the main gures. Although these outstret hed hands inter ene with
the gures, the gures also a knowledge their presen e.
iu hi ie s work Evil Heart Xin mo enters mainly around a feeling of weightless-
ness. Torsos separated from their bottom hal es use antigra ity to oat in the spa e. ig
intestines lled with hydrogen oat in the air, making this s ene of weightlessness the
target of a wait and see attitude, all the while en ir ling the iewer s spa e. istorted
aluminum tubes transmit ele troni oi es like ell-phone rings and answering-
ma hine messages. The arious elements in this spa e are brought together, not by
form, stru ture, or semanti s, but rather by a olle ti e sense of weightlessness, unreal-
ness, a feeling of non-being and fragmentation.
We ha e sensed this feeling of non-being before in Yang Yong s work, in whi h an
obs ure body ro ks in a bed. The feeling of weightlessness has greeted us before in
Weng en s ying gures and Chen Lingyang s of n. We ha e also e perien ed that
sense of fragmentation in ao Shiming s art, where the smell of asphalt in ades the
bedroom. nrealness penetrates e ery single work in the e hibition: in iao Yu s mys-
terious things, in iang hi s denial of the body, in Liu Wei s surreal hannels and a -
erns, in Wu Ershan s bodies made from fruit . . .
After ha ing seen so many different trends of ontemporary art e hibitions like a
sele tion of appeti ers the kernel of our uratorial thinking is lo ated in demonstrat-
ing a kind of distin ti e standpoint. The works in this e hibition all stress the intensity
of per eption: distorted works emphasi e a strike against the senses. The works related
to delusions seep into, in ade, and harass the mind. Su essful works a hie e both of
these in a single body. These artists are all relati ely remo ed from hea y and ompli-
ated so io ultural riti ue. Instead, their attention is on entrated on the lowest,
most basi le el of physiologi al and psy hologi al e perien e. rom a re i al of
these e perien es , they are trying to draw forth a more personal and dire t ultural
attitude. ur standards of alues are: rst, it must be a stimulus. But, it an t merely
stimulate, it must also be unusual. But, it an t only be unusual, it must in the end be
ri h in the post-sensibility of imagination.
riginally published as Yi ing yu wang iang in Wu Mei hun and iu hi ie, Hou ganxing: Yixing yu
wangxiang [Post-Sense Sensibility: Distorted Bodies and Delusion Bei ing: pri ately published, 1999 , 1.
Translated by Wu Hung and eggy Wang.
REFLECTIONS ON PERFORMANCE ART (2002)
274
By Chen L sheng
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erforman e art in China emerged in the mid-1980s. The earliest performan e art emu-
lated popular Western patterns, and parti ipants in the mo ement did not pay mu h
attention to its ultural signi an e or a ademi alue. But in the year 2000, the abnormal
de elopment of performan e art presented the world with staggering hallenges in legal,
ethi al, humanisti , ultural, and publi interest domains. Those Western obser ers who
ad o ated performan e art in its nas ent stages be ame s andali ed by ertain e treme
displays when animals were killed in the name of art, the rst obser ers to ob e t were
not of Chinese ba kground, but Western. Chinese people often in oke the saying the
pupil surpasses the tea her, and de lare that performan e as art needs to possess
some ultural prere uisites against an integrated or globali ed ultural ba kground.
If we say that in the late 1980s, self-orientation be ame an important hara teristi
of performan e art, then through its working in on ert with pla es possessing histori-
al ultural alue, su h as the reat Wall, the Yuanmingyuan ld Summer ala e, or
the Ming Tombs, it was still able to e press the pra ti al signi an e of ultural intro-
spe tion. In the 1990s, when methods of self-abuse presented us with s athing isual
s enes and stimulated thoughts on an alleged sense of sur i al, it be ame dif ult for
people to understand performan e art through typi al modes of thinking.
alue udgments based on their daring to be industry leaders misdire ted the de i-
sion making of Chinese performan e artists howe er, e treme displays by these perfor-
man e artists ha e presented so iety with many worthwhile issues for onsideration:
This is an attempt to use ulgar imitations to blend into global trends. The e treme
beha iors of performan e art re e ted a pursuit of Western ulture, and not only does
it la k the spirit of reati ity, it displays an utmost immaturity arising from a hildish,
imitati e psy hology. or e ample, in the so- alled breakthrough into the forbidden
territory of employing orpses, we an see its origins in the e hibition of orpses
[ Body Worlds by a erman surgeon unther on Hagens . Howe er, that surgeon
intertwines the s ien es of art, anatomy, museology, ethi s, and law. When Chinese
performan e artists follow in his footsteps, where is the breakthrough Another e am-
ple is bloodletting. The artist rank B stabbed himself in the presen e of an audien e,
entreating them to this bloodshed and the appre iation of his swooning as a result of
blood loss. In Chinese performan e art, I ha en t heard of any swooning as a result of
bloodletting, but this highest attainment among imitati e approa hes demonstrates
a dire t line of des ent from Western ontemporary art. Cultural olonialism has already
be ome the opiate poisoning Chinese art and artists in the new millennium.
So- alled ultural positions are merely ultural antagonism at its most super ial le el,
and so- alled indi ation of ultural meaning is merely the simplest e planation. Taking
the lassi a ount of the Cultural Animal Wenhua dongwu e hibition u Bing,
as an e ample: the artist hose two pigs, a male and female, and o ered their bodies in
te t, the male bearing English letters and the female o ered in Chinese hara ters. They
were pla ed in a pen littered with te tual do uments in both English and Chinese, and
went about their wanton opulation in the presen e of the audien e. Certain theorists
ha e interpreted this as: An intention to show Western i ili ation s rape of riental ul-
ture, or rethinking the possibilities and impossibilities of East-West onta t and inter-
hange. These hildish ultural dedu tions, despite their artisti mode, annot promote
the ultural status of this work, be ause it is essentially la king in any ultural signi an e.
The onfusion of the relationship between artisti on epts and linguisti logi produ es
275
absurd art performan es. Be ause the world is lled with iolen e, ruelty to animals,
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en ironmental pollution, apathy, pani , and irritation, art will employ methods of io-

len e, animal ruelty, and en ironmental pollution to warn us. It will also use the lan-
guage of apathy, pani , and irritation to riti ue so iety this is the most ommonly
seen logi al relationship between on ept and artisti language used by performan e
artists. Naturally, su h a logi al relationship will e tend to frightening onse uen es:
murdering to ounsel us on murder, ommitting disturban es to ad ise against distur-
ban es. Artists are using the name of art to do as they please.
eremphasis on art s so ial introspe tion and so ial signi an e ounterprodu ti ely
demonstrates antiso ial beha ior. It seems that performan e artists are all model per-
formers whose eyes are open to the entire world, and whose interest in human so iety
surpasses that of the a erage person. Howe er, these artisti methods e press some-
thing in ompatible with so iety, and these so- alled introspe tions often feign profun-
dity, seeming like hild s play. Su h methods of so ial on ern are disasso iated with art
itself, and only e ist in the name of art.
A blind infatuation with in ury displays the leanings of a paranoid psy hology. In ury
has be ome a mainstream pattern for performan e art those terrifying and bloody,
intolerable and hair-raising a ts are testing our psy hologi al apabilities. The sites of
these performan es border on hospital surgery rooms and morgues. In performan e art,
the more auda ious and more ruel ha e ine pli ably be ome the standards for e alua-
tion. Auda iousness and ruelty ha e their limits if these limits are one day broken, and
personal in ury is transformed into harming another person, it would be un ontrollable
a ording to those theorists, ausing in ury to others ould possibly be ome art .
The hallenging of physiologi al limits has lost its artisti signi an e. This was on e a
means of performan e art, for e ample when one Taiwanese artist Teh hing Hsieh
spent a year of his life sealed in a dark, airtight room, and se ered relations with the
outside world. The same artist then spent a year of his time li ing outdoors, and did
not enter any kind of sheltered spa e for the entire period. These performan es were
all ompleted with an e tremely reasoned attitude, he knew what he was doing. He
wanted to hallenge the limits of the human. Through this he would pro e that the
human spirit an pre ail abo e the formidable power of esh and blood. Su h hal-
lenges an be found in abundan e in the Guinness Book of World Records, but some-
times su h hallenges seem to be ompletely unrelated to art be ause the feats
re orded by uinness were not done in the name of art. Artists abilities are e tremely
limited: they annot walk tightropes, or swallow re, they don t asso iate with body-
builders, and e en less an they be ompared to mira le workers. They an only in oke
the name of art. When those tightrope walkers, re-eaters and bodybuilders begin to
perform in the name of art, these performan e artists will ertainly be out of a ob.
The slaughter of animals in the attempt to re eal human ruelty has aused animal pro-
te tion groups to rea t against these a ant-garde performan es. Artists using animals as
material in their art ha e re ealed the absolute, high-handed power of human so iety
o er animals, and put humans at the enter of an unnatural relationship between
human and animal kingdoms, but these people should not be forgi en for slaughter-
ing animals in order to demonstrate this relationship. The authors of some su h works
for efully ad o ate, it ser es as a redu tion of the original and real ondition of so iety,
i ili ation, and intelle tuals, perhaps that simplisti idea in the Three Character Classic
276
Sanzijing , the idea that people are born innately good, has been on ersely adopted
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in an artisti demand for goodness. Howe er, not only is the slaughter of animals
unkind, it is e tremely ruel.
ropelled by e onomi interests, performan e art has be ome possessed. The rotted
orpses, on oined fetuses, skinned human bodies of the erman do tor s e hibition
of orpses aused e ery iewer to endure both physiologi al and psy hologi al pro o-
ation. It spurred a great debate in Europe, the media fueled the flames, and this
attra ted e en more iewers, whi h in turn produ ed healthy e onomi bene ts. It was
said that, The themati , so ial, and media gains of this e hibition are all unpre e-
dented. Thus, the similarly e treme e hibitions of Chinese artists ha e a market, and
beyond a doubt, ha e e onomi interests. I e heard that Westerners in Bei ing are
buying photographs of these works with opening bids of S . To see strange
things in unusual ountries truly omes at a high ost, and su h a ts ha e been rele-
gated to the Chinese. If we labeled them differently, for e ample, ren h soy sau e or
Ameri an soy sau e, would the pri e tag be so high E tremists in Western so iety
use e onomi means to lure Chinese performan e artists into realms into whi h they
don t dare to enture themsel es.
Theorists and urators are fanning the ames, not only are they a ting as dire tors of
these far i al performan es, but they are also irresponsibly generating problems to be
handed down to ontemporary so iety. Looking at the de elopment of performan e
art, e ery a ti ity or e ery era is marked by the parti ipation of a theorist art riti in
a guiding role. erforman e artists and art theorists riti s are integrated into an
inseparable entity. Certain theorists are in the pro ess of establishing false reasoning
and spreading heresy in fa or of e tremist performan e art, they are establishing a
theoreti al basis for e treme indi idual performan es.
Manifesting e tremes in the name of art not only ruins art s reputation, it blurs the
boundary lines between what is, and what isn t, art. ne theorist said: Any a tion that
generates a relationship with so iety an be alled art. It an be understood in this way.
But, what human a tion doesn t generate a relationship with so iety When all manner
of a tions ha e been transformed into art, does art still ha e meaning
riginally published as ingwei yishu de fansi in Chen L sheng, Yi yishu de mingyi [ In the Name of
Art Bei ing: eople s ine Arts ublishing House, 2002 , 45 52. Translated by Lee Ambro y.
MINISTRY OF CULTURE NOTICE (2001)
The Ministry of Culture s Noti e on Its esolution to Cease All erforman es and
Bloody, Brutal isplays of bs enity in the Name of Art :
emands that e ery lo ality put a resolute end to the harmful appearan e of these
bloody performan es and atro ious displays of obs enity that are performed in the
name of art. This noti e states that in re ent years a small minority of people ha e in
publi pla es been self-mutilating and abusing animals, e hibiting human and animal
remains, et ., in performan es or displaying bloody, brutal, and obs ene spe ta les
under the pretense of art, and further propagating these performan es through
unlawful hannels of ommuni ation. Su h repulsi e beha ior iolates national law,
277
disturbs publi order, undermines so ial ondu t, and in ures the sound mind and body
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of the masses, and spreads its ile effe t on so iety. In order to uphold so ial order,

purge our ultural en ironment, and eliminate ultural rubbish, we present the follow-
ing related items in noti ation:
It is prohibited to perform or display bloody, brutal, or obs ene spe ta les in publi
pla es, and it is likewise prohibited to display the human body or engage in any other
pornographi a ts that may harm so ial de en y.
It is prohibited to engage in the me hani al reprodu tion or transmission in any shape or

form of audio isual materials, te ts, or images related to the aforementioned perfor-
man es or displays.
einfor e positi e dissemination and guide so ial masses by impro ing the ability to
distinguish and appre iate art deliberately boy ott degenerate, negati e artisti on-
epts, and the unlawful pra ti e of performan es and displays of bloody, brutal,
obs ene spe ta les uphold regular publi order and so ial stability. eports of su h
a ti ity should be pre ented from in ating or e tending their in uen e.
Work units rele ant to art reation, art edu ation, or art resear h must strengthen the
propaganda of and edu ation in Mar ist aestheti s and in the general and spe i art
and literature poli ies of the arty, and reinfor e super ision of reati e produ tion,
edu ation, and resear h a ti ities to pre ent a small minority from making performan es
and displays of bloody, brutal, obs ene spe ta les in the name of art.
Cultural administration departments at all le els must reinfor e their super ision of
the e amination and appro al of all manners of performan e and e hibition pro e ts in
publi spa es, and shall impose stri t ensorship on performan es, e hibition ontent
and form. Censors will he held a ountable for any ad erse effe ts due to rela ed
he ks or o ersights.
With regard to the ariety of performan es and displays of bloody, brutal, obs ene
spe ta les in the name of art, punishment will be a ording to the rele ant pro i-
sions of state laws and regulations, to resolutely pre ent and punish iolators parties
in ol ed will be assigned responsibility for their rimes and punished.
riginally promulgated April 3, 2001, as Wenhuabu guanyu ian ue hi hi yi yishu de mingyi biaoyan
huo hanshi ue ing anbao yinhui hangmian de tong hi. eprinted in Chen L sheng, Yi yishu de mingyi
[ In the Name of Art Bei ing: eople s ine Arts ublishing House, 2002 , 178. Translated by Lee Ambro y.
ZHU YU’S SKIN GRAFT (ZHI PI ) (2000 / 2003) pl. 42

By Zhu Yu, with introduction and commentary by Wu Hung
Wu Hung: The use of the human body and animals in art is urrently one of the most
debated issues in Chinese e perimental art. Indeed se eral works in what has been, thus
far, the most ontentious e hibition this year a pri ate showing of e perimental art
alled Infatuated with Injury Dui shanghai de milian) in Bei ing made use of these kinds
of materials. I am not opposed to dis ussing su h works from an ethi al perspe ti e and
I disagree with art e periments that ause harm to animals in the name of art . But, I also
278
feel that there is little to be gained from a udgmental approa h that simply appro es or
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disparages these works based on morality. ltimately, I think that when addressing these
issues, art riti s still need to operate outside the on eptual framework of a politi al
ampaign yundong and, instead, base their analyses on artists and their works.
To take the Infatuated with Injury e hibition as an e ample, some works in this
show were simply substituting materials: the found ob e t of a orpse repla ed the
representation of a s ulpture. There is nothing inno ati e about this kind of substitu-
tion in modern art thus there is no longer any alue to e perimenting with su h te h-
ni ues. But, a performan e installation by hu Yu entitled Skin Graft Zhi pi 2000 at
the same e hibition did shake me in a way I rarely e perien e. The Website Tom. om
des ribes the work: A side of a pig is pla ed on a white single bed. A small pie e of
hu Yu s own skin is sewn onto it. The artist arranged the pie e of pork to resemble
the way a person lies in bed. The light in the room is uite dim and a tele ision abo e
the bed shows footage of hu Yu undergoing surgery in a hospital. We should also
add that a large photograph of hu Yu undergoing surgery hung abo e the bed, and
that hu Yu is himself present during the e hibition, o asionally lifting his shirt at the
re uest of friends to e pose the already healed surgi al s ar on his belly.
The basi omponents of this installation onsist of two sets of orresponding
images. ne set the ideo and photograph reprodu es s enes of hu Yu s skin-
remo al surgery the other set the pork ar ass with hu s skin strips any signi -
an e of the skin-graft surgery. The relationship between these two sets of images
astonished me with its deliberate bluntness and rudity. But, I was also left dissatis ed
be ause the pairing, while highlighting the basi logi of the performan e pro e t,
simultaneously destroyed the pro e t s intrinsi ontinuity. Absent from the installa-
tion were the e ents leading up to and following the a ts of skin remo al and grafting.
In the ourse of those e ents, hu Yu mo ed from being the planner of the perfor-
man e the artist to the sub e t of an a tion ha ing his skin remo ed by a surgeon
and then to the performer of another a tion grafting the skin onto the pie e of pork .
It must be said that this absen e of ontinuity is regrettable.
Thus, in a dis ussion with hu Yu after the e hibition, I suggested he produ e a
te t about the whole pro ess, and ha e it be an organi part of the Skin Graft pro e t.
hu Yu agreed and, in the following month, wrote two different ersions the se ond
was more detailed than the rst. The nal ersion re ords hanges he made to his orig-
inal plan in the ourse of designing and implementing the pro e t. As su h, it re eals a
deeper layer of the performan e that is not shown in the installation, and thus arries
spe ial importan e in understanding the pro e t as a whole. This essay takes the form
of a te tual dialogue my annotations are interspersed within hu Yu s te t.
The process of creating the work S in ra t by Zhu Yu
Prior to December 1999 hu Yu s te t is in itali type Ed.

Concentrating exclusively on my spiritual nature and failing to understand human nature
had made me an unsuccessful Christian. Moreover, as an artist, my conscience told me
that respecting the corporeal was morally virtuous.
When I had completed my 1998 work rundlage der gesamten Wissens haftslehre
uanbu hishi ue i hu in the anatomy room of China Medical University, I felt a kind of
sadness looking at the dissected corpse, now completely shapeless. I had an urge to restore
the corpse and a fantasy to use my own organs to make the corpse whole again. It was from
this point that I began to think about what part of my body I could use to restore a corpse.
Wu: The ideas hu Yu e presses here differ from those asso iated with the two
279
orpse works that pre eded Skin Graft. ne of these was his Pocket Theology Xiuzhen
|
shenxue) in the Post-Sense Sensibility Hou ganxing e hibition Bei ing, 1999 : a se ered

arm hung from the eiling, a long rope gripped in the hand fell to the oor and o -
ered the entire oor. The other work was his aforementioned Grundlage der gesamten
Wissenschaftslehre. Made for the Supermarket e hibition Chaoshi zhan Shanghai,
1999 , it onsisted of bottles ontaining a paste made of human brains. hu Yu offered
the following e planation of these two works: A orpse, the separation of esh and
spirit a dead brain, the end of thought. I grip a ery long rope with a withered arm
and seek the spirit that has been separated from the esh. I sli e open brain after brain,
bringing to an end all those meaningless asso iations, seeking a new spiritual impulse
from the unknown. So the idea behind these two pie es is to dispel the superstitions
surrounding death and to pro ide an opportunity to e perien e death through art.
Through these e perien es, a human body now bereft of life is rein ested with spiri-
tual worth. But hu Yu s e planation of Skin Graft seems to show this purely rational
ontemplation gi ing way to more emotional impulses. What the dis gured orpse
e oked was no longer a alm ontemplation of or s ienti in uiry into death but sor-
row and a strange urge to use his own body to make the orpse whole again.
I read a lot of medical books. In an encyclopedia of surgery, I found writings about

the technique of skin grafts. Immediately, I was seized by the idea of taking skin from my
own body. My earliest plan was: 1 to find a corpse with damaged skin from a medical
facility 2 to set the exhibition space up as an operating theater with the corpse laid out
on an operating table 3 during the exhibition to surgically remove a piece of skin from
my inner thigh 4 to sew the piece of skin onto the injured part of the corpse. nce this
initial plan was formed, I continued to think about the details and also asked doctors
about the feasibility of conducting the surgery on myself.
In these discussions, I encountered the same reactions as I had when first using corpses
to make art the doctors I talked to were shocked and I had to explain very carefully why I
wanted to do this. I had to maintain a very normal countenance because once I’d finished
explaining my plans, I could see in their eyes they were checking to see if I had mental health
issues. ne older female doctor earnestly told me to see a psychiatrist. She was keen to help
me make an appointment with the appropriate specialist. None of the doctors I met with
responded to my plans with any enthusiasm, and most did not give me a second meeting.
While meeting with these doctors, I constantly thought about how to explain my
project. As a result I kept repeating one idea: “The people you, doctors, cure are all living
and have intrinsic worth. The person I will repair with my skin is dead. It’s an absurdist
act of healing. It’s art, action without real world significance.
Wu: This passage re ords hu Yu s earliest plan for Skin Graft and ontains three
essential omponents of the work. The first is the proposed operation: surgi ally
remo ing a pie e of his own skin in a publi spa e and transplanting it to a orpse. The
se ond is the proposed a tor: the artist, who himself will perform the surgery both to
remo e his skin and to transplant it. The third is the link between the a tor and the
ontent of the a tions: the artist learning how to surgi ally remo e and transplant a
pie e of skin. Although no part of this last element was e ident in the nal installation,
it is in fa t the key to understanding the whole work and it is from here that hu Yu s
e periment began. Be ause the artist must learn how to perform the re uired surgery
from do tors, and the performan e has to be open in nature, the artist is obliged to
negotiate with so iety and, moreo er, attain its understanding. This understanding is
not part of an identi ation pro ess: the artist has no ambitions to be ome a do tor
280
what he pursues is the so ial a eptan e of a different set of alues. Be ause this set of
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alues is both personal and absurd jiusi fushang an absurdist a t of healing , it is

parti ularly dif ult for others to a ept, and it is be ause of this dif ulty there is the
ne essity for artisti e perimentation.
Prior to ebruary 22, 2000

After Chinese New Year, a friend found a heart surgeon. After listening to an explanation
of the project, he expressed an understanding of what I proposed. However, he said that
as a doctor he could not participate, since doctors have their own ethical standards to
uphold: their work is to heal the sick, not to damage the healthy. He did however agree to
assist me so long as it did not violate his medical ethics.
ebruary 23
The doctor took me to a burn unit at the hospital where he worked so I could inquire about
the technical aspects of skin grafting. He also arranged for me to watch surgical procedures at
the outpatient surgical clinic, in order to improve my empirical knowledge about operations.
ebruary 27, afternoon

I watched four operations at the hospital, two of which were the removal of a subcutane-
ous cyst and a circumcision. Afterward, a nurse provided me with a list of the instruments
required for skin-removal surgery. I then spoke with the two surgeons I had just watched.
One of them, a brain surgeon, said to me, “If it’s art you’re doing, why not fake it a bit?
So long as the meaning is there, that’ll be enough, like making a movie if people in
movies really died that’d be horrible. If you removed some skin and gave it to someone
who needed it, that would be very meaningful, but what’s the point of sewing it onto a
corpse?” The other doctor, a urologist, on hearing my plans, said, “It’s not really possible
for you to perform surgery yourself at the exhibition because you haven’t had the strict
training required and you can’t guarantee a sterile environment in the exhibition space.
Since you lack these two conditions, you wouldn’t be able to genuinely say what you are
doing is surgery, it would just be an act of self-harm.”
March 1 to March 5
I visited medical suppliers to purchase surgical equipment and practiced at home on a piece
of pork. After several days of practice, I realized that it was going to be difficult to acquire
the ability to perform surgery that would not take a long time and still look good. I have no
clinical experience. If I can’t precisely control the depth of my incision and end up damag-
ing an artery, the surgery would be a failure and the audience will draw the erroneous con-
clusion that my intention was self-harm. I waved the scalpel above my skin, and imagined
what might happen when I actually use it. I began to feel afraid, not because I feared pain,
but because I worried that the failure of the surgery would create a big mess. An out-of-
control situation like that could perhaps be very exciting, but it would only be an impetu-
ous and uncontrolled excitement; it would lack any notion of intelligent purpose. Fears of
this nature caused me to rethink my plan. I started to wonder if there might be some other
method of performing this piece that didn’t involve skin-graft surgery, which was too tech-
nically difficult for me, yet was still capable of expressing my original intent. I thought
about the blood donations I’d seen during college. Taking 200 cc of blood would not harm a
person, and the process of extracting it was far easier to perform than removing skin. This
led me to come up with a different plan: to have a doctor come to the exhibition adminis-
ter a blood transfusion from me to the corpse. As I considered this, I had the sudden notion
to combine blood transfusion and skin grafting: if a doctor could come to the exhibition
281
space to perform the transfusion, then I could also have the doctor do the skin-removal
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surgery for me too. During the exhibition, all I would have to do is sew the removed piece

of skin onto the corpse. Having settled on this plan, I called a blood transfusion center for
help. They asked me to come and talk to them about it in a couple of days.
Wu: The negotiations of the artist with so iety gradually deepen: although a er-
tain understanding between hu Yu and the do tors is beginning to emerge, the pro-
fessional and te hni al standards of surgi al pro edures are also beginning to affe t
and e en ontrol the artist s thinking and a tions. The on ept of self-harm is intro-
du ed and a epted by the artist. In order to a oid the appearan e of self-harm, we
see the rst ma or re ision to the performan e method: the artist swit hes the sub e t
and ob e t of his planned performan e. In the re ised plan, the artist is no longer per-
forming surgery himself it is now a do tor who will wield the s alpel. The do tor
would also arry out the newly added blood transfusion. These two hanges imply the
hanging status of the artist from the a tor to an ob e t. n a deeper le el, these
hanges further imply that in the ourse of his negotiations with so iety, the artist is
affe ted by e ternal elements and has shifted his personal identity.
March 6
I went back to the hospital where I watched the operations to tell the doctors about the
changes in my plan. I asked the doctors to come and perform the surgery during the per-
formance. But, they all refused because there are rules and regulations that stipulate the
venues where doctors can practice.
March 7
I visited the blood transfusion center to meet with two of its directors. After hearing my
project, one of them the male director responded coldly, saying that regardless of my
plans, there was no way they would send someone to draw blood as part of a perfor-
mance that would be against regulations. Moreover, as doctors, they were acutely
aware of how precious blood is in preserving life and regarded not using healthy blood to
save a patient as wasteful. After I explained my project again, the female director also
said that my plan was impossible to realize for practical reasons. She said that blood being
extracted from me would not flow into a corpse sticking a needle into a dead body was
the equivalent of stopping it up and the blood would not flow. She finished by saying that
if I wanted help extracting blood there at the center, they could consider it. I told them I
would go home and think about it.
March 8 and 9
I made no further progress in these two days in finding a doctor willing to come to the exhibi-
tion space to do the operation or draw blood. I thought about the suggestion made by the
blood bank director: to have blood drawn at the hospital, and also have a piece of skin surgi-
cally removed at the hospital’s operating theater. But, at the same time, I felt that while it
wasn’t so obvious with the blood, having my skin removed at the hospital would be very dif-
ferent from cutting the skin off myself in the exhibition space. This would be a serious depar-
ture from my past works, which have been characterized by a kind of experiential quality.
Wu: The fo us of negotiation between the artist and so iety shifts to the relation-
ship between a tions and their lo ation. ne signifi ant aspe t is the relationship
between professions and so ial spa es. If the af liation among artists, artworks, and
e hibition spa es is relati ely rela ed and based on informal agreements, the relation-
282
ship among do tors, medi al pra ti e, and lini s is highly regulated. In other words,
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although for hu Yu the drawing of blood and surgi al remo al of skin in Skin Graft are
artisti a ti ities, and thus an take pla e in an e hibition spa e, when a do tor performs
these a tions, in keeping with medi al guidelines, they are no longer artisti a ti ities,
but onstitute the pra ti e of medi ine surgery and thus must only take pla e in a
lini . Sin e the iew of the do tors represents the iew of the law and lea es no room
for ompromise, hu Yu s re ision hanging the lo ation of the drawing of blood and
remo al of skin from the e hibition spa e to the hospital feels more obligatory. He
perspi a iously senses the impli ations of su h a hange as he writes, these alterations
differentiate Skin Graft from his pre ious e perimental work. A tually, this re ision was
based on a mutual misapprehension: the artist sees the operation in a hospital as part
of an artisti e periment, whereas the do tors see this as a medi al pro edure. The shift
from the e hibition spa e to a lini al spa e thus imparts Skin Graft with a ariety of
interpretati e possibilities and erases the unidire tionality of the original plan.
March 10
I visited a medical university to acquire a corpse. Since I have collaborated with them on
two previous works, they expressed support for my current project and agreed to help me
find a corpse with damaged skin.
Prior to March 13
I was determined to find a hospital that would surgically remove my skin. I want to dis-
tance myself from any notion of self-harm and want the removal process to be carried out
in full compliance with medical practice. I want to ensure that the material for my work,
the skin removed from my body, conforms to standard medical procedure, and thus is
both safe and scientific. In this way, I differ from Rudolf Schwarzkogler and his iennese
Actionist school. They used their bodies as materials and experimented on their own
bodies with an aim of harming themselves, leading ultimately in Schwarzkogler’s
case to his death. I visited a military burn research clinic and inquired about having a
piece of my skin surgically removed. The director of the clinic suggested I go and ask a
smaller hospital instead, since military medical institutions have strict regulations.
March 14
I found a burn unit at a hospital near ishuitan. The director of this unit is the first doctor I
have met who completely approves of and supports my plan. After a conversation lasting
just a little over half an hour, he arranged the surgery for me. However, the operating
staff would not agree to having a photographer and videographer present during the
operation, as hospital rules forbid this. Over the next two days, I worked to get hospital
authorization. This resulted in everyone at the hospital, senior and junior staff alike,
becoming aware that a person in good health wanted to undergo surgery; and they began
to wonder why I would want to do this. My final meeting with the director took place in
the staff cafeteria. He said that everyone has been asking him about this when they see
him, and it’s putting him under too much pressure. He no longer felt able to perform my
surgery and hoped I could understand why.
March 20
I visit the plastic surgery department at the clinic attached to a medical university and dis-
cuss my project with its director. The director was unperturbed and had no opinion about
my proposed work. He said it was possible to have the surgery, if the hospital authorized it.
I visited the hospital’s medical and surgical affairs office to explain what I want. They said
283
they’ve never had a request of this nature before, but were willing to provide technical sup-
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port for an artistic endeavor, if I obtained a support letter from my work unit danwei .

March 23
I send in a formal written request to the hospital, with the institution where the exhibition
was to take place, as my official affiliation. The head of medical and surgical affairs at the
hospital called the number on this document to confirm my identity. Afterward, he agreed
to work with me and drafted an agreement concerning the surgery, which reads as follows:
Party A: Zhu Yu (hereafter Party A)

Party B: The clinic attached to a certain medical university (hereafter Party B).
After amicable negotiations, Party A and Party B have agreed to the following:
1. Party A will conduct an act of artistic creation with the technical support of Party B
within a period of time no later than one week after this agreement takes effect;
2. Party B will conduct all clinical procedures in strict accordance with sterile standards
3. ther than that which occurs because Party B fails to comply with normal medical
standards, Party A will accept full responsibility for all risks and any physical harm
resulting from the creative making of an artwork;
4. Party B will charge Party A for services provided during the artistic work in accor-
dance with standard medical fees;
5. Party A will keep all matters pertaining to the involvement of Party B in this artistic
work confidential
6. Any matters not covered by the specific provisions of this agreement are to be resolved
by further negotiation between parties A and B in a spirit of amity and cooperation;
7. Two copies will be made of this agreement, one each for both parties.
That afternoon, I discussed the details of the surgery with the director of the plastic sur-
gery department. In the end, we decided to remove a rectangular piece of skin (including
the subcutaneous layer 12 cm long and 4.5 cm wide from my stomach. The fee for this
surgical procedure was 1,500 yuan.
March 24, 4 p.m.

I laid on the operating table at the plastic surgery clinic. Photographer Zou Shengwu
recorded the event according to our prearranged plan. Artist Zhan Wang made a video
recording. At 4:15 the surgery began. ach time the anesthetic needle pierced my skin, after
a sharp pain, I felt a tingling comfort. As the scalpel cut into my belly, I felt no pain; the feel-
ing was rather refreshing, as if a breeze was blowing on my stomach. The surgery was a
pleasurable experience. Finally, the surgeon began to stitch me up. I was almost falling
asleep. The surgery took about fifty minutes and was a great success. I had no adverse reac-
tions. I went out to dinner with Zhan Wang and Zou Shengwu. Lastly, I talked with other
artists participating in Infatuated with In ury about matters concerning the exhibition. I
went back to Tongxian at 3 a.m. Before I fell asleep the wound began to ache.
The removed piece of skin was placed in a saline solution and kept refrigerated at
-10 C. It can be kept like this for about two weeks.
Wu: The hanges to the a tor and lo ation of the art performan e formed a new
basis for negotiations between the artist and so iety. rom this point on, the sear h for
understanding was bound to the s ope of what the law would permit. Yet this sear h
still ontinually on i ted with the more spe i aspe ts of so ial ontra ts, be they
the limitations imposed by the spe ial rules go erning military hospitals or the on-
284
straints of staff opinions at a smaller hospital. The ultimate resolution was attained
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under a legalisti rubri : the identity of the artist was on rmed by a state institution,
and the parti ipation of the plasti surgery lini took pla e under the prote tions of a
written surgery agreement. Yet, these do uments represent more than ust so ietally
imposed limitations, they also re e t a ta it agreement between the artist and hospital
a hie ed through negotiation. f parti ular note is that the written agreement re og-
ni es the operation as an a t of artisti reation and that it de nes the role of hospi-
tal as merely pro iding te hni al support. Also worth noting is that this same
agreement re uires the artist to keep the identity of the hospital se ret stri tly speak-
ing this is a pri ate ontra t establishing an allian e between the two parties to ointly
engage in a non-publi e perimental pro e t. All of this an be seen as out omes of
the dif ult dialogue hu Yu engaged in with so iety in the pro ess of reali ing Skin
Graft. Cooperation from the hospital made the photographing and lming of the sur-
gi al pro edure possible. hu s pleasurable e perien e during the surgery may be
understood as a rea tion to su h ta it ooperation.
March 25
I spent a week at home recovering from the operation, all the time thinking about the
performance. I was constantly concerned by the thought that the relationship created by
taking skin from a living person to sew onto a dead one or to transfuse blood from the one
to the other is perhaps too logical. Is it perhaps imbued with a spirit of what may be
called performative sacrificial martyrdom, as I have learned from Buddhist ataka sto-
ries feeding hungry tigers or ravenous birds of prey with one’s own flesh I should not
completely lock down the concept of the work; at a certain level, I need to allow it to
reveal itself. In the process of removing the piece of my skin, my attention shifted from a
mad impulse to restore a corpse to the joy of seeking out materials, a joy akin to what I
felt in trying to find corpses for my earlier works. My wound no longer hurt during these
days, but began to itch a pleasure unlike any other physiological sensation and an indi-
cation that the wound was healing.
April 3
I went to Beijing No. 3 Hospital to rent a hospital bed, a stand for an intravenous drip,
and an operating table. That afternoon, I called the blood transfusion center and told
them that, after considering the matter, I decided to have my blood drawn, a decision I
hoped they would support. They reluctantly agreed, and we finally settled on my going to
the center’s blood donation clinic on the afternoon of April 6 to have blood drawn.
April 5
I went to hospital to have my stitches removed. When the thread was pulled out, the
feeling was like having a fingertip drawn through the gap between your toes, a tickling
sensation that goes right to your heart. Not all the stitches were removed because the
doctor worried the wound would open; only every other stitch was taken out. I needed to
return two days later to remove the remaining stitches.
April 6
At 1:15 p.m. I went to the blood transfusion center and had 200 cc of blood drawn. This
takes a very short time, which flustered Zhan Wang and Zou Shengwu, who were present
to help with taking photographs and video.
Wu: hu Yu s e periment has entered a new phase. n e the surgery to remo e
285
the skin at the hospital was omplete, the artist was free of the arious restri tions he
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had been for ed to onsider and on e again took on the status of the main a tor. His

fo us naturally shifted to the ne t step, grafting the skin onto the orpse. But, be ause of
his e perien es as an ob e t undergoing skin-remo al surgery, his urrent on ept was
ompletely different from his original plan. The pleasurable feelings he e perien ed as
his skin was remo ed were not a fa tor in his original plan, but had now be ome ru ial
to his thinking and were beginning to in uen e the rest of the pro e t. ne of the ma or
hanges that this produ ed was a rethinking of the rational e planations posited in his
original s heme for the work: both transplanting skin and transfusing blood to a orpse
now seemed to be attempts to illustrate some kind of abstra t do trine, whose old
hardness ontradi ted what the artist had a tually e perien ed. Before nding a solution
to this problem, hu Yu ould only arry out the original plan. Thus, his going to the lini
to ha e blood drawn is not a re e tion of dynami thinking taking pla e in the pro ess of
e perimentation, but rather is representati e of hu Yu ontinuing with his original plan.
In the period leading up to the opening of the exhibition, I was faced with an extreme
dilemma — whether skin and blood should be used on the corpse and this weighed
heavily on me, stifling me. It seemed that I had been forced to display a seriousness the
whole time, and this made me very tired. Actually there was nothing new for me in using
a corpse, and this idea had become a burden. The corpse made the paths for creativity
even narrower. I wanted to do away with this kind of inhibiting feeling and set about cre-
ating a more relaxed frame of mind. It was at this point that I first thought of using a
piece of pork a piece that still had the skin, bought at random at the morning market. I
would sew my skin onto this piece of pork and stick the blood transfusion tube into it. The
pork would lie calmly on a hospital bed made up with clean white sheets. Having thought
of this, a sudden sensation of relaxation came over me. For me, this method was absurd
and interesting, a kind of vivid senselessness that excited me. But, another problem
steadily became clear; it seemed that skin removal and blood transfusion were two sepa-
rate works. The act of having skin removed was one of losing control; it was senseless. But,
for others, blood transfusion has an existing significance. Perhaps transfusing blood into
the pork would appear too much like a performance.
Wu: This is the third ma or hange in hu Yu s thinking: the orpse was repla ed
with a pie e of pork that ould be bought anywhere. This resulted in nullifying the
original meaning of the whole e periment. The remo al of skin and drawing of blood
were no longer in ested with any real or symboli fun tions, be oming instead a sort
of unimaginable waste a purer absurdity that was more satisfying for the artist.
April 13 to 17
The exhibition was postponed by a week I used this time to go to Shanghai with a friend
to make a bas-relief. When we were not working, we relaxed and chatted on the banks of
the Huangpu River, which flows by the factory. When our conversation turned to my skin
graft and blood transfusion project, my friend said that skin grafting was too boring and
he had no idea what I was up to; merely making something’s skin whole was absolutely
useless and had nothing to do with life and death it was the very definition of superficial.
He said the idea of the blood transfusion was okay. At the very least other people would
have some kind of clue what I was getting at. I immediately had a premonition that there
was something wrong with doing a blood transfusion, because the fixed meaning of the
act was of absolutely no importance to me.
April 21
286
I visited the home of Mr. Li, the curator of the exhibition, to discuss my plan. He also felt
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that removing skin and blood transfusion seemed to be two separate things, and like me
was more inclined toward the skin removal. There really had been quite a few artists
working with blood. I decided at this point to wait until we start installing the exhibi-
tion to see what the circumstances surrounding the skin removal and blood transfusion
would be before making my final decision.
April 22, morning

A butcher carried a side of pork on his back into the exhibition space. I had an assistant
carefully wash the pork, then carry it over to the hospital bed. I then hung the bag of
blood on the transfusion stand, and as predicted, when the needle was inserted into the
pork the blood would not flow. I brought out the tracheal suction catheter I prepared and
inserted it inside the piece of pork. I attached a balloon to the other end. Now when the
needle was inserted into the catheter that was concealed in the pork the blood started to
flow. But as this began to happen, I felt it was meaningless, this flow was manufactured.
A problem arose with the concept behind its irrationality. So I thought no more about it
and poured the 200 cc of blood down the sink. I then took out the surgical equipment and
began to sew the piece of skin taken from my body stitch by stitch into the piece of pork.
At 3 p.m., the exhibition opens.
Wu: With this we an see that what hu Yu underwent a series of self-negations,

after ha ing the pie e of skin remo ed. He rst began to ha e doubts about the ratio-
nal basis of his original plan, then de ided against using a orpse, and nally aban-
doned his plan to perform a blood transfusion. As I see it, if we take his de ision to
substitute a pie e of pork for a human orpse as bringing the whole performan e to a
lima , then his a t of asually pouring away the 200 of blood was a de laration of
the ompletion of the e periment. These two de isions both embody the purpose of
the whole e periment, whi h is what hu e pressed as I should not ompletely lo k
down the on ept of the work at a ertain le el I need to allow it to re eal itself.
Although many other artists ould ha e spoken these words, hu Yu s e periment had
an intensity that few works of art are able to a hie e. Intensity of this sort did not
ome about be ause hu had perfe tly reali ed an e traordinary plan, but be ause
right from the beginning he re e ted any pursuit of omplete su ess. In order to real-
i e a bold, strange impulse beyond the understanding of most ordinary people, he
in ested himself in negotiations with so iety. Then, to remain true to himself, he let a
still bolder and more absurd notion repla e his original one. Skin Graft begins with dis-
tress felt for a orpse and ends by putting aside the orpse. Its meaning lies in the on-
tinual negation of its originally intended meaning its intensity is felt at e ery step of
negation and being negated.
Note
. This is the title of a famous book written by ohann ottlieb i hte in the English title is The Science
of Knowledge.
riginally published as “ hu Yu i i Zhi pi on Tom.com, http: arts.tom. om, Mar h 18, 2003. Translated
by im Wheldon.
II. EXTRINSIC PERSPECTIVES
287 | AFTER THE STORM
M any changes in the world of contemporary Chinese art in the 1990s were
288
related to China’s enormous transformation during this period. Four

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changes in particular gave the art world a different outlook. First, many contempo-
EXTRINSIC PERSPECTIVES
rary artists chose to become freelance “independent artists” (duli yishujia) with no
institutional affiliations — a move which altered not only their career paths but also
their social status and self-perception. But, if this new status allowed these artists
to disassociate themselves from old liabilities, to make a living and support their
art experiments, they had to submit themselves to other rules. It was in the 1990s
that contemporary Chinese artists learned how to negotiate with art dealers, col-
lectors, museums, and Western curators. Quite a few of them developed a double
career, supporting their unsaleable experiments with money earned from selling
paintings and photographs.
Second, starting in the late 1980s and particularly during the 1990s, a large
number of contemporary artists moved from the provinces to major cultural cen-
ters, especially the capital. The result was a situation that differed markedly from
the 1980s. Most avant-garde art groups during the ’85 Art New Wave emerged in
the provinces and were active on the local level. But in the 1990s, Beijing became
the unquestionable center of contemporary art, as it attracted talented young art-
ists from all over the country. A direct consequence was the emergence of residen-
tial communities of contemporary artists known as “artists villages” ( huajia cun ).
Third, “independent curator” ( duli cezhanren ) became a new profession.
Although many of these curators had been active as critics and organizers of con-
temporary art activities in the 1980s, they now assumed a new professional identity
based on an international model. A principal role which they now took upon them-
selves was to invent an infrastructure for contemporary art, including regular chan-
nels for exhibition, collecting, education, and the commercial circulation of artworks.
Many of them believed that only by establishing such channels could contemporary
art gain a strong foothold in China and be connected with the public. They thus ini-
tiated a “normalization” movement of contemporary Chinese art, hoping to transfer
this art from a small group of avant-garde artists to society at large.
Xu Zhiwei. Yuanmingyuan
Village. 1993 published
1995 . Bla k-and-white
photograph, 12 1
30.5 40. m .
Fourth, the globalization of contemporary Chinese art was now in full swing.
289
Starting from the early 1990s, contemporary Chinese artists entered the most
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privileged international exhibitions, such as the Venice Biennale and Documenta,
ESTABLISHING AN INFRASTRUCTURE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART

and foreign curators went to China regularly to search for new talent. More artists
went abroad, but even those who remained at home made frequent trips to inter-
national exhibitions. This globalization process was coupled with the commercial-
ization of contemporary Chinese art: from the early 1990s, privately owned art
galleries, often backed by foreign capital and aimed at a foreign clientele, appeared
in major Chinese cities. Some individuals and institutions in Hong Kong, Japan,
and the West began to systematically collect contemporary Chinese art; their
interest encouraged the market for this art and directed international attention to
contemporary Chinese artists.
These four changes constitute the background for this section, which
addresses issues concerning the infrastructure, criticism, exhibition, and global
connections of contemporary Chinese art in the 1990s.
ESTABLISHING AN INFRASTRUCTURE FOR

CONTEMPORARY ART
I n February 1992, after two years of conservative fiscal policy introduced follow-
ing the 1989 student movement, Deng Xiaoping embarked on what would
become his famous “Southern Tour” to promote renewed economic liberalization.
During the tour, he criticized those who harbored doubts about the opening and
reform policy, and stressed the importance of fast-paced economic development. A
massive mobilization campaign then broadcast his call for a new round of reforms
around the country, initiating a period of rapid economic growth. This campaign
received official sanction later that year, when the Fourteenth Party Congress
adopted a new platform calling for the creation of a “socialist market economy.”
Even before Deng’s Southern Tour, a group of art critics had published a new
contemporary art journal called Art • Market ( Yishu • shichang ) in early 1991. The
editors announced in their inaugural editorial that contemporary Chinese art was
entering a period of global circulation, and that the purpose of the journal was to
facilitate this transformation. According to them, only by establishing a set of
unambiguous rules governing this circulation could artists work together with
museums, commercial galleries, collectors, and publishers to build an economic
foundation for contemporary art, and only with this foundation could contempo-
rary art flourish in China.
This idealistic approach was shared by many advocates of experimental art in
the 1990s, who believed that their most urgent challenge was to develop a “system”
( ti zhi ), especially an economic mechanism, for this art. To launch a formal campaign
to establish such a system, they organized the ir t 199 iennial rt air (Shoujie
9 nian ai yi hu huangnian han ) in Guangzhou in October 1992, which showed
more than 400 works by 350 artists. Sponsored by private entrepreneurs, the exhi-
bition’s “academic standards” were safeguarded by a team of critics, who were
entrusted to formulate criteria for evaluation and to select award-winning works.
The twin foci of the ir t 199 iennial rt air to establish a financial oper-
ating system and a system of art evaluation — anticipated many projects in the fol-
lowing decade. In the same spirit, this exhibition also redefined art critics, who
now assumed the additional roles of exhibition curator, event organizer, and art
290
agent. While continuing to comment on the state of contemporary art, they

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increasingly became dealmakers and developed close ties with various sectors in
the art world, including official and foreign institutions. If in the 1980s these critics
had galvanized avant-garde artists to form a self-sustaining movement, they now
devoted their energy to bringing together contemporary artists (who now formed
many small “circles,” as Wu Hong observes in his essay) and the world at large.
Contemporary Art and the Market
HEADING TOWARD THE MARKET ( 1992 )

By Lü Peng
The fo us on the de elopment of art a ording to a metaphysi al framework is rapidly

oming to an end. That is to say, that 1990s Chinese art is in the pro ess of heading full-
for e toward the market.
There is no doubt that the basis of art s orientation toward the market is a sear h
for finan ial support. This kind of argument ine itably en ounters intense moral
reproa h. E en so, money itself has no a priori moral uality. Sin e its ery beginning,
its moral de nition has u tuated a ording to arying so ial strata. Today, this iew of
money as e il should yield to a re ognition of it as the basi premise for ontemporary
ultural de elopment. The nan ially fueled market is not a orrupting en ironment
for arts and ulture. Instead, it is an apparatus for determining ultural produ tion. In
ontemporary so iety, the su ess of a work of art is in on ei able without the dire t
or indire t support of the following: gallery management, the pra ti es and operations
of agents and middlemen, the pounding ga el of the au tion house, the interrelated
fun tions of the nan ial banking system, not to mention publishing houses, legal
stru tures, insuran e me hanisms, and ta administration for industry and ommer e.
eople on e belie ed that the independen e of a work was based on the thing-in-
itself. But, for an artwork situated within so iety whi h needs its position to be
on rmed by so iety this abstra t thing-in-itself has ne er e isted. A work of art
an only emerge when it be omes effe ti e, that is, when it has passed through the
different ed regulations of arious so ial organs. Moreo er, the oil lubri ating the
apparatus of the market is the money generated through wealth.
The essential meaning of heading toward the market is this: art ought to be pro-
du ed for the purpose of sale. The immediate riti ue against this iew is that to do so
in ariably leads to a deluge of bad art of unbearable shoddiness and ulgarity. The
problem of su h a riti ue, fully e posed in its narrow moralisti presentation, lies in its
ignoran e of humankind s mainstream pursuit of a lofty and healthy ulture. In other
words, it disregards the e isten e in so iety itself of an irresistible pursuit toward reat-
ing a high- lass market in order to supply re ned tastes. This riti ue also o erlooks the
fa t that this kind of reating and supplying relies on monetary assistan e. The trans-
formation of market tastes and the riteria of ommodity e aluation are e entually
in uen ed and determined by intelle t, but the produ tion of intelle t annot be sepa-
rated from material and monetary onditions. In short, an artist s work an only be truly
and effe ti ely sustained when sales are made.
The basi re uirement for art to head toward the market is to reali e in estment
instead of sponsorship. In ontemporary so iety, to seek sponsorship is a estige of lassi-
ism. It is a pra ti e established on a psy hology of begging and sear hing for alms, while
market e hange has be ome the prere uisite for ontemporary ultural produ tion.
291
In estment, therefore, is a pra ti e that onforms to ontemporary moral standards,
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be ause in estment signi es an up-front af rmation and ommitment toward the alue

of another person s labor. re isely be ause in estors e press their respe t for artwork
and its produ tion in monetary terms, it is ery reasonable for them to again e hange
artists works for money, thereby submitting their respe t for alue to an empiri al e ami-
nation. If a person seeks to obtain others money without deli ering his own produ t of
labor, he is negating the alue of his own labor and positioning himself as a parasite.
Art heading toward the market also means heading toward order. An artisti en i-
ronment without a market is a primiti e wilderness that is a tually harmful to the de el-
opment of art, where art an be dis gured at anytime by boorish administrati e
opinions or orders ia an impromptu phone all. The market, in ontrast, is a safe oper-
ational me hanism that abides by laws. The produ tion and su ess of an artwork
a ording to the market are af rmed and prote ted by fa tors in those market regula-
tions. We know ery well that a regulated and orderly art market has yet to be estab-
lished in China, but this is no e use for us to relin uish our responsibility, to drift along,
or e en to despair or harbor a resigned attitude. n the ontrary, in order to fa ilitate
the truly healthy de elopment of ontemporary art, it is ne essary and signi ant that
we make e ery effort to onstru t an art market.
ltimately, art heads toward the market to suf iently and effe ti ely unseal and
unfold an inner, spiritual world. We ha e heard enough about the age-old an ogh
myth, making e en learer to us now the signi an e of the astronomi al pri es that
an ogh s art fet hes in the ontemporary market. Admittedly, a soul need ne er be
alued in terms of money, but in a ommer ial so iety monetary pri ing is the most
effe ti e means. With no od to pro ide a de ree o er endless a ademi debates,
money be omes the most effe ti e referee. Artists use their art to dis lose the se rets
in their souls, while so iety uses money to af rm the alue of these se rets. If some-
one says that the alue of an artwork is still independent of the market, a retort to
su h a soul-oriented suprema y is this: without the market, the alue of artwork has
no hoi e but to remain ontained in the soul of the artist, and then so iety will ne er
ha e a han e to know those se rets within.
riginally published as ou iang shi hang in Jiangsu huakan [Jiangsu Pictorial 142, no. 10 1992 , 4.
Translated by Mia Liu.
WHO IS GOING TO SPONSOR THE HISTORY? ( 1991 )

Interview with Huang Zhuan
Huang Zhuan: p until now, the history of modern Chinese art has basi ally still been a
ournalisti history a history almost without rules of artisti ompetition, without any-
one to arbitrate art, e en without a legitimate arena for artisti a ti ities a history
replete with a Courbet- omple of rusti realism . In this kind of setting, art employs a
distorted method that renders it in ompatible with so iety its relian e on the politi al
limate already indi ates its immaturity and frailty. Clearly, to us, the most pressing
problem is: should we hange our method of writing history, ast off the state of an
e ited mo ement, and use a more realisti means to re onstru t our history
Question: Is this realisti means that you refer to the establishment of a Chinese
art market
292
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Co er of the rst issue of

Art • Market 1991: no. 1
Hunan ine Arts ublishing
House, Changsha
Huang: Yes. A tually, many of our friends ha e already begun making preparations for
this work. In the south, there are de ent ournals like Art • Market Yishu • shichang as
well as a kind of embryoni , rst-le el market this term is addressed later in the inter-
iew like uang hou Art alleries uang hou yishu ia hualang . I belie e that the
ommer iali ation of serious artworks, whi h is to say the establishment of a real art
market, will enable our modern art history to a hie e substantial international
signi an e.
Q: Is the market really that effe ti e China la ks the e onomi ba kground ne essary
for establishing an art market with international standards and, moreo er, would be
reproa hed from an ethi al standpoint. I e heard from many New Wa e artists e en
though this name itself is already ery ommer ial who refuse ommer ial e alua-
tions of their work to the point that they e en e press disgust toward other artists who
do seek ommer ial results.
Huang: This kind of attitude makes us easily re all an ogh. uring his lifetime, this
yni al, de e ted artist was only able to sell his works at low pri es. But today he has
be ome the most e pensi e artist in the Western art market, and the way that history
a knowledges him is through nothing but money: an eight- gure sales pri e. f ourse,
you an say that without the eight gures, an ogh is ust as great, but I think that
without a spe i artisti onte t, dis ussions on the greatness of the artwork or the
artist are not ery reliable. uring Mi helangelo s era, it would ha e been impossible
for an ogh to be great. This is not only be ause different periods of art history set out
to resol e different problems, but also be ause different time periods ha e dis repan-
ies in their alues. There are also differen es in the so iali ation and histori i ation of
artists and their work. Today one ould embra e an ogh s attitude toward reating
and li ing a tually, among an ogh s many an ieties was not selling his work , and
e en hope that one s work will a hie e re ognition after one s death. But, e en so,
reality annot be denied: in this era of art history, ommer iali ation is the most basi
means for artists and artwork to enter history. or a long time, our art history has fabri-
293
ated myths about great artists de eloping from their innate, lofty dispositions, but
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rarely ha e they mentioned that ea h artist s fame was the result of omple opportu-

nisti means, in luding the in uen e of underlying and surrounding politi al and reli-
gious powers, different interest groups, agents, dealers, ommissioners, olle tors, and
riti s, all of whi h produ ed subtle, inestimable fun tions in the pro ess of histori i -
ing art. It ought to be said that all of these powers are sponsors of art history, and are,
without a doubt, onstituent omponents of art history. In the past, I ha e e pressed
interest in this issue, that is, what spe i methods artists ha e used to a hie e fame
and ensure a lega y in different eras and ountries. emember, in the ing dynasty,
hang ai di ided painters in his Exploring the Delicacy of Painting [Huishi Fawei into
those whose names be ome known be ause of their paintings and those whose
paintings be ome known be ause of their areers and personalities. I e en plan to
write A History of How Artists Became Famous Yishujia chengmingshi to e amine this
uestion. e ently, I read tto ur and Ernst ris s famous Legend, Myth, and Magic in
the Image of the Artist, in whi h they ompletely and splendidly des ribe how authors
of lassi al art history used different kinds of myths to mold ultural heroism in their
imagination. I think e ery artist that aspires to a hie e su ess or fame would do well
to read this book, it an help us to redress some of the stories and knowledge that ha e
been misunderstood and mythologi ed in our art histori al edu ation.
Q: Can you des ribe the urrent ways through whi h artworks and artists enter history
Huang: eople interested in this uestion should probably read maga ines like ARTnews,
Art in America, Artists Yishujia, published in Taiwan , et . . . . to understand gallerists like
Leo Castelli and entrepreneur- olle tors like Morishita Yasumi hi. E en though Castelli s
identity is as an art dealer, he has been onsidered in the Western art world to be the
pope of ontemporary art and a person who writes history. This is not only be ause
sin e the 1950s his gallery has promoted artists like aus henberg, Stella, Li htenstein,
Warhol, and other great masters who are able to represent their respe ti e eras, but also
be ause he su essfully reated a model to onsolidate the histori al position of art-
works and artists through ommer ial resour es. b iously, to write about postwar art
and not mention Castelli would be like writing about art of the Middle Ages and not
bringing up Christianity, writing about Mi helangelo and not mentioning the Medi i
family, or writing about Chinese literati and not noting leaders of literati taste su h as Su
Shi 103 1101 and ong i hang 1555 1 3 all of these are in on ei able.
undamentally speaking, I think that the emergen e today of sponsors of art history
su h as Castelli is related to the e onomi bases of people s li es. It is ust as Mar said:
we should onsider reality starting from an e onomi foundation. uring an era of high
industriali ation, people s e onomi and business a ti ities ha e e en more signi an e
to human i ili ation and human beha ior than at any pre ious time. The biggest dif-
feren e between modern e onomi s and lassi al e onomi s is that the former studies
e onomi a ti ities, in parti ular man s pursuit of pro t, through his entire ultural
beha ior, rather than simply through a pro t-oriented relationship between people and
things. In Ludwig on Mises s Epistemological Problems of Economics 1933 , he handles
the ma imi ation of e onomi goals, rational hoi e, et . . . . within the basi logi of
human beha ior. In Lionel Charles obbins s ssay on the Nature and Significance of
Economic Science 1932 , he belie es that what is resear hed in e onomi studies is not
on ned to the eld of e onomi s but rather studies one aspe t of human beha ior, the
relationship between purpose and methods. Clearly, ommer ial a ti ities in the eld of
modern e onomi s ha e be ome an in reasingly effe ti e means to harmoni e the on-
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tradi tions between people s different ultural a ti ities and the orientation of their al-
|
ues. It onstitutes a ma or impetus dri ing people s rational de isions. ut simply,

ommer ial a ti ities and market ompetition today are no longer simply about seeking
pro t. Instead, an entire set of rules of ompetition established by su h a ti ities has
in reasingly be ome the beha ioral riteria shared by human i ili ations and a uni ue
aspe t of the human alue system. Mar belie ed that man s transformation of all his
power into monetary power was a ma or ad an ement in human history. riedri h A.
on Hayek has noted that of all of man s in entions, money is one of the greatest as a
tool of freedom. I think if we understand these words not simply from a traditional ethi-
al iewpoint, and instead as methods of rational hoi e within all of human ulture,
then we will a knowledge this reality: ompared with politi al power and indi idual
olition, money and market an surely pro ide human ulture with more rational and
fair ompetiti e opportunities. I think that it would not be too dif ult to understand
the ommer iali ation of man s artisti a ts if we put it against this ba kground.
Q: In your opinion, at this point, what is the possibility of establishing an art market
within the urrent Chinese e onomy In other words, in China, who has the possibility
of supporting this kind of art history
Huang: Who is to support history is a bigger ultural topi to use a popular term, it s a
synthesi ed pro e t. It an t ust be up to ust a few galleries, dealers, and art in estors
to sol e the problem. Nonetheless, a ording to the present ir umstan es, we an put
forth efforts from three angles.
irst, we need national art legislation that referen es international standards and
addresses the uality of artwork, art in estment, the art market, and art brokers, olle -
tors, dealers, et . It must on retely and meti ulously de ne rights and interests and
pro ide legal safeguards. In the re ently announ ed opyright laws, determinations
regarding artwork were o erly simple and e tremely rough, and ob iously insuf ient
for the needs of establishing an art market. And, without the guarantee of legislation,
an art market annot de elop healthy and normal operations, nor an it attra t the
in estment and interest of the international market. As a matter of fa t, o er the past
few years, in the business of buying and selling art, something has been askew: low,
medio re imitations ha e made a pro t while genuine artworks la k regular hannels
for be oming ommodities. f ourse, drafting national art legislation re uires an
unimaginably long time, and the onditions surrounding the establishment of art mar-
kets ary region by region. In my iew, art legislation an probably begin with the insti-
tution of laws and regulations for regional art markets, and then gradually e periment
with e tending its rea h. And, sin e some regions ha e ommer ial a ti ities like stamp
au tions, they are already e uipped with regional standards. Thus, stri ing for standards
in the buying and selling of artworks should not be a dif ult task.
Se ond, of ourse, is establishing an art market of international standards. This
kind of market is usually omposed of two le els. The rst-le el market onsists of art-
ists, galleries, and olle tors. When an artwork lea es the artist s hands, passes
through a gallery transa tion, and enters a olle tor s hands, it ompletes the a ti ities
at the rst le el. The se ond-le el market indi ates artworks that lea e a olle tor s
hands and reenter the market by way of a broker, intermediary, au tioneer, et . . . .on e
again or repeatedly be oming ommodities. In this pro ess, the alue of an artwork is
newly e aluated and demonstrated a ording to ommer ial pri ing. Be ause the pro-
ess of losing a transa tion is often ontrolled by a ademi ir les, riti s, and news
media, et ., and thus under the in uen e of many so ial fa tors, this is also a pro ess
295
through whi h an artist re ei es so ial appro al ia ommer ial methods and be omes
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rmly established in art history.

ostwar New York art dealers went through the world art market where aris was
the enter to rst buy ne European artworks, and then utili ed their own a tual e o-
nomi strength to ad o ate nati e painters like a kson ollo k and de ooning. This,
in turn, allowed New York to leap forward to ri al aris as the world s art enter. At
present, with China s e onomi strength, it s of ourse still not possible to enter the
international art market, e en though rst-le el markets of arying uantities and uali-
ties ha e appeared in Bei ing, i an, Shanghai, uang hou, Shen hen, and other regions.
There are also a few irregular ommer ial a ti ities of the se ond-le el market for
e ample, isiting businessmen from o erseas who go through galleries to buy works .
But, be ause this kind of a ti ity has still not entered into a regular tra e tory of legal-
i ation, and also be ause transa tions gi e priority to pure ommer iali ation, we
should not o erestimate their future de elopment. I think that the most fundamental
means for establishing a Chinese art market is still rst to raise ons iousness toward
ultural strategies for managing artworks, and then through legal methods and publi
opinion put e isting galleries in order by differentiating between those engaged in
the business of serious artworks and those managing pure ommer iali ation.
n the topi of the art market, I would also like to talk about issues of art in est-
ment. In terms of the nan ial state of China s galleries, most are still small businesses
with limited apital. Although they make the o asional international transa tion, these
are mostly deals in ol ing high olume with relati ely small pro t. This situation is nat-
urally related to the pur hasing power of the domesti market, and is also be ause
these galleries ha e not yet de eloped onne tions with substantial e onomi entities.
Based on the re ent situation, as well as o er a longer period of time, the main in es-
tors in Chinese art markets will be arious businesses and e onomi entities. A busi-
ness s role, in relation to its art in estment, an be purely as a sponsor, a olle tor, or
e en as a pro teer. rom the perspe ti e of pure sponsorship, China at present has
some e onomi entities middle- and large-si e businesses parti ularly from Hong
ong, Ma ao, Taiwan, and de eloping ities along the southeast oast. They in est
more than 100 million yuan in ultural sponsorship in luding edu ation, physi al edu-
ation, and arious publi harities . We only ha e to be willing to make an effort to
draw a portion of that into art in estment. This is not impossible.
f ourse, as a long-term goal, our strategi ob e ti e should be to establish busi-
nesses that spe ially manage art, in order to reate a positi e mode of ir ulation for the
art market. Internationally, sin e the mid- to late 1980s, in estment in artwork has on-
tinually been on the rise. Art in estment has already been lassi ed as the third-best
in estment opportunity after real estate and sto ks. ohn Naisbitt, author of Megatrends
2000, has e en predi ted that in the 1990s artwork will repla e sports in industrial sym-
bolism and will be ome the most fashionable hot-spot for in estment. In 1970, the
British ail ension Trust bought twenty- e Impressionist paintings for 5.8 million S
dollars. Three years later, they su essfully sold the art for 59. million dollars. In one
year, the pri e appre iated by 20.1 per ent. In three years, their in ome from the in est-
ment had tripled sic . Sin e spring 1989, apan s Aska International the art subsidiary
of Ai hi Corporation headed by Morishita Yasumi hi, has as ended in the interna-
tional art au tion market. By that fall, Morishita had be ome the se ond largest share-
holder of Christie s. In three years time, he planned to e pand the s ope of his
in estment to 20 billion yen. A ording to the in estor s appraisal, e ery year this in est-
ment should earn pro ts of 1 to 1.5 billion yen.
I think that these fa ts will undoubtedly be inspiring to those businesses interested
296
in in esting in art. omesti in estment in art an be di ided into two steps: rst,
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in esting in artists and galleries with artisti strength and latent ommer ial potential.
or e ample, supplying them with ne essary reati e onditions, managing these on-
ditions, pur hasing artwork, and helping news media newspapers, ournals, tele ision
stations, et . to promote the abo e-mentioned artists and galleries. f ourse, before
the sele tion of these artists and galleries, in estors need to rst draw support from
riti s and their rational methods in order to ensure reliable authenti ation I will dis-
uss this problem in more depth later. rom a short-term perspe ti e, this kind of
in estment might still ount as support and seem non-pro t in nature, but from a
long-term iewpoint, regardless of whether one sees it as ad an ing business or iews
it purely e onomi ally, it will all be re ompensed. If this kind of in estment an re ei e
preferential go ernmental legislation e.g., ta redu tions on art in estment , then this
pro ess an be a elerated.
Se ond, in terms of the probable s ope of funds needed to parti ipate in the inter-
national art market, in 1990, Taiwan s Taiwan China Trust Corporation pur hased an
Impressionist painting for . million S dollars. This a tion ele ated the image of the
in estment ompany s strength, and be ame a ed pro t-earning in estment for the
ompany. As far as I know, ities su h as Chengdu, uang hou, and others are already
home to a few e onomi entities with foresight and wisdom, and that ha e already
begun to e periment with in esting. This undoubtedly is en ouraging news.
Q: So, it s about time you dis ussed the third aspe t of who sponsors art history.
Huang: That would be riti ism and riti s. This is also the weakest and most disheart-
ening part of onstru ting the Chinese art market. In the beginning, I raised the issue of
art arbiters. I think that in a sound art market, riti s ought to ser e as arbiters. Arbiters
is a term that easily gi es rise to antipathy in art, parti ularly in anything goes modern
art. is ussing arbitration seems to spoil people s appetites. But, I ha e always onsid-
ered su h iews about artisti aluation to be antihistori al. In this respe t, I see things
ob e ti ely I am among those who belie e that, at the ery least, works of art re e t
higher and lower tastes, and good and bad uality. I don t want to go too mu h into
this. I ust want to de ne the impli ations of arbiter, so that there won t be any kind
of misunderstanding. I think that arbiter mainly points to the apa ity and authority
to make udgments on artisti uality and hanging art trends for those in ol ed in the
business of art.
In China, art riti ism has ne er been an o upation with professional authority. It
is either that kind of rambling spiritual analysis by philosophers and aestheti ians,
or in most situations a se ret, friendly e hange of fa ors between the riti and
the artist. Those kinds of attering essays written for parti ular so ial o asions are the
main indi ator that art riti ism in China has not rea hed maturity. It annot suit the
needs of the de elopment of modern art, and furthermore obstru ts Chinese art from
a hie ing international re ognition.
This is why pla es like Sotheby s in the international art market are not inter-
ested in au tioning modern Chinese art. To some e tent this is be ause China la ks a
tradition of in uential riti ism that addresses artwork from the dual standpoints of his-
tori al positioning and ommer ial alue. Art riti ism, established within the ondi-
tions of the art market, re uires the art riti to possess multiple professional skills: the
ability to histori ally lo ate a work s style the ability to udge artisti te hni ues, ual-
ity of materials, and authenti ity the apa ity to predi t the temperament of domesti
and international art markets the ability to e pound and pro e possible in uen e from
297
the surrounding so ial en ironment and its artisti trends. . . . or this purpose, the art
|
riti needs a strong grasp of knowledge from multiple dis iplines su h as art history,

so ial psy hology, market management, law, and others. f ourse, of hief impor-
tan e is that he or she must possess good udgment abilities to appre iate and
dis riminate in order to determine a work s uality and lass it is unfortunate that at
present in China s world of art riti ism, it is pre isely this good udgment that is la k-
ing . I think that only within this kind of onte t an riti s perhaps really be ome what
ombri h refers to as professional problem seekers.
Q: What about the position of the artists Will artists, due to the pressures and an iet-
ies produ ed by the market, lose their state of reati e freedom It seems that you
ha e already idoli ed the market. Is it possible that the mythology of the market an
gi e us a set of regulations for fair play
Huang: The mention of the market easily makes people re all the moral reproa h le ied
against the ontra t farming system implemented a de ade ago in rural illages.
E eryone says that ontra ting made ertain peasants wealthy parti ularly those who
were shrewd and goal-oriented whereas simple, na e peasants remained poor.
Nowadays, I don t think that anyone would be ause of this kind of moral issue deny
the histori al gains brought to us by the reformed rural e onomy. I agree with Wang
uangyi s opinion of those peasants who ould not ad ust to market ompetition, see-
ing them as the morally handi apped and the sa ri ial lambs ne essary in the ourse
of histori al progress. As for those who riti i e histori al progress from a moral stand-
point, we an only sympathi e with them, but then we must lea e them behind. Artists
are the starting point and endpoint for the art market, thus the artists ualities dire tly
in uen e the market s ualities. This is the position of artists in the market. or e am-
ple, imagine if 90 per ent of artists in the ountry depended on Yunnan painting to
make a li ing. If that were the ase, do you think there ould be a healthy art market
As for artists an ieties and pressures in the market, I belie e that this is both ine i-
table and ne essary. In fa t, any time period free of e ternal pressures a state of re-
ation under absolute free will is a antian fantasy. In history, arious kinds of religion,
politi s, ommer e, and pressures of taste only added to art s interest and glory. It is
pre isely these kind of pressures that gi e genuine masters free rein to de elop their
abilities to ompose, design, and artisti ally e periment, thus produ ing a ulture and
so iety e en more suited to their own artisti e isten e. enuinely mature artists
should be those people who are able to learly understand their own en ironment, and
utili e this kind of en ironment to make efforts toward resol ing artisti dilemmas.
Q: Your words ha e the a or of beha ioral psy hology.
Huang: Yes, the psy hology of our modern art is mostly in the ein of reudian and
ungian depth psy hology. It has fostered a number of people obsessed with lioni ing
themsel es and a ustomed to indulging in self-admiration. But, I belie e that entrust-
ing the future to understand one s art by making art that ompletely disregards the
e isting onte t is a form of de eit. or e ample, Skinner opposes depth psy hology s
theory of internal auses of beha ior, that is, the notion that people s beha iors are
ed in their internal psy hologi al states and pro esses. He emphasi es that beha ior
is not only onditioned by the en ironment but also fundamentally by reinfor ement,
namely, the in uen e and out ome of beha ior. Through hanging the en ironment
and using arious methods of reinfor ement, we an ompletely transform and ontrol
298
people s beha iors and redesign our ulture and so iety. It is from this reasoning that
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he opposes absolute freedom and dignity.

In terms of the en ironment, I m not saying that the art market is art history s only,
or e en most fair, means of ompetition. But I do belie e that in our present ultural
ir umstan es, it is perhaps a relati ely reasonable and realisti method. Compared
with the non- ompetiti e artisti life of the past few years and the free state of
affairs of ha ing no legal onstraints, I think the art market is more suited to the alue
prin iples of modern ulture. If we say that artists su esses annot be separated from
arious ontingent fa tors and onditions, then I think that ontingen y within an
ordered state is more reasonable and rational than fortuity within a state of disorder. In
terms of our artists, I belie e that they should prepare themsel es well, mentally and
operationally, for the arri al of the art market. In fa t, in this era, the ability to balan e
the tense onne tions between artist and the market, between artist and riti s, news
media, art agents, dealers, buyers, et . . . . an be seen as a signi ant mark of whether
or not an artist is mature.
I belie e that the art market will not only not smother the artist s indi iduality but,
on the ontrary, an only enri h this kind of indi iduality, making this kind of indi idu-
ality possess an e en more for eful reati e power. f ourse, this only applies to those
artists who truly possess indi iduality and who ha e the latent apa ity to be great
masters. As for those artists who lose their indi iduality in the pressures of the art
market, perhaps they didn t ha e any indi iduality to begin with. Lastly, it s still that
same line: we need a new art history, and if we re lu ky, ea h of us has the possibility of
be oming a sponsor or author of history.
riginally published as Shei lai an hu lishi in Yishu • shichang [Art • Market no. September 1991 ,
29 31. Translated by eggy Wang.
The First 1990s Biennial Art Fair
CATALOGUE PREFACE: OPENING UP THE 1990S ( 1992 )

By Lü Peng
History does not e ist as an a priori te t. It must be written by human beings. Howe er,
what people are about nowadays is not only who is writing history, but also how it
is written.
The Biennial is different from any other e hibition e er held in China. In terms of
e onomi operation, in estment has repla ed endorsement for sponsors, enter-
prises ha e repla ed ultural organi ations for pro edure, legal ontra ts supersede
of ial noti es for a ademi operations, a riti -organi ed ury has repla ed the past
sele tion ommittees onsisting mainly of artists for operational ob e ts, ef a y in
the e onomy, so iety, and a ademy substitutes the singular, narrow, and endlessly
debated eld of artisti su ess. All of these hara teristi s of the Biennial e iden e
that 1990s Chinese art history has already truly started to unfold.
The penetration and de elopment of reform ha e led to hanges in the style of
writing history. When the old prin iples no longer meet the needs of the new era, it is
imperati e to set up new ones. The real meaning of the new ruIes is that ulture must
be reated for sale, whi h is dire ted against the lassi mode of reating ulture only
for ulture. It runs ounter to the mode of ultural reation that indulges in self-
admiration, has no law to referen e, or a ts as a politi al instrument. It re uires the
299
support of elements of ontemporary market me hanisms, su h as law, ta ation, insur-
|
an e, and further so ial di ision of labor. This is surely an arduous and ompli ated task

for a ountry without a tradition of the market. By parti ipating in the Biennial, busi-
nesses, riti s, artists, editors, and e en lawyers and ournalists are beginning to seek
proof and solutions to the histori task of how to establish a ontemporary art market.
More and more people ha e reali ed that in 1990s, market issues are ultural issues.
The pro ess of the establishment, de elopment, and perfe tion of the new rules also
marks the birth, e e ution, and maturation of art operations. With the death of the las-
si agri ultural so iety and the de line of sentimentalism s romanti ulture, the idea that
there e ists an independent perfe t art is no longer glamorous or on in ing. resent
so iety re ogni es or belie es more in a ulture that is effe ti e in so iety itself, and that is
furthermore generated by a synthesis of so ial for es. Therefore, history in the new period
re uires us to possess the ta ti s and skills of operating upon ulture, to know how to
apply and ad ust new rules, and to master the rhythm and orders of the operating pro-
esses. The organi ers of the Biennial ha e ondu ted the rst trial in this respe t, furnish-
ing aluable lessons and e perien es for the de elopment of 1990s Chinese art history.
The on ept of ultural effe ti eness is not ulgar. It is a re uirement of ontempo-
rary ulture in the de elopment of human so iety. Establishing prin iples and e e ut-
ing operations is not an aimless game, its to make ulture a histori al fa t. This is the
impetus and in enti e for further human de elopment. Thus, effe ti eness is a strate-
gi goal for those engaging in ultural and artisti undertakings. If e ery parti ipant of
the Biennial a ting in his respe ti e so ial apa ity tries his best to omplete his
duties, and wisely make his work orrespondingly effe ti e, then an o erall ultural
ef a y will in ariably be ome a histori al fa t.
Whether or not the Biennial pro es to be a ultural phenomenon and ha e a pro-
found in uen e on the de elopment of 1990s art will be ome lear in time. What we are
lear about now is that we ha e made memorable efforts for opening up 1990s art history.
ire tor of the rgani ing Committee: Luo Hai uan

Chief urator of the Biennial: L eng
May 11, 1992
riginally published in Shoujie 90 niandai yishu shuangnian zhan youhua bufen irst 1990s Biennial Art
air il Painting Section Si huan: Si huan ine Arts ublishing, 1992 , 9. Translation published therein,
edited by eggy Wang to better orrespond to the original Chinese.
NOTES ON THE SELECTION PROCESS ( 1992 )

By Chen Xiaoxin
In uang hou, after the end of the hottest part of summer, the sun was still s or hing
and a heat wa e rolled in. It was at this moment that the sele tion and e aluation for
the Biennial began. ne ould also use the term hot to des ribe it.
n August 23, all those parti ipating in the Biennial s sele tion and appraisal of
artwork on ened in uang hou. This in luded: hairperson L eng, members of the
E aluation Committee Huang huan, hu Bin, Yang iaoyan, Yi an, Shao Hong,
Yan Shan hun as well as members of the A ademi Appraisal Committee i
ao ian hief inspe tor , eng e, Yin Shuang i, Yi Ying, Chen iao in, u Chengfeng,
Yang Li legal ounsel Wang i, a ademi se retaries hou Yubing, Chen iaoyi, Shi
Yasong, et al., and on-site photography was pro ided by Art • Market Yishu • shichang
300
editor He Changlin. The members met in room 210 of a guesthouse in the military
|
region of uang hou.

n that day, L eng alled e eryone together to re iew the do ument ules
and egulations for Sele tion ing uan gong uo tiaoli , whi h had been prepared
in ad an e by the rgani ing Committee, as well as a report pro ided by eng e
head of the Appraisal Committee titled The History and Current State of Chinese
il ainting hongguo youhua de lishi i ian huang .
n August 24, fourteen members of the E aluation Committee and A ademi
Appraisal Committee in luding the hairperson of ially began the sele tion pro ess.
The work would ontinue for three days. In total, there were 00 artworks to re iew,
so on a erage, they looked through 200 pie es a day. It was regularly 3 37 C on-site,
and some of the younger male members of the ommittee took off their shirts. Their
attitudes were serious and earnest, and the atmosphere was both an ious and enthu-
siasti . After initial re iew, the number of works under onsideration was narrowed
down to 400. This number was restri ted to works that were submitted before August
25, and did not in lude the 200 300 works that arri ed afterward.
rom August 27 28, the E aluation and Appraisal Committees began their respe -
ti e duties. The E aluation Committee began to look into putting forth a list of twenty-
se en works to be gi en awards in luding two o ument awards, e A ademi
awards, and twenty utstanding awards pl. 43 . or ea h, they lled out A ademi
pinion ards. The Appraisal Committee organi ed a ademi dis ussions, and ga e
a ademi assessment and analysis on style, s hool, form, language, et . for ea h sele ted
work. A relati ely unanimous iew was that Hubei op and Hunan New esign
Xin tushi were the most important parts of the Biennial, that is, they had the most
distinguishing features. Se ond to that were the synthesi ed materials of New ealism
Xin xieshi abstra t or e pressed . erall, the le el of the artwork was rst-rate.
n the afternoon of August 29, Li iaoliang and hang Yu, notaries from the
uang hou Hai hu distri t, and legal ounsel Wang i notari ed and super ised the
oting o er nominees for the twenty-se en awards. Besides hairperson L eng, si
members of the E aluation Committee and three members of the Appraisal Committee
ast otes. After three rounds of oting, fty-four names were of ially nominated
e ery ategory of award maintained a 2:1 ratio . The list of nominees was handed to
the hairperson L eng on-site.
rom August 30 31, L eng, after re ei ing the list of nominees, listened to the
suggestions of the ommittees in parti ular, the Appraisal Committee before making
the nal de ision and determining the Biennial s twenty-se en award winners. At the
same time, he onsulted with i ao ian hief of the Appraisal Committee on the
nal a ademi erdi t of the twenty-se en awarded artworks. He then signed the
A ademi pinion ards of ea h.
uring the entire duration of sele ting the works, ample dis ussion produ ed the
following se en a ademi do uments:
. i ao ian s A ademi Appraisal of the irst 1990s Biennial Art air il Painting
Section in uang hou Guangzhou shoujie 90 niandai yishu shuangnian zhan youhua
bufen ) ueshu gu i
. eng e s a ademi ba kground report The History and Current State of Chinese il
ainting hongguo youhua de lishi i ian huang
. A ademi pinion ards ingshen yi ian shu signed and initialed se en opies by
the hair and all members of the E aluation Committee
. Yin Shuang i s pinions on etermining ri es and Selling Biennial Artwork
301
Shuangnian han uopin de ding ia yu iaoshou yi ian
|
. Yi Ying s The osition of Art Criti s in the Art Market Yishu piping ai yishu shi hang

hong de wei hi
. Chen iao in s Summary of the Sele tion Work at the irst 1990s Biennial Art air il
Painting Section ) in uang hou Guangzhou shoujie 90 niandai shuangnian zhan
youhua bufen ping uan gong uo hong ie baogao
. Legal ounsel Wang i s eport on the Legal Super ision o er the Biennial s Sele tion
ro ess ui shuangnian han ping uan gong uo in ing fal iandu de baogao
The abo e-mentioned do uments will be gathered along with notes taken by Yang Li
during the sele tion pro ess. They will be ompiled into a olle tion, edited by the
rgani ing Committee, and published.
n September 1, the Biennial s sele tion pro ess was brought to a su essful lose.
This work writes a new page in the history of art e hibitions in China. Its most notable
new features in lude:
. The art hairperson is gi en authority while the two ommittees ser e an au iliary
fun tion in the sele tion pro ess
or the Biennial, the rgani ing Committee in ited L eng to be the hairperson and
granted him the orresponding authority, for e ample presiding o er the sele tion,
making the nal erdi t in determining the award winners, balan ing the authority of
the two ommittees, et . ne ould say that through his a ademi position and apa -
ity to udge, the hairperson oriented the Biennial s dire tion in the a ademi realm as
well as the market. The fa t that the hair is gi en authority, howe er, does not make
this a di tatorship. To a ertain degree, the two ommittees set up by the rgani ing
Committee limit the hairperson s authority. They pre ent the hair from uns rupu-
lously using his authority to reate biases, thereby ensuring that the Biennial s sele -
tion is a ademi ally rigorous, impartial, and ob e ti e. uring the Biennial s sele tion
pro ess, the roles of the hairperson and two ommittees de eloped, and together
they assured a high le el of effe ti eness.
. Criti s hold key roles

The 1989 China / Avant-Garde e hibition Zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan was the rst ase
where riti s were allowed to play lead roles. But, at the time, this way of working
still la ked systemati guarantees its methods were still imperfe t. The Biennial has
de eloped upon the China / Avant-Garde methods, and perfe ted its system for
e ample, the abo e-mentioned . The riti s in ol ed in the Biennial were mostly
middle-aged indi iduals who ha e been riti ally a ti e in re ent years. They are well-
trained, per epti e, and possess an a ant-garde ons iousness. To a large degree, this
guaranteed the uality of the sele tion. There was also another spe ial signi an e to
granting riti s a key role in the Biennial: this helped to push art riti ism into the mar-
ket, de eloping its fun tion as a guiding for e in the market, and endowing riti ism
with a dynami purpose.
. egulations before operations

The Biennial s rgani ing Committee belie ed that without lear, reliable, reasonable
regulations, there would be no way to ha e an effe ti e sele tion. At the same time,
if the regulations ould not be implemented throughout the entire pro ess, it would
all be moot. Before the sele tion pro ess e en began, the rgani ing Committee laid
out a omplete set of regulations, and this in luded prin iples to guide the sele tion
302
me hanism su h as legal prin iples, a ademi prin iples, prin iples of e uality,
|
responsibility, on dentiality, et . , pro edural order for sele tion, demands of those
in ol ed, et . n e these were made into lear stipulations, they guided the sele -
tion pro ess step-by-step and pro ided a rm, yet effe ti e, rhythm to the work.
. emo rati and transparent

The demo rati aspe ts were mainly reali ed in the following ways: 1 after the rules
and regulations were set, repeated dis ussions were arried out, and ad ustments were
made 2 during the initial riti al e aluations, minority opinions were fully respe ted
3 through the pro ess of nomination and writing A ademi pinion ards, the
E aluation Committee s fun tion was gi en free rein 4 by pro iding a ademi ba k-
ground materials, the Biennial s a ademi appraisal of style, form, et . . . . de eloped
the Appraisal Committee s fun tion 5 before the hair made his nal de ision, he
repeatedly soli ited suggestions from the head of the Appraisal Committee as well as
the two ommittees themsel es. In this way, spe i problems were repeatedly and
riti ally onsulted about.
The transparent aspe ts were learly e ident in the following instan es: 1 from
start to nish, legal ounsel was present on-site as a parti ipant. An of ial notary was
present during the oting pro ess. At any le el of so iety, it is understood that if any
problems arise, law enfor ement of ers are on hand this was the relationship that
we had during the sele tion a ti ity 2 all of the written do uments from the sele tion
pro ess, re ords from meeting, and a ademi erdi ts for awarded works in luding
the A ademi pinion ards for the nominated works will be made known to the
world so that they an be e amined and dis ussed by so iety 3 the rgani ing
Committee presented a large number of photographi materials of the on-site sele -
tion to the publi in its report on the sele tion pro ess.
. Embodying legitima y
A professional lawyer and notary were in ited to be on-site to super ise the sele tion
pro ess. This was the rst time that this has happened in Chinese e hibition history.
They were present to witness that no orruption o urs and to ensure the legality of
the sele tion pro ess.
The abo e-mentioned points make suf iently lear that the Biennial s sele tion pro-
ess reated a new model for modern art e hibitions.
riginally published as Shuangnian han ping uan uopin e i in Jiangsu huakan [ Jiangsu Pictorial 144,
no. 12 1992 , 1 17. Translated by eggy Wang.
REFLECTIONS AND QUESTIONS RAISED AFTER THE FIRST 1990S
303
BIENNIAL ART FAIR ( 1993 )
|
By Lü Peng

Two months ha e passed sin e the on lusion of the irst 1990s Biennial Art air. Looking
ba k on the Biennial s entire preparatory, organi ational, and operational pro esses, I
nd that there are many e perien es and lessons worth summari ing. To ser e as a refer-
en e for future art e hibitions that need to onfront this phase of building an art market,
and to ser e as a on rete lesson for the healthy de elopment of art, I will detail a num-
ber of the problems raised by the Biennial.
i i v i i
In re ent years, the art world has been on erned with business in estment in art as a
means of promoting the healthy de elopment of the enterprise of Chinese art within
the market e onomy. The irst 1990s Biennial Art air was China s rst bold attempt in
ha ing domesti businesses ondu t large-s ale in estments in art. egardless of
whether the Biennial will be iewed as a su ess or failure, na e or rude, history will
always remember the orporations that in ested in the Biennial.
The problems that Chinese businesses often fa e in art in estment:
irst, they don t know the market onditions for managing art. Stri tly speaking,
mainland China, Hong ong, and Taiwan don t ha e a real art market. There are no ol-
le ti ely obser ed operational prin iples or legal bases. er the past two years in Asia,
the buying and selling of art has been ery a ti e, but how do you a tually sell a work
and what market onditions an assure hanges in performan e Companies that ha e
ne er in ested in art don t know these things. Be ause information about the market
la ks a hannel for ommuni ation in China, buying and selling, to a large degree, is
go erned by han e. So, initially, businesses in esting in art fa e a market that la ks
de nite assuran es. Therefore, in estors understandings of market ir umstan es relied
wholly on artists and riti s, who were not ompletely reliable. As a result, business
in estment in art from the ery beginning had a tremendous risk fa tor.
In estors in the Biennial made poli y de isions that depended largely on a few
riti s suggestions. But, a tually, these riti s opinions were only the synthesis of some
se ondhand, pie emeal information, without ery rigorous grounds for argument. f
ourse, another important fa tor in the Biennial poli y de isions was the guiding on-
ept of ons iously stimulating business in estment in art. The imagination had an
important role to play within this.
Se ond, businesses in esting in art don t know its operational methods. Although
in many respe ts managing artwork is similar to managing other ommodities, artwork
also has its pe uliarities. These in lude: ne an t be too eager for immediate su ess
and instant pro t. To the manager, e onomi effe ti eness is the basis for e aluating
the ontinuity or su ess of the in estment. If engaging in art doesn t yield a pro t,
ertainly this will lead to the in estor s loss of on den e. But, the pri e of an artwork
is generated through the synthesis of many operations: a ademi riti ism, e hibitions,
publi ity, et . . . . thus, there is an operational pro ess. Aside from the pure lo e of a
work, a buyer s udgment is assisted by a ademi appraisal, e hibition results, and ref-
eren ing news media. So, an in estor needs to ha e suf ient apital prepared. The
Biennial in estors and organi ers didn t ade uately ful ll this aspe t. i en their la k
of e perien e, the immense dif ulties in rea hing the desired amount of money, and
omplete hanges to the original work plan, the operators in ol ed in the e hibition
ouldn t e aluate the out ome and to what degree it should ha e related to the
original budget. Whi h is to say, when we in estigate the out ome, we annot base
304
the erdi t on the plan. or e ample, when we losed the deal with Shen hen onghui
|
Ltd. to pur hase the twenty-se en awarded works at 1 million MB yuan about
S 182,175 , the design of the original program alled for more than 1.5 million MB.
A tually, the same day that Western Si huan Art Company and onghui Ltd. signed
the ontra t, another ompany wanted to pur hase the twenty-se en works for 1.5
million MB. Ten days later, another ompany wanted to pur hase the works for 2 mil-
lion MB, but be ause the amount of funds for e hibition preparation wasn t suf -
ient, and in order to resol e our funding problems as ui kly as possible, Western
Si huan ould only hastily sign the ontra t with onghui Ltd., promptly losing the
deal. If the Western Si huan Art Company had had suf ient funds, and wasn t so an -
ious to sell the works, then would the amount ha e been more than 1 million MB
Be ause the apital didn t rea h the desired goal, and there were hanges in our plans,
we ha e no way of e aluating, purely from an e onomi standpoint, whether this
transa tion was a su ess or failure.
Third, it is dif ult to handle the relationship between e onomi performan e and
a ademi standards. Be ause in esting onnotes e onomi pro t, it makes sense to
people if we e hibit those works that would be easy to sell. In fa t, the Biennial orga-
ni ers did put a large number of this type of work on e hibit. This initiated debates
within the art world among people who belie ed that this mo e ruined the whole form
of the e hibition. But, we are lear that a work onsidered of alue in the a ademi
world today doesn t ne essarily ha e a good market alue . If we based the e hibition
of works purely on an a ademi iew, then the number of works e hibited would dras-
ti ally de rease, while also adding dif ulty to the e hibition reali ing any kind of e o-
nomi profit. I belie e, at this turning point, if we want businesses to ha e more
on den e in art in estment, then we ha e to ght for more opportunities to e hibit in
order to effe ti ely edu ate people about art. Art riti s should ha e a tolerant and
understanding attitude. We only need to ha e ontinuous opportunities to e hibit, so
that we an gradually hange people s aestheti tastes.
If, in the sele tion of works to be awarded, we maintain an independent a ademi
attitude, we an hange art s a ademi orientation. ollowing the Biennial, my iew is
this: people in the art world need to fully re ogni e people s knowledge and le el of
art, they shouldn t be impatient for su ess, let alone on lude if a work has artisti
alue or not some works problems fall under the pur iew of a ademi dis ussion.
x i i i i i
enerally speaking, we an think of riti s as appraisers of art uality. But, be ause
opinions on a ademi issues in art are all to ea h his own, and not e eryone in ol ed
in art riti ism possesses a ute and ad an ed insight, in estors and artists harbor doubts
about riti s abilities . Some artists e pressed unease toward the Biennial s panel of
urors. But, no riti -organi ed ury is going to omprise only in estors and artists. If
that happens, we dis o er in estors who don t understand art an only rely on their
own determination of what is good and bad. The poor uality that an result from this
is e iden ed by the 1991 Hang hou West Lake e hibition. Artists indi idual biases
in ariably lead to biased results to artists, this kind of bias is ne essary . A riti , regard-
less of whether his a ademi le el is high or low, will always a t as an arbiter that stands
in the middle. He won t look at things from a ompletely e onomi standpoint, nor will
he start from an entirely stylisti standpoint.
As for the riti s pro ien y in art, this an only be tested and impro ed through
ontinuous e perien e. A tually, in China, the identity of the art riti is e tremely
ambiguous: sometimes he stands in pla e of the artist proposing pri es to the dealer
305
sometimes he positions himself from the standpoint of the dealer ounseling the artist
|
if his asking pri e is too high, and sometimes he stands solemnly as an arbiter with the

authority to make a ademi statements. This kind of un lear situation emerged as a
ne essary phenomenon in an imperfe t art market: riti s are doing the best they an
based on e onomi operations that they don t understand, doing some humanitarian
work of an e onomi nature this hasn t ust in uen ed his image, but also his a tual
a ademi work.
The riti s who parti ipated in the Biennial had almost no dis ussions and no
in ol ement in business strategies. I was the only one who worked with the in estors to
arry out business plans and operations. This was be ause the in estors had no knowl-
edge of managing art and weren t familiar with artists. But, I ultimately don t ha e e pe-
rien e in nan ial operations, and in estors after all work outside of the world of art.
This brought some dif ulty to the ob of selling work during the e hibition. ra ti ally
and realisti ally speaking, I played two on urrent roles during the Biennial: I was an
e onomi operator and a riti , so in terms of how to iew the e hibition, this needs to
be onsidered and dis ussed.
Looking at this soberly, there are still ery few riti s in the ountry. i en that their
nan ial situations are uite poor, it s likely that there will be an enormous de rease in
the number of riti s in the oming generation. It s not hard to understand why, gi en
the dif ulty of writing routine pie es while on urrently holding down other obs. In
the long run, the situation of Chinese riti s isn t going to hange. esol ing this situa-
tion ontributes to the need for establishing a healthy Chinese art market system. The
Biennial ga e ea h member of the ury and E aluation Committees ompensation of
3,000 MB. In China, this isn t a small amount, but this kind of ompensation isn t part
of an instituted system, it s still onditional. In other e hibitions or a ti ities hereafter,
how will riti s be remunerated for their knowledge It s hard to predi t. In any ase,
following penetration into market-related work, the alue of riti s work will be ome
e en more e ident. e ently, riti s dis ussed and e en drafted their own pa t: this is an
initial step in riti s prote ting their own rights and interests, on dent that not too far
into the future, a orresponding organi ation or me hanism will be formed to do so. f
ourse, through business needs, an organi ation of galleries or asso iation of art dealers
may form it will de elop a ording to the market s demands.
i vi v
There were a lot of different artisti styles at the Biennial. Ninety- e per ent of the art-
ists de ided the pri es for their own work. This showed that the ma ority of artists are
already fa ing problems with the market. Many artists pri ed their work on the high
side, sometimes sho kingly high. udging from letters and telegrams from parti ipant
artists, and the ir umstan es surrounding how they set the pri es of their work, this
was be ause of the media surrounding the market, the artists own sad nan ial ondi-
tions, and the myth that pri e itself an lead to su ess. They only o asionally re ei e
news about art pri es , most of whi h is in omplete and unreliable information. They
then mistakenly take their artwork and see it in on un tion with this information. They
seldom onsider their own artisti le el, the s ope of ir ulation, and to what degree
the pri e of one s work is in line with the e hibition itself. f ourse, determining the
pri e of an artwork is e tremely ompli ated, and it s my understanding that the real-
i ation of a sale is sometimes based on elusi e fa tors. We, of ourse, an only follow
e perien e to e aluate the range of pri ing. But, for artists who ha e seldom, or e en
ne er, sold a work before, it s inappropriate to set a pri e that people annot a ept.
Artists always regard the alue of their works ery highly, and thus hope to ha e a or-
306
respondingly high pri e. As a result, the alue and pri e of an artwork are both tested in
|
the market. If the pri e is set too high, it an t sell, and the work in the end is ust a
pie e of an as, with some olors and forms on it. When that happens, a work s alue
is only reali ed in the studio.
In a tuality, to a large degree artists sell their work so they an sustain their pra -
ti e. In the beginning, they only need ompensation so that they an ontinue li ing
and working for a little while, and that s enough. nly through ontinual sales an
the alue of an artist s work gradually be understood by so iety, and the pri e will
ontinually rise through the ombined work of a ademi appraisal, e hibition, news
publi ity, et . . . .
Thinking ba k, the ma ority of artists rmly belie e that the prin ipal reason for
doing art is a kind of spiritual reation, and many artists still persist in making work e en
under e tremely dif ult onditions. But, under the in uen e of the wa e of business,
some artists ha e rela ed in their thinking about this, and instead blindly haggle nan-
ially o er gaining and losing: this is utterly wrong. In Jiangsu Pictorial Jiangsu huakan
and Art • Market Yishu • shichang , I published the arti le Art Needs to be rodu ed to
Sell Yishu bi u wei iaoshou er hansheng , whi h ga e some artists the wrong
impression. eople mistakenly thought that I was ad o ating the need to make art for
money. My meaning was this: our art should be geared toward so iety, it s wrong if we
only use it to amuse oursel es. In a ommer ial so iety, the market de ides whether a
work has the opportunity to enter so iety and ha e in uen e. At the same time, it
re e ts, in the end, whether a work has any re ipients. Making work that has no re ipi-
ents is itself worthy of introspe tion. As for new art that an t be immediately a epted
in so iety, its effe ti eness in the market re uires a ertain amount of time. But, this is
different from self-amusement. No matter how, artists should always be responsible
for their art.
eople need art. If your work is good, it will de nitely ha e the opportunity to be
sold. Throughout his entire life, an ogh wanted to sell his work. No one a epted it,
and this was an ogh s fear, not his intention. or some artists who parti ipated in the
Biennial, they went to the other e treme, for ing the organi ers to raise the sales pri es,
making them in ompatible with the a tual situation. Here, I want to also raise an issue:
in the past, we were more prone to riti uing professional painting as garbage and
emphasi ing a work s a ademi uality. In the Biennial, there was still a fair amount of
a ant-garde garbage : appearing like new art, but a tually re e ting the artist s igno-
ran e toward art, and la k of understanding about reating art.
The Biennial raised a lot of problems, su h as reforming e hibition operation pro-
esses and methods, systems of legal ta re enue, in estment, e aluation . . . these all
need to dis ussed and resear hed and worked at o er a long period of time. We don t
ha e a tradition of an art market, so establishing a perfe t art market is not a three- or
e-year ob this needs se eral de ades or e en longer of hard work. rom this situa-
tion of the Biennial, it s apparent that Chinese businesses still ha e an e tremely poor
understanding of art in estment. This is parti ularly the ase in uangdong, the pro -
in e with the longest tra k re ord of opening-and-reform, where many businesses ha e
strong e onomi power, but due to their iewpoint and hara ter, fear entering this
eld. urely e onomi ally speaking, people are still anti ipating, hoping that one day
after the art market has been established, they will then take a step into this eld. But,
they don t reali e that if they don t parti ipate, this market will ne er be formed with-
out their sa ri e, there will be no real de elopment for Chinese art. So, who will be
the hero to take on this grand pursuit He needs to ha e intelligen e and an t be afraid
of sa ri e. He needs to produ e material and spiritual wealth for the ountry. n this
307
point, Western Si huan Art Company an always be proud that e en if they didn t real-
|
i e any e onomi pro t, they already made sa ri es.

anuary 3, 1993
riginally published in Guangdong meishujia [Guangdong Artists 2, no. 1 1993 : 74 75. Translated by
eggy Wang.
The “System” of 1990s Contemporary

Chinese Art
FROM “SYSTEM” TO “CIRCLE”: AN ANALYSIS OF THE STATE OF AVANT-

GARDE ART IN THE LATE 1990S ( 2003 )
By Wu Hong
ne of the results of China s twenty years of a ant-garde art pra ti es has been the for-
mation of a group of so- alled independent, professional artists di or ed from the
stru ture of the state administration. In a general analysis of this phenomenon, people
often belie e that this stems from the artists pursuit of a free, independent state of
mind: in their sear h for a kind of ideal utopia, they ha e entered into a spontaneous
self-imposed e ile outside of the system. This kind of ideali ed e planation a tually
originates from the simpli ed re olutionary impulses of 1980s New Wa e art.
If we were to strip off the idealisti fa ade and take a loser, more realisti look at
this transformation, we would dis o er that the marketi ation of art truly played a de i-
si e role in the pro ess. This was parti ularly the ase from the mid- to late 1990s.
uring the 1990s, Chinese a ant-garde art was in reasingly sub e ted to market for es.
At the same time, the number of illegal artists and related independent professionals
grew to unpre edented amounts. The ausal relationship between the two fa tors is
fairly e ident.
If we use the marketi ation of art to e amine 1990s Chinese a ant-garde art, we
dis o er that many of the ir umstan es surrounding 1990s art differ ompletely from
those of the pre ious de ade. irst, the prin ipal players of 1980s a ant-garde art were
artists asso iated with the state administrati e system. They graduated from state-run
art a ademies in the late 1980s, and later taught at these institutions. This resulted in
the fo al point of 1980s a ant-garde art being either pure artisti language on erning
so- alled new reati e e ploration, or obs ure e pressions of some abstra t philo-
sophi al issues. At the same time, be ause the identity of these parti ipants was already
determined, a ant-garde art of the 1980s a tually maintained a lose onne tion with
of ial art administrati e bodies and institutions.
When we ob e ti ely analy e the de elopment of the 1980s a ant-garde art
mo ement, the abo e-mentioned relationship between its parti ipants and the state
administrati e system seems self-e ident. At the same time, the de elopment of the
art mo ement was inseparably linked to a ademi ournals and spe ialty publi ations
that essentially fell within the s ope of the state system. In addition, owing to the
identities of the mo ement s parti ipants, a number of symboli ally signi ant mo e-
ments and e hibitions of 1980s a ant-garde art ould not ha e taken pla e without the
in ol ement of state administrati e bodies. In a entrally planned system, only those
so ial a ti ities that are endowed with of ial hara teristi s an be onsidered legiti-
mate. And, to parti ipants in the mo ement, the fun tion of their a tions would only
308
be reali ed if they entered into of ial and mainstream domains. Thus, we nd that
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arious le els of the state-run Chinese Artists Asso iation had a hand in many 1980s
a ant-garde e hibitions and s holarly a ti ities. ntil re ently, some of the so- alled
Chinese e hibitions of a ant-garde art ould still be read as a ontinuation of this kind
of earlier mentality.
To sum up, we an see that although there are apparent differen es between the
1980s a ant-garde art mo ement and the art a ti ities run by the traditional state sys-
tem, we should also pay parti ular attention to the ountless ties onne ting the de el-
opment of 1980s New Wa e art and the mainstream system. This lukewarm relationship
is maintained in the a hie ements of so- alled art edu ational reforms that ontinue to
e ist in art institutions today and the e perimental art pra ti ed and re ogni ed
within the mainstream system. n the one hand, to make known their modern dis-
position, artists painstakingly maintained a ertain distan e from the of ial art system.
n the other hand, de ned and mediated by their own identities, they ouldn t stray
too far. This lukewarm relationship be ame the ideal status uo. In the future, we
ha e reason to belie e that su h art may, with the support of the of ial system, a t
against e erything they dislike, in parti ular art forms that they belie e to be e essi ely
radi al and thoughtless.
Compared with the ob ious a ademi ba kground of the 1980s a ant-garde art
mo ement, we an see the remarkable grassroots hara ter of artists who began to
pra ti e a ant-garde art in the 1990s.
irst, if we look at the upbringings and intelle tual ba kgrounds of a ant-garde art-
ists who emerged in the 1990s, parti ularly those from the mid- to late 1990s, we nd
that many did not re ei e professional training. Se ond, the ma ority of this group of
artists neither had regular obs nor legal identity statuses. With the marketi ation of
a ant-garde art in the 1990s, these artists no longer had to put all of their efforts into
entering the mainstream art system. In relation to this, while we an easily tra e the tra-
e tory of the 1980s New Wa e art mo ement, a ant-garde art from the mid- to late
1990s has an awkward untra eable nature and di erse standards of e aluation. Today,
debates on good art ersus bad art e entually enter on parti ular artists or parti u-
lar works of art. This, from a ertain perspe ti e, in fa t a ounts for malfun tions in
our e isting knowledge base and riti al e perien e with urrent art phenomena.
When attempting to e plain the intri a ies of a ant-garde art phenomena from
the mid- to late 1990s, be ause our e perien es already la k an e pli it fo us, we need
to refrain from using a personal, sub e ti e perspe ti e to understand and make udg-
ments at a ma ros opi le el. When we ondu t on rete analyses of some spe i
ases, we nd that the formation of an inner ir le was a onspi uous feature of mid-
to late 1990s a ant-garde art.
orming an inner ir le does not merely refer to the artists onditions of e is-
ten e. Sin e these artists were no longer asso iated with or super ised by any organi a-
tions or institutions, the inner ir le be ame one of their platforms for e hanging
information. It was also their sole method for maintaining the industry onne tions
needed for handling e hibitions and sales. In the 1980s, and e en earlier, there e isted
some non-mainstream art groups, but these were distin tly different from the inner
ir le that we are looking at now. In fa t, one of the prin ipal hara teristi s of this
inner ir le is its non-organi ational and non-institutional nature, whi h is a onse-
uen e of the artists abandonment of a systemi ed lifestyle. The inner ir le is pre-
mised on a high degree of freedom for ea h indi idual. This is the reason why a few
artists groups, who embodied some of the traits of the state system, e isted in the
1980s, but dissol ed in the more e ible so ial en ironment of the 1990s. This also illus-
309
trates how the e isten e of an inner ir le an be sensed, but not tra ed. Like air, it
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an be per ei ed yet an t be seen.

As mentioned abo e, a ant-garde art in the latter half of the 1990s has pushed us
to fa e an awkward state of untra eability along with di erse riteria for e aluation.
Today, when udging a pie e of art, we no longer ha e widely a knowledged, riti al
standards of assessment, like those pre iously used to approa h traditional easel paint-
ings. This ne essarily raises uestions su h as: What an be alled art and Who an be
alled an artist
Based on traditional e perien es, when answering uestions like these, we all fol-
low a ertain line of reasoning. That is to say, rst if a pie e is regarded by some pri i-
leged minority as art, then the author of the pie e is probably onsidered an artist. This
temporal se uen e demonstrates that you must rst ha e a publi ly a knowledged art-
work before you an ha e an artist. Howe er, when analy ing a ant-garde art from the
mid- to late 1990s, we nd that we need to follow a omplete re ersal of this logi .
When we onsider whether something is a pie e of art or not, we often try to gure out
whether the person who reated the work is an artist. E en though oseph Beuys laimed
that e eryone is an artist, we are still relu tant to pla e artists on an e ual plane with
the masses. This is be ause artists are assumed to ha e a pri ileged Midas tou h, the
ability to turn ordinary things into gold. When fa ing ensure like: Anyone an make
this art or How an something made by an ordinary person also be alled art, we
often resort to the following grounds for argument: An artist made this. If you don t
like it, that s ne, but there is no doubt that this is art. The fa t is, that when e aluating
a spe i ob e t, we begin with the assumption that the ob e t is art. nly then will
our riti ues and analyses ha e the possibility of ir ulating within the inner ir le. In
other words, we need to a knowledge a seemingly parado i al fa t: only when the rit-
i al ob e t is art will the ommentary on it be art riti ism. This, in turn, is founded
on the premise that the person who reated the pie e must be an artist.
Then, who has the right to designate an artist The inner ir le
If art mo ements before the 1980s were atta hed to so iopoliti al mo ements, then
artists ould only gain re ognition from the of ial system by positioning their pra ti es
within these same so iopoliti al mo ements. uring the 1980s New Wa e and e en
through the early 1990s, art mo ements were losely asso iated with new ways of think-
ing in philosophy and so iology. The artwork oming from this period often attempted
to illustrate or re e t the different ideologi al trends in so ial s ien es and humanities
in order for artisti representation to keep pa e with ob e ti e so ial reality. The ery
goal of the 1980s art mo ements was to obtain appro al from a ademi ir les indi-
re tly, this was still seeking appro al from the of ial system. In the mid- to late 1990s, as
the marketi ation of Chinese a ant-garde art be ame possible, artists began to stop
regarding of ial re ognition as the ultimate ob e ti e of their endea ors. Instead, the
inner ir le ame into being and took its pla e. As art dealers, galleries, urators, and
art riti s onstituted e ery se tor of the new e ology, designating artists as su h was
the result of a ollaborati e pro ess.
A prere uisite for being identi ed as an artist is ha ing a notable presen e at ar-
ious e ents, in luding e hibition openings and gatherings where one an meet different
types of people. If mentored by a senior person from within the inner ir le, then one
an get twi e the results for half the effort. n e one be omes a ture within the ir-
le, if you re not a urator or an art riti , then you must be an artist. n e identi ed as
an artist, whether or not one is a good artist is determined by the fre uen y with whi h
one s work is e hibited. Ne t, if an agent takes a liking to one s work, then one no
longer has to worry about food, shelter, and lothing. Here, a y le an take form:
310
while new omers often try to e pand their ir le, more established artists prefer to
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reformulate and tighten their own ir le into a smaller one.

Molded by market for es, the formation of the inner ir le an be used to e plain
the o erall situation of Chinese a ant-garde art in the mid- to late 1990s. As stated
abo e, the formation of ir les leads to the emergen e of smaller ir les. As a result,
large-s ale art mo ements that on e emerged in the 1980s ould not do the same in
the 1990s. With art marketi ation, the distan e between indi idual artists is in reasingly
widened. This has resulted in the ontinuous formation of inner ir les and indi idu-
ali ation among artists.
This te t is the trans ript of a spee h deli ered by the author at the 2003 i yi ie Shen hen
Meishuguan luntan irst Shen hen Art Museum orum originally titled Cong ti hi dao uan i : 20
shi i 90 niandai hou i yilai ianwei yishu huangtai fen i. Translated by iayun huang.
Art Medium and Criticism
CONTEMPORARY CHINESE ART MEDIA IN THE 1990S ( 1999 )

By Pi Daojian and Pi Li
...
iii i i i i i 1990
ositioned under new so ial ir umstan es, the 1990s art media appears to ha e a rela-
ti ely pluralisti stru ture. This pluralism refers not only to more di erse editorial on-
epts, but also nan ial and editorial operations. The early 1990s saw a drasti redu tion
in the media all o er China, whi h had a orresponding effe t on the rather bleak state
of art publi ations at the time. Among the famous two ournals and one paper of the
1980s Jiangsu Pictorial Jiangsu huakan , The Trend of Art Thought Meishu sichao , and
Fine Arts in China Zhongguo meishu bao only Jiangsu Pictorial sur i ed. With a new
editor in hief, Art Meishu underwent fundamental hanges. Whereas before the
ournal used to pro ide ob e ti e reporting, it now engaged in hostile riti ues of new
art. Besides the abo e-mentioned fa tors, the depression among art media was aused
by other fa tors as well. The politi al turmoil of 1989 ast a ti e indi iduals in art ir les
into a state of ideologi al haos. Some started to re e t on su esses and failures sin e
1985 some attempted to lear up long-standing mistakes resulting from trends in meta-
physi s some who were disappointed in the politi al en ironment oined the e odus
o erseas to seek a new life while still others kept silent under the pressure of state pol-
i y and omple interpersonal relationships. The younger painters and riti s, howe er,
keenly pi ked up on these hanges in so ial reality and offered their responses. These
were ultimately re e ted in the reati e eld as a transition from an interest in philo-
sophi al ideas and ultural onstru ts toward a on ern for ontemporary e isten e.
At the time, aside from Jiangsu Pictorial, Art Trends Yishu chaoliu and Contemporary
Art Dangdai yishu were two ournals that set a lear agenda for introdu ing ontem-
porary art. Art Trends was funded by the Suiyuan Art oundation from Taiwan. Edited
by ing ang and other painters, in the beginning it fo used on introdu ing the group
of mainland artists represented by the foundation. Later, it e ol ed into a ultural mag-
a ine that o ered theater, lm, photography, and ne art. While the maga ine was
edited in mainland China, it was published in Taiwan, and then brought to the main-
land and ir ulated among the inner ir le of the art world. ue to regulations on the
import and e port of publi ations, its in uen e remained limited and ould not om-
311
pare to the rea h of earlier ournals. Howe er, as a ase study on media, what Art Trends
|
re e ts is pre isely the haoti state Chinese art found itself in during the early 1990s.
Its editorial on ept has, in fa t, undergone a tremendous hange. In the rst issue it
introdu ed Cyni al ealism, a style that later pro ed to be highly in uential. It also
published in subse uent issues some theoreti al arti les orresponding to ontempo-
rary situations, for e ample, thoughts on the internationali ation of Chinese art 1992.1
and on riti ism 1993.4 . Howe er, as time passed, it be ame less and less responsi e
to reality. udging from the layout of its olumns, Art Trends seemed to set out to simul-
taneously take on the mission of introdu ing world ulture while also promoting
Chinese ontemporary art. Later, howe er, the fo us of the ournal shifted. The interna-
tional happenings it introdu ed seemed to ha e little rele an e to the ontemporary
de elopment of Chinese art, and the ma ority of the arti les were on theology and
poetry. E idently, the editors la ked the a ute sensiti ity needed toward the reforms
that were underway in the 1990s, and instead submerged themsel es in their de otion
to grand theories, mu h like the state of things in 1985. We annot but onsider this a
gra e editorial error. Sin e Art Trends itself was a produ t of a gallery-run operation,
most of the painters it introdu ed had some relationship with the gallery therefore, it
was naturally biased in its introdu tion to Chinese art. As a result, it e entually be ame
a peer ournal, losing its signi an e as media.
Contemporary Art, published by Hunan ine Arts ublishing House, mostly fol-
lowed the e e uti e editor system popular among ne art ournals in the 1980s in
whi h ea h issue would be o erseen by an e e uti e editor . But, sin e most of the
editors were ommissioned from outside sour es, the ournal did not ha e a lear and
uni ed style. The appearan e of ea h issue unfolded around a ertain style, sin e the
in ited guest editors were mostly riti s or painters whose indi idual interests were
in their respe ti e styles. The early phase of Contemporary Art showed an unfortunate
absen e of a s reening me hanism regarding the artists it promoted, and it failed to
report promptly on ontemporary art phenomena and e ents. Moreo er, udging from
the artists it show ased in 1993, it didn t re e t the hanges happening at the time in
art reation and riti ism. This was perhaps pre isely where it failed as media. In this
sense Contemporary Art la ked both timeliness and perspi a ity, the basi features of
media hen e, as a publi ation it is more like maga ine of ompiled data or studies on
spe i styles.
After 1991, the issue of the market re ei ed a great deal of attention from art ir-
les and was, o asionally, e en the topi most talked about. At the time, almost e ery
ournal had a olumn on the art market. n the surfa e, the market seemed to be a
purely e onomi issue, but, in fa t, it had its theoreti al roots in the hope that art
ould a hie e autonomy and independen e from politi s through the inter ention of
e onomi power. Howe er, in reality, to open up art to the market was not as simple
as letting businesspeople pay money for artwork on a less ob ious le el, it on erned
many fa tors, su h as state ultural poli y and ta poli y. Before these pre onditions
were e en established, some riti s were already on o ting elaborate, though impra -
ti al, plans for guiding the building of art olle tions. Art • Market Yishu • shichang
was started in the 1990s and was losely related to the irst 1990s Biennial Art air
Shoujie 90 niandai yishu shuangnian zhan . If we re ogni e the signi an e of this
biennial to 1990s Chinese art and onsider the art market fe er at the time, this ournal
was without a doubt a ery timely publi ation. Besides following the Biennial, it also
published a great deal of information about the international art market and musings
on the domesti art market, su h as how to enter the market, how to establish the
market, what would be ome of riti ism on e art enters the market, and other issues.
312
Sin e the art market was a popular topi at the time and was rele ant to the dire tion
|
of Chinese ontemporary art, when we look ba k, it s lear that this ournal pro ided
aluable theories. The problem with this ournal, howe er, was in its inherently tragi
nature. The market for Chinese ontemporary art has always been a uestion of strat-
egy, and not an essential problem. As a result, on e people dis o ered that the art
market ould not sol e the fundamental problems in Chinese art, this ournal had to
report only pra ti al information on the market itself, and thus lost its theoreti al and
riti al aura. Sadly, the Chinese art market was born with de ien ies and has ontin-
ued to suffer from malnutrition. n e the hopes that were pinned to the art market
turned out to be mere illusion, Art • Market ould not sur i e either. As a ournal, it
took on an awkward mission to show off the apabilities of the market while also
showing how the market ould testify to the alue of art only to nd the de elop-
ments in Chinese art and the realities of Chinese so iety eroded its reasons to e ist.
The abo e analysis demonstrates what a hallenging time the early 1990s were
for the art media. ailure ould befall those who were o erly keen to respond to
hanges as well as those who were o erly slow. In ontrast, Jiangsu Pictorial and Art
Gallery Hualang displayed a more sober and pre ise grasp of artisti realities. Jiangsu
Pictorial was one of the few ournals that sur i ed the 1980s and still remains a ti e
today with an impressi e in uen e in ne art ir les. Its in uen e deri es ertainly
from the fa t that it dates ba k to the 1980s, but also be ause it displays an ability to
ui kly re ogni e issues pre alent among art ir les, isolate them, and onsolidate
them to attra t more widespread attention. The 1989 e hibition China / Avant-Garde
Zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan along with the systemati introdu tion of Western art
theory and methodology by ournals su h as World Art Shijie meishu and Compilation
of Translations in Art Meishu yicong sin e the 1980s led art riti ism to enter into a
period of introspe tion. In une 1989, Jiangsu Pictorial laun hed a spe ial olumn
alled Contemporary Art Theorists and Criti s, whi h ondu ted studies and dis us-
sions on important on epts and riti s. Starting in 1989, Art and Art Panorama Yishu
guangjiao also presented dis ussions on riti ism. But, e entually Jiangsu Pictorial
be ame the host for all these dis ussions. In the following years, this ournal orga-
ni ed not only studies and introdu tions by riti s but also a dis ussion alled riti-
ism omes to the stage. E en though the uality of these arti les was aried some
e en seemed uite random or one-sided they played a big role in ele ating the sta-
tus and in uen e of riti s and helped artists to re ogni e the fun tion of riti s from
a theoreti al perspe ti e.
Jiangsu Pictorial was also able to promptly dis o er new phenomena in art re-
ation, for e ample, its dis ussion on New Literati painting Xin wenrenhua in 1990
and its earlier introdu tion to the New A ademi S hool Xin xueyuan pai . The edi-
tors keen sensiti ity was espe ially apparent in their introdu tion of important young
artists su h as Liu Wei, ang Li un, and eng an hi. Jiangsu Pictorial was also able to
wield great in uen e in riti al debates on hot issues during the rst half of the 1990s.
Its usual method was to assemble a number of different riti s to dis uss one issue.
Su h a group-style riti ism managed to highlight the popular issues in art reation.
uring the bleakest period in art media, Jiangsu Pictorial undoubtedly made signi -
ant ontributions to the ontinuity of ontemporary art riti ism. Sin e 1995, it has
again in ested mu h effort in in estigating new art phenomena su h as Con eptual
art and has organi ed orresponding dis ussions. Among these, the most animated
and enduring was the debate o er meaning in art. It is ne essary to point out here
that purely as a topi , the uestion of meaning itself was not really that popular, as
anyone with a basi knowledge of art history and art theory an make a reasonable
313
udgment on this topi . The arti les it organi ed did not onstitute a real debate
|
either, as there was a isible imbalan e between one side, whi h was rigorously and

aggressi ely on the offensi e, while the other side remained stubbornly reti ent, and
bystanders su essi ely drew their own on lusions. The dis ussion was in fa t a liter-
ary rusade triggered by a short 1,000-word essay. In other words, it was a game of
words and theories. Howe er, the onte t of this dis ussion re eals more fas inating
things: sin e 1995, the status of media in art ir les has been o ertaken by sales and
e hibitions aside from ad ertisements, people were already rather indifferent toward
the media. This debate did not really re e t any issues in the art world, rather it was
a media strategy whi h attempted to draw some attention ba k to the media. rom
the perspe ti e of media operations, this was a sa y mo e. But, from the a ademi
angle it ery likely pa ed the way for riti ism to be manipulated by the logi of a
anity fair and thus obs ured some real issues. Seeing the o erall pi ture of art riti-
ism in the 1990s, we dis o er that besides riti ism and dis ussion in the domain of
a ademi s and ideology, art ir les still nd themsel es engaged in fri olous s uab-
bles. How to dis ern and understand the nature of these different debates is a new
problem that the media has to fa e.
Art Gallery, published by Lingnan ine Arts ress, went through editorial hanges
in 1994, whi h pro ed to be a highly signi ant e ent in the de elopment of 1990s art.
udging from appearan e alone, it led all its peers at the time with its ne design and
printing. But, e en more important were the design and ontent of its olumns, whi h
signaled a new way of thinking about publi ations. The most engaging e amples of
this are its re iews of artists. There are two olumns in the ournal that ser e this pur-
pose, one titled eport from the Artist s Studio Yishujia gongzuoshi baogao whi h
introdu es painters who ha e more mature styles, and the other ainter s Notes
Huajia shouji whi h presents painters whose personal styles are still in the formati e
stages. The arti les in eport from the Artist s Studio run longer than the a erage riti-
al essay, the illustrations tend to be more omplete, and they pro ide an in-depth
analysis of the artist. The ournal also re uired authors to address the te hni al aspe ts
of the works, whi h was well re ei ed by painters. ne of the best indi ators of this
strategy was when the artist Shi Chong won the gold medal at the Annual Exhibition of
Chinese il Painting Zhongguo youhua nianzhan in 1995. Art Gallery immediately pub-
lished a report on him that not only pro ided s holarly analysis, but also ontained a
detailed a ount of his te hni al pro ess. This satis ed the general uriosity about Shi
among art ir les and made Art Gallery famous nationwide. Besides its attention to
painters, Art Gallery also has a lear take on a ariety of theoreti al issues and art
trends. Its open-mindedness toward artisti de elopment is espe ially e ident in its
ontinual reporting on Con eptual art as it has emerged in re ent years. The ournal s
re iew of installation art in e ery issue marks a first for China: the first time that
detailed interpretations of indi idual ases of installation art ha e been arried out.
udging from its growth o er the past few years, Art Gallery seems to ontinually be
looking to strike a balan e between a ademi s and ommer e, art and theory, easel
art and Con eptual art. Like other ournals, it also imposes publishing fees on some
artists, but their guidelines are more tightly ontrolled. They ha e me hanisms in pla e
to s reen artists so that fee payment is not the sole basis for publi ation. While riti s
ser e as the editors of the ournal, the main audien e onsists of artists. or this rea-
son, while it fo uses on theoreti al issues, it does not abandon the te hni al aspe ts
that artists are interested in either. As this is the ournal s selling point, it furnishes the
spa e for the ournal s theoreti al in uiries. While easel painting is the basis for its
readership, Con eptual art represents de elopments in art trends. It has to look after
314
both sides, making the ournal readable and sellable while also showing a ademi
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ision. In a word, the dilemma Art Gallery fa es is a mi ro osm of ontemporary

Chinese art media. As media, its meaning lies in a sear h for a oordinating me hanism
that is able to balan e all the abo e-mentioned interests and relationships, while
maintaining a ademi for e and sustainability.
Arts Circle Meishujie is a brand-new ontemporary art ournal published in
uang i. Its editors laim to embra e hallenges and stri e to study how to syn hro-
ni e with ontemporary art. We are not going to dis uss it here as it ust started, and
we shall wait and see sin e we hardly know anything as of yet e ept that it fo uses on
ontemporary art.
If the e isten e and de elopment of Jiangsu Pictorial and Art Gallery symboli e
the transition and e ploration of modes of media in the 1990s, then Fine Arts Literature
Meishu wenxian , published by Hubei ine Arts ress, and Art Life Yishu jie , pub-
lished by uangdong Modern Huabao ress, are two publi ations that ha e been
somewhat e lipsed. E en though Fine Arts Literature has good printing and design, its
editorial poli ies seem to be o erly stringent in adhering to ertain formulae. In e ery
issue, it uses a theme to group some artists works and organi e materials su h as rit-
i s re ommendations, artists self-a ounts, and illustrations. This method an er-
tainly further studies and deepen readers understanding of the artists, but the hosen
theme often la ks the ne essary theoreti al ba kground and relationship to reality,
whi h in turn makes the ournal appear to be a thoughtless pasti he. Moreo er, their
re ommendations of artists also seem somewhat for ed and affe ted, like re om-
mendations for the sake of re ommendation. Its themes are mainly designed around
the i onography, style, or material of the works of art. This often reates a wide dis-
repan y among the uality of the sele ted artists, and moreo er goes against the
trend in ontemporary art ir les that boundaries and ategori ation are to be hal-
lenged and de ed.
Artists Yishujia is rated the most la ish ournal in art ir les today, and laims to
be the best-selling ne art ournal. Howe er, it imposes the highest publishing fees for
important artists, they an rea h e-digit gures . When popular media in est in spe-
iali ed media, it ould mark a turning point in the latter s growth. Howe er, it appears
that this didn t happen with Artists. It was originally designed to represent the trend of
ollaboration between spe iali ed media and popular media, and was supposed to
ha e a natural ad antage be ause of its familiarity with media s ommer ial operating
me hanisms. nfortunately, without a solid intelle tual ba kground, it was e entually
redu ed to ser ing as a pa kaging fa tory for some popular and renowned artists,
warping the pioneering nature of ontemporary art to ater to the popular. In the end,
it instead obs ured some real issues in ultural de elopment and has been redu ed to
the le el of white- ollar leisure reading. f ourse, we annot demand too mu h of
ournals like Artists be ause after all it represents the beginning of Chinese popular art
reading matter. Sin e it is not based on a foundation of professional knowledge, its
ad an es must depend on impro ements in ultural edu ation in the ountry.
When analy ing art media in the 1990s, we ertainly annot ignore the in uen e
of the a ademi ournals published by ne art institutions, among whi h the most out-
standing are World Art and Fine Arts Research Meishu yanjiu , both published by the
Central A ademy of ine Arts. As a ademi ournals, they ha e their own hara teris-
ti s. In parti ular, they fo us on analysis and studies instead of mere information. It is
pre isely be ause of this that we an often dis o er in-depth studies in these ournals.
Fine Arts Research has been paying attention to ontemporary art sin e 1985 and was
ery in uential in its e aluations of the 85 New Wa e. Sin e 1990, it has also had its
315
positi e effe ts in presenting a ademi art and espe ially New eneration art. In
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re ent years, World Art has been pro iding a omprehensi e introdu tion to interna-

tional ontemporary art. What is noteworthy is that this kind of introdu tion, unlike
the aimlessness displayed in these types of endea ors in the past, is more systemati ,
omprehensi e, and timely. It in ludes easel painting and also tou hes on Con eptual
art and art theories. This is highly ital for the establishment of basi ne art theory
and ser es as an important resour e for art reation and riti ism. It is also worth not-
ing that Art Garden Meiyuan by the Lu un A ademy of ine Arts re ently also started
to be in ol ed in ontemporary art e ents and displays an open attitude toward non-
a ademi artwork and theories, whi h is undoubtedly a heartening sign. The Chinese
Artists Asso iation puts out a small olume with somewhat shabby printing alled
Artists Newsletter Meishujia tongxun , but be ause it is ir ulated internally within art
ir les, its in uen e annot be o erlooked. e ently this ournal has tried to pro ide
ob e ti e and fair reporting on happenings in art ir les, and is noti eably attempting
to e pand its apa ity for information.
ne of the differen es between the 1990s and 1980s is that in the 1990s art ir les
ha e been isolated from other ultural domains. They ha e remained ignorant of ea h
other s work, pro e ts, and meanings. This problem has not been re ogni ed and
addressed by the media. Howe er, in some ultural media a few art riti s ha e made
ontributions to help remedy the situation. E en though insiders in art ir les ha e
reser ations about the a rimony present in Yin inan s olumn in Reading Dushu
titled no king at the oor Alone Duzi koumen , Yin s style of writing still has its
own harm. It surely will play a spe ial role in ommuni ating between art and other
ultural spheres. Avant-garde Today Jinri xianfeng is an all-around publi ation in a
series about a ant-garde literature and art. E en though the riti s who preside o er
this ournal tend to be ery sub e ti e and sometimes one-sided, it ne ertheless ser es
to integrate ontemporary Chinese art with e ploratory efforts in other ultural dis i-
plines, thus engaging in a mutual pursuit for a more open ision and e panded eld. In
the future, this kind of work will perhaps all for parti ipation from art ir les in order
to en ourage greater interdis iplinary ommuni ation.
Notes
. See i ao ian, Shuangnian han uopin de iben gu i eneral Assessment of the arti ipating Works
of the Biennial , in Lixiang yu caozuo [Ideals and peration , ed. L eng Si huan: Si huan ine Arts
ress, .
. See Yi Ying, Meishu piping de in han he paihuai The rogress and Hesitation of Art Criti ism , in
iushi niandai Zhongguo meishu 1990 – 1992 [1990s Chinese Art, 1990 – 1992 , ed. hang ing rum i:
in iang ine Arts and hotography ublishing House, , .
. See angdai meishu piping bitan Con ersations on Contemporary Art Criti ism , Meishu [Art ,
no. iping wuren tan A i e- erson is ussion on Criti ism Meishu [Art , no.
and Yishu guangjiao [Art Panorama : no. .
. See Meishujie [Arts Circle , : no. , .
. In fa t, if we take into onsideration that Contemporary Art Dangdai yishu and Fine Arts Literature
Meishu wenxian were under the pressure of limited ISSN and had to adopt the e pedien y of repla ing
ournals with books, the abo e riti ism is ob iously too harsh, be ause some material problems pla e
lear limits on their normal editorial pra ti es.
E erpted from a te t originally published as iushi niandai de hongguo dangdai meishu huanmei in
Dangdai yishu yu renwen kexue [Contemporary Art and Humanities Changsha: Hunan ine Arts ublishing
House, 1999 , 227 39. Translated by Yin ing Liu.
CRITICISM ON CHINESE EXPERIMENTAL ART IN THE 1990S ( 2002 )
316
By Yi Ying
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Criti ism on e perimental art in China through the 1990s began with a re e tion upon
its own history. The China / Avant-Garde e hibition Zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan held
in early 1989 pushed the a ant-garde art mo ement that emerged in the mid-1980s to
a peak. The e ent also marked the end of a histori al era. At that point the most pra ti-
al uestion to ask was where modern art in China would go from there. An ob ious
super ial hara teristi of the modern art mo ement was the imitation of modern
Western art, regardless of one s own ultural ba kground or the thinking or moti a-
tion as to why one should imitate Western art. But the mo ement did ha e both his-
tori al and so ial signi an e. It radi ally hanged the shape of modern art in China,
introdu ing more open ways of thinking and dire ting the awareness of the artists
toward the international s ene. More importantly, it made a positi e ontribution to
the ideologi al eman ipation mo ement and to so ial demo ra y within Chinese so i-
ety. It had ust one fatal weakness: it repla ed riti ism s tools with weapons in i ting
riti ism, dire tly borrowing from arious forms of modern Western art indis rimi-
nately. It might ha e e erted a great impa t, but it did not reate a lo ali ed language
of modern art, nor did it address real issues pertaining to China. But this phenomenon
of rushing to the opposite e treme was somehow reating an a priori ideologi al model
for a preindustriali ed so iety, and on e moderni ation got underway, there was no
longer any need to seek a modern language.
At the end of the 1980s, a ant-garde art riti ism ontained two main streams of
thought about the de elopment of modern art in China. ne was ombining modern
approa hes with traditional Chinese elements to arri e at a modern art with Chinese
hara teristi s and the other was engaging with the international s ene, skipping mod-
ernism and leaping straight into the embra e of postmodernism. Both attitudes theories
were in step with the mood of the 1980s, and assisted in promoting the de elopment of
a ant-garde art. This de elopment was abruptly terminated by the politi al turmoil in
late spring and early summer of 1989, and along with the a ant-garde art mo ement, its
asso iated eld of riti ism was hushed temporarily. In fa t, it was during this sudden
histori al turn that the modern art mo ement e perien ed a profound hange.
As the riti s be ame pu led about the dire tion modern art would take from
there, the art was already hanging and de eloping after its own fashion. Art riti ism
was both fast and slow in rea ting to the hange. It was fast be ause it ui kly sensed
the hange and slow be ause it did not respond in terms of theory. So the theory
began to lag behind the mo ement. In the early 1990s, a ant-garde art riti ism made
little progress in grasping re e ting the reality. nder the pressure of another round of
antiliberali ation, riti ism retreated into itself, produ ing only abstra t dis ussions
about the fundamental goals and methodologies of riti al dis ourses, whi h were er-
tainly signi ant as theoreti al re iews, as a summary of art riti ism in China in the
1980s, or as theoreti al preparation for the further de elopment of riti ism.
In April 1990, two e hibitions were held at the allery of the Central A ademy of
ine Arts. ne was a solo painting e hibition by Liu iaodong the other, World of
Female Artists Nü huajia de shijie , was ointly organi ed by eight women artists. In
omparison with the a ant-garde art styles of the 1980s, the works of those young art-
ists displayed an ob ious a ademi tenden y. The ma ority were born in the 19 0s and
did not e perien e the Cultural e olution or work in rural areas as edu ated youth.
They were uni ersity students in the 1980s, when the ideologi al eman ipation and the
a ant-garde art mo ements were at their height. Their art on eyed new signals. irst,
it was a dire t re e tion of real e perien e and a dire t depi tion of the situation peo-
317
ple found themsel es in as China began to e perien e a period of so ial transformation.
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Se ond, it was an important symbol of modern so iety their works showed urban

ulture and life, whi h were also important symbols of so ial transformation in China.
Third, the presentation of indi idual e perien e showed the surfa ing of indi idual
alue as olle ti ism dissol ed in the 1980s, and the tradition of heroism and beliefs
were lost. To some e tent, these fa tors indi ated the path of de elopment that e peri-
mental art would embark upon in China in the 1990s.
In Mar h 1991, the Institute of ine Arts at the China National A ademy of Arts
sponsored a seminar re iewing the ne arts in China during the 1980s. In addition to
summari ing the 85 New Wa e art mo ement, the seminar anti ipated the further
de elopment of a ant-garde art in the 1990s. The emerging new a ademi -styled art
naturally drew the attention of riti s. The emergen e of this style was intri ately tied
up with the uni ue politi al ba kground of that time, when the a ant-garde was losing
its momentum and oming under riti ism as being apitalist liberali ation in essen e.
It pro ided an opportune moment in history for a new a ademi ism to emerge as a
stopgap. New a ademi ism was a temporary term, for the artists had ust graduated
from a ademies, and their works arried an ob ious tinge of the ampus. Yet their natu-
ral styles were hinged on a ademi and realisti approa hes, whi h were astly different
from the main style of the a ant-garde art of the 1980s. In uly 1991, an e hibition alled
New Generation Art Xin shengdai yishu zhan was held in the Museum of e olutionary
History in Bei ing, whi h was a on entrated display of the new a ademi s hool.
Thereafter this artisti trend was referred to as New eneration. This re eals that the
New eneration not only represented a style, but also a new trend in art, the in uen e
of whi h e tended o er the entire 1990s.
In Bei ing, the New eneration attra ted attention with a style that itself was at
on e supplement and rea tion to a ant-garde art. In his arti le A Strong o us on
eality, iao Chen e presses his understanding of the a ademi art: They were rees-
tablishing general prin iples for easel painting and realism . . . e tra lose obser ation of
details and a sub e ti e shaping of language, a deepening of the spirit of realism and a
free use of e pressionism form the wings of their arts. Yin inan, howe er, emphasi es
the New eneration s relationship with urban ulture: rban life ser es as their re-
ati e ba kdrop, and the interse tion between their opinions on life and on art shares
their fundamental iewpoints. In Bei ing, riti ism on the new a ademi s hool was
relati ely spe i , but la ked theoreti al depth. Analyses of the new a ademi s hool
were inseparable from those of the parti ular histori al onditions and ba kground of
that time. Howe er, most riti s, ons iously or not, a oided that issue. This further
re e ted the fa t that, fa ed with the uestion of the relationship between art on one
side and so ial and histori al onditions on the other, many riti s had not fully mas-
tered the method of mi roanalysis.
A typi al e ample of this omple was Li ianting s e aluation of the rogue art of
ang Li un and others. He said, By grasping a sense of meaninglessness, the rogue
humorous realism is signi ant in terms of how it de onstru ts the world. It dissol ed
the signi an e of the alue systems that had ontrolled the people and their entire
so ial reality for many years.
L eng opposed this by saying: In the present age, it is really ridi ulous to belie e
the ultural for e of a ertain mentality, that is, to belie e that a primiti e garden an be
built in a modern osmopolitan en ironment. But, what was pu ling was that L
eng s refutation was not based on the on rete hanges in Chinese so iety after 1989.
Instead, it started from a fabri ated argument, whi h was the de onstru tion pro e t
in the new histori al stage. If from 1985 the a ant-garde to a great e tent blindly
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a epted the ontrol of Western modernism and its theories, after 1989 it was lear
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that Chinese riti s remained under this in uen e. While the artists were being trans-
formed by real life, the riti s were often blind to on rete so ial reality. To get rid of
the 1985 omple and re onstru t modern arts, L eng reated the task of ideologi-
al riti ism, whi h was like building a house on sand.
The de elopment of art did not stop be ause of riti s misreading of it. In 1992,
the irst 1990s Biennial Art air Shoujie 90 niandai yishu shuangnian zhan was held in
uang hou, and was the rst large-s ale e hibition of modern art in the 1990s. Works
with urban sub e ts dominated the e hibition, but there were three different
approa hes to e pression, whi h again hinted at the dire tion Chinese e perimental art
would take in the 1990s. These were realism, of whi h the New eneration was repre-
sentati e op art, mainly seen in the work of artists from Hubei ro in e and e peri-
ments with language by artists from Hunan and iangsu ro in es.
The rst tended to use abstra t languages, while the latter mainly used materials
and de i es. No matter how different the three were in their form of e pression, they
had something in ommon, whi h was a lo ali ation and indi iduali ation of e peri-
menting with art. The artists no longer had their sights fo used on modern Western art
or indis riminately imitati e forms of modern Western art. Instead, they fo used on
China s reality and their own personal e perien e. E en their e periments with lan-
guage sought indi idual means of e pression. In 1993, following the e hibition China’s
New Art, Post-1989, the pairing of op painting styles and politi al elements, known as
oliti al op, gained mu h attention both within China and abroad. In this way, the
progress from the urban realism of the New eneration to oliti al op formed the
main trend of e perimental art in China in the early 1990s, and the fo us of art riti ism
nally swit hed from the e treme in the 1980s to reality in the 1990s.
In 1994, in my arti le The Meaning of Work Should Be Clear, I summari ed this
new trend in a theoreti al manner: It was the so- alled New eneration artists who rst
dissol ed the obs urity of the period around 1985. They dire tly portray their own life-
style in su h a simple, at way that iewers nd it easy to understand their works. And
be ause of this the meanings of their works are ob ious. rom their depi tion of e eryday
life, one an learly feel the oldness and dullness of life. La king the sense of responsibil-
ity and rationality that hara teri ed works produ ed after 1985, these paintings re eal
the loss of so ial beliefs and entral alues among this generation. A mental state of la k-
ing ideals, beliefs, and pursuits has be ome a theme behind the paintings. rior to this,
Li ianting had presented the on ept of meaningless realism. The meaning here had
two meanings. irst, it referred to the modernist spirit during the period around 1985,
whi h was the embodiment of humanisti ideals through forms of art. Se ond, it referred
to the signi an e of traditional realism, su h as re olution, ideals, and sentiments.
In his arti le n Cultural Idealism, Huang huan pointed out: Modern Chinese
art in the 1990s is being formed in a healthy framework with a ertain ultural uality
and in a uni ue state. Howe er, to one s disappointment, the de adent, de e ted, yni-
al attitudes shown in this pro ess, and the dire tion toward pan-politi s shown by the
fin de si cle ultural pessimism in arious international o asions ha e be ome for es
that ha e the potential to impede this positi e de elopment. What is espe ially embar-
rassing to us is the fa t that where our ideal, healthy art market has not yet been estab-
lished, the worship of money, egoism, and opportunism that is fashionable for the sake
of fashionableness none of whi h has a ultural uality now o upies the market.
Ha ing abandoned idols, we are e en abandoning basi alues and ideals, therefore
fa ed with a great sense of loss.
The spee hes made by eng iaoping during his tour of southern China were an
319
important turning point in China s reform, opening, and restru turing of its e onomi
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system that was implemented in the early 1980s. In the pro ess of transformation from

a planned to a market e onomy, Chinese so iety moderni ed rapidly to mat h the high-
speed e onomi de elopment. In the same manner as modern Chinese art within a
preindustrial so iety was onfronted by the hallenge of modernism in the 1980s, in the
1990s, we felt the pressure of postmodernism, whi h was refle ted by the New
eneration phenomenon. The loss of ultural idealisti alues is not a rational dis ard-
ing of what was or was not healthy or good, but a produ t of reality. E onomi de el-
opment ga e rise to a wealthy middle lass against rising unemployment among
workers and peasant workers. The entire nation was e perien ing either prosperity or
po erty. n one hand, the re reational ulture of middle- lass and petty bourgeois ul-
ture be ome fashionable on the other, ulgar mass ulture spread un he ked. In the
age of market e onomy, mass ulture is not only o ertaking a ant-garde art and elite
ulture: as a sub e t and ob e t at on e, mass ulture pro ides new isual e perien e
and a new world of images. In this way, new meanings and forms of language ha e
been deri ed, deeply hanging a ant-garde art and e perimental art.
Yang iaoyan s The Cartoon eneration A eport on the Sur i al of Consuming
Culture in Southern China rea ted sharply to this issue through the signi an e of the
Cartoon eneration: irst, the sprightly nature and frankness of the Cartoon
eneration ended aestheti s that emphasi ed formalism, su h as modernism and e en
postmodernism. opular taste entered the eld of art, and artists nally reali ed that
the high wall between popular and indi idual tastes is a tually surmountable through
the work style of the Cartoon eneration, and that the key is to nd a pla e to oin the
reality, and a uni ue form of language. Se ond, as art is ne er limited to one form in
e pressing thoughts, we an work with arious forms, in luding e uipment and om-
prehensi e media, to e press a new aestheti appeal, ideas, and knowledge. Third, dif-
ferent hoi es of art forms re e t different people s pursuits. Their healthy ontents are
not ne essarily to be e pressed with lassi al forms.
ou Yue in, editor-in- hief of Contemporary Art Dangdai yishu , also talked about
this in the maga ine: Ha ing arisen rapidly, and relying on the for es of market e on-
omy, ultural industry, mass media, and ommer ial operations, mass ulture with its
rela ing, e iting, entertaining, ommer ial, and at hara ters has be ome a ma or
means of re reation for the masses. n e silent in front of the power of mainstream
and elite ulture, the masses ha e obtained unpre edented spa e for self-imagination
in today s mass ulture. This means that, within the onte t of ontemporary ulture in
China, mass ulture, whi h was marginal in the 1980s, has ome to the fore, standing
together with mainstream and elite ulture. In China s ne art ommunity, audy art,
thus named by riti s, was the rst to rea t to the mass ulture.
The entangled uestion of a ant-garde art was then fa ed with the hallenge of
postmodernism, but Chinese so iety was far from entering a real postindustrial age
or postmodern so iety. The o erlapping of preindustrial so iety, industrial so iety,
and postmodernism formed an important aspe t of Chinese so iety in the 1990s. As
mass ulture spread un he ked in ities, the most basi of ommuni ation pro e ts were
under onstru tion in illages in suburban areas. E perimental art hose mass ulture as
its brea h. Was this the a ant-garde s response to the mass ulture, or a strategy for pro-
du ing a ant-garde art In fa t, it was oliti al op, not audy art, that was the rst to
respond to mass ulture. But oliti al op did not respond to Chinese mass ulture itself,
but mar hed toward the world, that is, the Western world, using a form of mass ulture.
Cons iously or un ons iously, oliti al op used strategies that atered to Western styles
of interpretation, whi h was the only way to enable the West to e er ise its power of
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spee h o er Chinese art.

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Sin e the 1993 e hibition China’s New Art, Post-1989, ontemporary Chinese art
has been present at large international e hibitions, and Western museums, galleries,
art riti s, and art olle tors ha e begun to pay attention to ontemporary Chinese art.
This attention is both unidire tional and olonialist. In his spee h at the Symposium on
the Current State and Trends in 1990s Chinese Art iushi niandai hongguo meishu
ian huang yu ushi yantao hui held in 1998, riti eng Boyi said: Sin e the begin-
ning of the 1990s, many Chinese artists ha e introdu ed elements of traditional Chinese
ulture into their work, su h as fengshui, Taoist magi gures and in antations, di ina-
tion, Chinese medi ine, en, and Taoism. It was the naturally formed habit of doing the
e a t opposite of what they should in China that dro e them ons iously to use those
mysterious, not-understood elements of their own ulture, a hie ing their integration
into the new en ironment by way of in asion. Contemporary Chinese artists on the
mainland reate works using the ultural elements of the urrent reality, fo using on
the natural owing state of life e perien e, tra ing memories and impressions of e is-
ten e, and integrating these with the e eryday life of the ommon people. As artists
remolded daily life, iewers parti ipation and the pro ess of dialogue are transformed
into ertain le er de i es and beha iors.
As eng Boyi has pointed out, from ultural sub ersion in the 1980s to ultural
utili ation in the 1990s, Chinese artists, both in China and abroad, were supported by
a well-organi ed international network. The ultural utili ation of ontemporary
Chinese artists, or utili ation of traditional and ontemporary ultural symbols, has
been supported and used by this international network. And the so- alled interna-
tional re ognition has in turn promoted the internationali ation of ontemporary
Chinese art, and en ouraged more Chinese artists, espe ially marginal artists, to reate
works a ording to the standards of this international network in order to enter fur-
ther into international e hibitions and the international market. rom oliti al op to
audy art and then to an underground a ant-garde, we an see that there is an
in isible hand ontrolling ontemporary Chinese art. Cultural power and olonial lan-
guage are not indi idual phenomena, but are losely onne ted to the post Cold War
ultural strategy of Western ountries, and t the politi al need of the Western media
to demoni e China. They are gra e threats to the serious e ploration of ontemporary
Chinese art. is ussions about the power of spee h be ame a hot topi in ne-art rit-
i ism after the mid-1990s. We should point out that riti s are not in agreement on
this uestion.
As Huang huan said, they are against ultural monopolies within China and at the
same time riti i e the ultural olonialism of foreign ountries. This is a uestion that
has been re ogni ed theoreti ally but is hard to identify and sol e in pra ti e.
ou Yue in said, a ed with the present ulture and art in China, we often nd
oursel es fa ing a dif ult dilemma, a ontradi tion. That is, on the one hand, we wish
we ould reate more forms and works of art that belong to our own nation, and be
in uen ed by Western ulture as little as possible, so as to pro e our identity as a nation.
n the other hand, we wish China would at h up with de eloped ountries in terms
of material wealth, and be prosperous and strong enough to ri al any world power.
And this re uires us to learn more elements bene ial to moderni ation from Western
i ili ation and ulture.
Sun inmian, who sees no risis in ultural olonialism, said, a ed with the post-
olonial ultural hegemony and awareness of the power of spee h, we need not
be ome emotional and hold up the banner of nationalism. As China has lagged behind
the West in the progress of moderni ation sin e the dawn of the modern era, there has
321
been a risis of e isten e among the Chinese people. As a risis of e isten e is in
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nature a risis of ulture, the only way out of the risis is to open to the world and

learn from foreign ultures, whi h is alled ultural re olution.
Wang Nanming, while riti i ing post olonialism, stressed the relationship
between language and sub e t. In his opinion, it was due to double standards on the
part of the West that art riti ism in China gradually left the motif of art language and
fo used on so ial and ultural themes. Although this shift of attention annot be totally
attributed to double standards from the West, Wang s riti ism on post olonialism
was to the point. He said, Chinese art does not draw attention as art. To Westerners,
Chinese art needs only to pro ide a kind of ideologi al proof, and this is the reason
why Cyni al ealism drew attention. So, when we dis o er su h dual standards, we
should repla e our delight with a sense of risis on erning art. We ha e been told of
the true olors of Western double standards, that is, Westerners use a standard of
artisti suprema y that they ha e used sin e an ient times when udging their own
ontemporary art, while using a standard of how mu h they an learn about the pres-
ent situation in China when udging Chinese art. In other words, Westerners are inter-
ested in ontemporary Chinese art merely out of a partiality for no elty.
In general, the dis ussions on the power of spee h and the riti ism of post olo-
nialism did not go ery deep, nor did they analy e or study the arious on epts and
terms. The key problem is that riti ism itself is a disad antaged part of ulture. In the
tide of globali ation, and under pressure from ad antaged ultures, art riti ism
e presses only intelle tual on erns, ha ing no power to hange the status uo.
Howe er, as Wang Nanming reali ed, post olonial riti ism has brought about an
important hange in riti ism, whi h is a swit h from formal riti ism to so ial riti ism,
or a swit h from modernism to postmodernism. And he has e pressed his worries
about it. Ba k to So iety: A e e tion on Contemporary Chinese Art by i Li learly
shows this attitude:
The in uen es of illiberal nationalism and the iew of the West as the enter ha e
resulted in the fa t that ontemporary Chinese art emphasi es Chineseness,
while the ideas of the disguised new formalism fo us on art, trying to a hie e
de elopment in art through studies of the genealogi al system of the language. In
fa t, against the ba kground of globali ation, the two of them an hardly lead to
any e ual-dialogue relationship about alue. erhaps we an only dedu e our
standpoint by putting Chinese, ontemporary, and art together for study.
Su h pairings of the words as Chinese ontemporary, ontemporary Chinese,
Chinese art and ontemporary art make it ine orable that we should regard popu-
lari ation of forms, demo rati ation of tastes, di ersi ation of languages, and
so iali ation of e hanges as the basi orientation of alue in Chinese art reation
and resear h in the new entury, so as to lead ontemporary Chinese art ba k to
Chinese so iety.
The swit h from formal riti ism to so ial riti ism does not represent a de elop-
ment of art riti ism as a eld of study, but rather that the status uo of ontemporary
art has made riti s pay attention to elements beyond art mo ements and works of art,
su h as the onte t, ba kground, and so ial onditions that ha e informed a work of
art. An indi idual riti may not belong to any s hool or use any ed means. As in the
ase of ontemporary Chinese so iety, the rapid de elopment of whi h has resulted in
a high degree of omple ity and di ersity, ontemporary Chinese art does not ha e a
ertain means or s hool that ould hallenge the omple reality and rapid hange
322
alone. In fa t, this is part of what led to the formation of so ial riti ism. In ontempo-
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rary Chinese art riti ism, so ial riti ism emerged in the mid-1990s. Although we an
understand it as a means of riti ism, it has been most ef ient in its in ol ement with
the status uo of art, adapting itself to mainstream de elopments in ontemporary art.
Besides post olonial ultural riti ism, in the mid- and late 1990s, realisti riti ism
and theoreti al dis ussions on a series of issues and phenomena su h as publi ness,
e perimental ink and wash, globali ation, and new media art showed a more and
more ob ious tenden y toward so ial riti ism. Here, so ial riti ism is embodied in
two tenden ies. ne is onte t, with post olonial ultural riti ism as an e ample. This
analy es the onditions that surround the reation of works of art from so ial, histori-
al, and ultural angles, and ignores the sub e ti e intentions of the artist or what the
works imply. The other tenden y is studying ultural onditions without onsideration
of indi idual works and mo ements. An e ample of the se ond tenden y is the study
of publi ness and globali ation, whi h was still dri en by ne essity. In the late 1990s,
dis ussions about publi ness formed a ma or topi in ne arts riti ism.
is ussions about publi ness originated from the de elopment of ontemporary
Chinese s ulpture. The late 1990s saw unpre edented a ti ity in ontemporary Chinese
s ulpture. A series of a ti ities, su h as Invitational Exhibition of Sculptures by Young
Artists ingnian diaosujia zuopin yaoqingzhan in Hang hou, the e hibition Modern
Sculptures in ingdao, and the Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Sculpture Dangdai
diaosu yishu nianduzhan held at Shen hen s He iangning Art Museum, broke the
mode of e hibiting s ulptures on pedestals and brought ontemporary s ulpture into
the publi domain. Sun henhua and ao Tianmin remarked in a sur ey they wrote that
the uestion of publi ness in ontemporary s ulpture is a uestion of how to publi ly
transmit the artist s personal e perien e in reating the s ulpture, whi h is a new ues-
tion that has emerged within the ontemporary ultural situation. Its essen e is that,
with the rise of mass ulture in ontemporary so iety and the transfer of the power of
art to the publi , traditional elitist modes of s ulpture are being alled into uestion. In
the past, there were distin t modes, wherein elitist s ulpture was positioned as the
sole domain of the s ulptor, while publi art was held in disdain. The de elopment of
ontemporary ulture re uires us to re onsider this problem.
In Huang huan s opinion, China s traditional system of art has always been
based on a kind of administrati e power that e tends beyond publi ness. The New Art
mo ement has not radi ally undermined the power. n the ontrary, be ause of its
elitist tenden y, it has made the uestion la k the basis of so ial pra ti e. And this has
been aggra ated by the all-round interferen e of the Western ontemporary art sys-
tem into ontemporary Chinese art. ubli ness is a modernist mode of e isten e.
We are fa ed with two e tremes. n the one hand, there is the populari ation of art,
ommer ial oil paintings, ulgarly lus ious ink and wash, and alligraphy in politi al
and ommer ial ommunities. n the other hand, we ha e the oloni ation of a ant-
garde art, embassy art, underground a ant-garde art, and marginal artists, and a form-
less ontrolling hand behind them all. The former aters to publi taste and stunts the
spirit of art, while the latter is kept out of the publi domain, in spite of its modern
form. Li ongming mentioned publi ness when talking about the power of spee h:
Should e hibitions be for an elite or for the ommon people We are fa ed with the
attitude of the publi in regard to the uestion of publi ness, whi h is a ery pra ti al
uestion. The origin of the uestion of publi ness and the shift of so ial stru ture in
the new age ha e led to dis ussions in the publi arena. In the past, there was state
ersus indi idual, and there was no platform of e uality between the two.
Yin Shuang i pointed out another aspe t of publi ness: Contemporary art should
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not be ome an underground art e lusi e to a few artists and stay in a half- on ealed
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state, for that is not a healthy mentality toward the publi . We should seek possible

hannels and use arious ways to ommuni ate with the publi and win their under-
standing. We should regard the healthy de elopment of ontemporary art as an essen-
tial part of moderni ing the Chinese nation and onstru ting an ad an ed ulture and
a ti ely promoting it in a dialogue between world ultures. The publi ness of ontem-
porary art should in lude a ti ely and dis reetly pushing forth the ourse of di ersi -
ation and demo rati ation of China s ontemporary art system.
The uestion of publi ness in ol es arious aspe ts, su h as the lowest moral
standard of art, popular art and elite ulture, publi images, and mass media.
is ussions about publi ness ha e e tended into the new entury. rom the dis us-
sions one an see that, at the turn of the entury, ontemporary Chinese art has a dif-
ferent situation than it did in the early 1990s, being more open. As a large ountry with
a rapidly de eloping e onomy, China must meet the hallenge of globali ation with a
more open attitude. This is also an opportunity for ontemporary Chinese art to
de elop. Criti ism an per ei e things beyond the mo ements, and show an unpre e-
dented depth. The rst de ade of the new entury is ery likely to witness a restru tur-
ing of theory, a deepening re e tion in the eld of art riti ism. With ri h e perien e
from the pre ious de ade, when riti ism was so lose to mo ements that it was
una oidably in uen ed by them, in this de ade we should usher in an age of real riti-
ism as a s ien e by means of obser ation, analysis, and riti ue.
Notes
. Jiangsu huakan [Jiangsu Pictorial , no. , . Arti le translated in this olume as New
eneration and Close p Artists by Yin inan. Ed.
. Yi Ying, Xueyuan de huanghun [The Sunset of Academicism Changsha: Hunan ine Arts ublishing House,
, . Arti le originally published in Jiangsu huakan [Jiangsu Pictorial , no. , .
. Jiangsu huakan [Jiangsu Pictorial , no. , .
. Jiangsu huakan [Jiangsu Pictorial , no. , .
. Dangdai yishu [Contemporary Art ol. .
. iushi niandai hongguo meishu ian huang yu ushi yantao hui Symposium on the Current State
and Trends in s Chinese Art , Meishu yanjiu ine Arts esear h : no. .
. hongguo meishu hong de wenhua himin wenti sanren tan Three- erson is ussion about Cultural
Colonialism in Chinese ine Arts , Meishu guancha [Art bservation : no. .
. Hou himin huati: lishi yu ianshi The Sub e t of ost olonialism : History and eality , Meishu
guancha [Art bservation : no. .
. ifang shuang hong biao hun yu dandgai yishu piping de itu ouble Standards of the West and the
Wrong ath of Contemporary Art Criti ism , Jiangsu Huakan [Jiangsu Pictorial , no. , .
. Meishu yanjiu [Fine Arts Research : no. .
. Sun henhua and ao Tianmin, i er hui dangdai ingnian diaosu ia yao ing han ongshu
A Sur ey of the Se ond In itational E hibition of Contemporary Young S ulptors , Jiangsu huakan
[Jiangsu Pictorial , no. .
. ianli hongguo dangdai yishu gonggong hua hidu de iben ianti Basi re onditions for the
Constru tion of a ubli System for Chinese Contemporary Art , Meishu guancha [Art bservation :
no. .
. Taken from a spee h gi en at the onferen e in Shi ian, in Meiti New iew, New Media ,
May .
. Ibid.
riginally published as hongguo iushi niandai meishu piping. Translation from Reinterpretation:
A Decade of xperimental Chinese Art, 1990 – 2000, ed. Wu Hung uang hou: uangdong Museum of Art,
2002 , 98 104. Translated by aren Smith and hang Shaoning.
MY OUTLOOK ON CRITICISM ( 2003 )
324
By Yin Shuangxi
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Art riti ism has different a ademi layers at the forefront of these layers is a riti al
pra ti e in whi h the riti employs arious methods in arrying out appre iation,
analysis, udgment, and des ription of artworks. The se ond a ademi layer is the riti-
ism of riti ism, whi h probes into the ba kground and ultural spa e of riti ism, as
well as the riti s intelle tual omposition, theoreti al ba kground, riti al standards,
artisti riteria, and methodologi al prin iples it e en del es into the riti s personal
hara ter, harm, and professional ethi s. And, on ning and in uen ing the riti ism
of riti ism is the third a ademi le el riti al philosophy, namely re e tions on
riti al ontology, whi h tou hes upon riti ism as the basi beha ior for e panding
human knowledge, ad an ing intelle tual i ili ation, and philosophi ally re e ting
on modes of thinking.
Criti s today should willfully abdi ate their law-making power and udi ial author-
ity o er art, for this power and authority deri es from two presuppositions that ha e
not been earnestly e amined. The rst is the belief that all art an, and must, be udged
and sele ted through uni ed mainstream standards. The se ond is the belief that rit-
i s are truly able to understand and ommand su h a uni ed standard, and likewise
ha e the responsibility to guide artists toward a realm of perfe tion.
Contemporary artists are in the pro ess of abandoning their re itation of ma ro os-
mi so ial myths and heroi epi s, and are hanging dire tion to mo e toward the iden-
ti ation and e pression of their indi idualisti , immediate e perien es. The artist is
be oming an eyewitness to the times, analy ing one s indi idual, inner e perien es and
identifying realisti matters and relationships. In the name of art they reorgani e and
restru ture e isting or pree isting people and ob e ts, freely identifying and eremoni-
ously endowing them with meaning. Confronting the reality of ontemporary art, the
riti s main role is to fo us on the reati e pro ess, to analy e the reati e psy hology
and the artist s mode of thinking. Here, the riti be omes a guesser, one who attempts
to rename the work, and reidenti es it, endows it with signi an e the fun tion of
riti ism is not to determine whether or not art reation has de eloped in the orre t
dire tion, but to endea or to understand in whi h dire tion the artist is de eloping.
The intelle tual resour es and a ademi methods a ailable to riti ism are
e eedingly ri h, as e ery resour e and methodology sin e the beginning of time an
be employed for one s purposes. A riti al attitude should be open-minded, unfet-
tered, and independent. We ad o ate pluralism but should still belie e rmly in the
e isten e of truth and uni ersalism, it s simply that we need to make lear the nite
nature and imperfe tions of our understanding of truth, and a knowledge the e is-
ten e of many kinds of truths and their different e pressions. A pluralist oe isten e
is similar to the on ept of e ologi al balan e it implies nature s pea eful oe isten e
and pea eful ompetition. It allows for the possibility of artisti , ideologi al, and on-
eptual dialogue within the ultural spa e, onditions for dialogue, or ultural onte t
of a ertain era. At the same time it reminds us to respe t ea h independent hara ter
the artist, artisti on ept, artwork, art style , and not to demand artisti uni ation,
or rusade against dissidents.
In the twentieth entury, the entury of riti ism, art riti ism and theory assumed
an important duty in fostering the de elopment of modern art, more often e pediting
its deli ery than following in its wake. A ording to stru turalist theory, thought
depends upon dis ursi e systems and stru tures. Criti s, when fa ing the on i t
between new artwork and traditional art standards, ome to nd through their own
interpretations that traditional norms do not possess an un uestionable alidity. This
325
on lusion generates in them an intolerable sense of alienation and unfamiliarity
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toward the art riteria to whi h they ha e been a ustomed.

In this age of transitioning norms, the tasks that art riti ism must engage in are
the in estigation of the artist s mode of reati e thinking and the stru tural hanges in
that thinking. These hanges need to be approa hed from a spe i human en iron-
ment and histori al onte t rather than seeking the dire tion or potential of artisti
transformation from a seemingly ine itable uni ed ore idea or essential dis ourse.
When onfronted with opinionated artists and opportunisti a ts, riti ism must not
abandon its responsibilities. An intera ti e relationship e ists between a ademi or
theoreti al riti ism and the artist s ondu t and art s mode of e isten e. Therein, by
irtue of the pluralism and ariations of the ob e ts in uestion, riti ism itself will like-
wise demonstrate its plurality and ariation, there is no longer mainstream riti ism,
there is only pluralist riti ism. rom ant s point of iew, personal dignity implies a
respe t for all indi iduals and their prin iples. Criti s should stri e to allow the free
ow of thoughts from all potential tributaries, and pre ent any person or type of per-
son from en oying an artisti monopoly, abo e all a monopoly on interpreting art.
riginally published as Wo de piping guan in Piping de shidai [Era of Criticism , ol. 2, ed. ia
ang hou uang i: uang i ine Arts ublishing House, 2003 , 124 25. Translated by Lee Ambro y.
MY VIEW OF ART AND CRITICISM ( 2003 )

By Huang Du
Contemporary art today from on ept to medium has undergone fundamental

hanges. Artists no longer adhere to linear ways of thinking, and instead utili e a non-
linear, sub e ti e imagination to ontinually shatter and negate different kinds of ed
on entions. In their pra ti es, artists iew onstrained and orderly on epts as hal-
lenges and targets for de onstru tion.
Although some ontemporary art bears no rele an e to ethi s, artists still ha e to
maintain a moral responsibility to so iety as well as their own human ons ien e.
Today, artists synthesi e all manner of on epts and ob e ts. The prin ipal styles
and methods in art are no longer about harmoni ing form and aestheti beauty. Instead,
art now emphasi es interdis iplinary ultures. As meanings and denotations of artisti
on epts undergo ast hanges, the boundaries of art ha e be ome in reasingly blurred
while the problems it fa es ha e be ome e en more omple and di ersi ed.
Art should not only transmit indi idual e perien e and independent udgment, but
should also present an analysis of the ultural onte t of its ob e t. The realisti problems
generated by mutually opposed o abularies re eal hidden ontradi tions and on i ts
in those ultural onte ts . I like artists who un o er those hidden meanings on ealed
in the unremarkable, seemingly in onspi uous aspe ts of e eryday life, in parti ular when
their fo us and interpretation on ern marginali ed or disad antaged ommunities.
Art is as risky as walking a ross a tightrope. This kind of risk knows no bounds. And
be ause the steel wire is oined to the sub e t, if the artist annot nd balan e, then he
will in ariably fall. In fa t, this kind of balan e refers to an integrating whole, embody-
ing the interrelated nature of so ial problems, art on epts, and formal o abularies.
I don t elebrate le erness in tri ial, suddenly brainstormed Con eptual art re-
ations. I prefer art that has a more so ial nature, and where the artist s on ept has
upheld a ontinuity and oheren e.
Art is the oding and de oding of our so ial system and e eryday life. It ontinu-
326
ally hallenges and uestions the so ial stru tures and le els of daily life that we often
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o erlook, e en when they are dire tly in our line of sight.

I m more in lined to independent, pra ti al art riti ism, namely riti ism that
a ts as a dialogue between the artist and the publi and remodels the so io ultural
spa e. At the same time, the independen e of riti ism not only re uires asting off
any omplian e to the market, but also resisting ontrol le eraged by politi al dis-
ourse. This ne essitates an e en more fer ent riti al ons iousness.
Sub ersion in ontemporary art pra ti e means reorienting ulture. Thus, the
nature of ontemporary art possesses a distin t ideologi al a or and pronoun ed politi-
al hara teristi s.
riginally published as Wo kan yishu yu piping in Piping de shidai [Era of Criticism , ol. 3, ed.
ia ang hou uang i: uang i ine Arts ublishing House, 2003 , 237 38. Translated by eggy Wang.
EXPERIMENTAL ART EXHIBITIONS AND THE

2000 SHANGHAI BIENNALE
T he issue of exhibitions loomed large in the world of contemporary Chinese art

in the 1990s. Never before had Chinese artists paid so much attention to the
location and form of an exhibition. As some documents in this section demonstrate,
they held exhibitions not only in museums and galleries but also in the countryside,
shopping malls, subway stations, construction sites, restaurants, basements, and
on the street. What was experimental in these shows was not only the artwork,
but also the exhibition concepts and methods.
This phenomenon was closely related to the backward exhibition system in
China. In sharp contrast to the popularity of contemporary Chinese art among for-
eign curators and collectors, this art was still struggling for basic acceptance at
home, as state-run museums and schools still rejected politically sensitive works
and contemporary art forms such as installation, video, and performance.
Governmental control over art also resulted in the cancellation and early termina-
tion of many contemporary art exhibitions.
Whereas small experimental exhibitions often took place in private homes and
diplomatic quarters in the early 1990s, many exhibitions were organized from the
mid-1990s onward for the larger goal of transforming the existing exhibition sys-
tem. Some organizers devoted themselves to establishing regular venues to show
contemporary art publicly, and for this purpose they cultivated supporters among
officials and entrepreneurs. Others resisted such efforts to “legalize” experimental
art, and showed controversial works privately to keep the avant-garde edge. The
result was the further marginalization of “closed” exhibitions.
Against this background we can understand the significance of the 2000
Shanghai Biennale, the first “true” Chinese biennial based on a prevailing interna-
tional model. Reformist curators and critics saw this Third Shanghai Biennale as a
major breakthrough, because it broke some long-standing taboos in China’s official
exhibition system: not only were installations, video, and multimedia works fea-
tured prominently, but the collaboration between a major public museum and for-
eign guest curators was also unprecedented. Precisely for these reasons, however,
the Biennale was attacked from two opposite directions: conservatives in the
Beijing-based Chinese Artists’ Association watched the events in Shanghai with
327
open hostility, while some independent critics and artists also saw the Biennale as a
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threat to the experimental spirit of contemporary art. They thus organized their own
EXPERIMENTAL ART EXHIBITIONS AND THE 2000 SHANGHAI BIENNALE

exhibitions concurrent with the Biennale to consolidate their alternative stance.
Experimental Exhibitions
“EXPERIMENTAL EXHIBITIONS” OF THE 1990S ( 2002 )

By Wu Hung
i i x i i i x i
My sur ey of the e hibition spa es of e perimental art in 1999 and 2000 yielded the
following arieties:
. Spa es for publi e hibitions or open e hibitions of e perimental art:

a Li ensed e hibition spa es
Ma or national and muni ipal galleries e.g., the National Art allery in Bei ing,
the Shanghai Art Museum, the He iangning Art Museum in Shen hen
Smaller galleries af liated with uni ersities and art s hools e.g., the Art Museum
of Capital Normal ni ersity and the Contemporary Art Museum in Bei ing
Semiof ial art galleries e.g., Yanhuang Art allery in Bei ing, Art allery of
Bei ing International Art ala e, and Chengdu Contemporary Art Museum
ersatile e hibition halls in publi spa es e.g., the Main Hall of the former
Imperial An estral Temple in Bei ing
b ri ately owned galleries and e hibition halls
Commer ial galleries e.g., the Courtyard allery, the ed ate allery, and the
Wan ung Art allery in Bei ing
Non- ommer ial galleries and e hibition halls e.g., the esign Museum in
Bei ing, the pri er Art allery in Chengdu, and Teda Contemporary Art Museum
in Tian in
ubli , non-e hibition spa es
pen spa es e.g., streets, subway stations, parks, et .
Commer ial spa es e.g., shopping malls, bars, supermarkets, et .
Mass media and irtual spa e e.g., T , newspapers, and Websites
. Spa es for pri ate e hibitions or losed e hibitions of e perimental art:
a ri ate homes
b Basements of large residential or ommer ial buildings
pen studios and workshops sponsored by indi iduals or institutions
d Embassies and foreign institutions
The main e hibition hannels of e perimental art in the early 1990s were pri ate or
losed shows, whose audien e was mainly the artists themsel es, their friends, and
interested foreigners. Terms su h as apartment art and embassy art were in ented
to hara teri e these shows. Starting from 1993, howe er, e hibitions began to be held
in arious publi spa es. Commer ial galleries started to appear some of them sup-
ported e perimental art pro e ts that were not aimed at nan ial return. Some uni-
ersity galleries, su h as the Art Museum of Capital Normal ni ersity and the
Contemporary Art allery of the Central A ademy of ine Arts be ame ma or sites of
e perimental art in Bei ing, mainly be ause their dire tors in these two ases Yuan
328
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u Tan. New rder. 1994.

Installation in uang hou
uang and Li ianli, respe ti ely took on the role of supporting this art. Sympathi ers
of e perimental art also emerged in state-run e hibition ompanies. or e ample, one
su h indi idual, uo Shirui, then the dire tor of the Contemporary Art Centre under
the National News and ubli ation Bureau, began in 1994 to organi e and sponsor a
series of in uential e perimental art e hibitions.
E perimental e hibitions of the late 1990s ontinued this tenden y. Their orga-
ni ers fo used on the three types of publi spa es listed abo e, and tried to de elop
them into regular meeting pla es of e perimental art with a broader audien e, thereby
ulti ating publi interest in this art. Their basi means to reali e this goal was to
de elop e hibitions of e perimental art in these spa es. ollowing this general dire -
tion, independent urators ould still work with large or small li ensed of ial or
semiof ial e hibition spa es, but tried to on ert their dire tors into supporters of
e perimental art. Alternati ely, they ould de ote their energy to help pri ately owned
e hibition spa es to de elop interesting programs. A third strategy was to use non-
e hibition spa es to bring e perimental art to the publi in a more e ible manner.
x i xi i : x i i i x i i i i
Let s take a loser look at these efforts and their onditions. irst, important hanges
had taken pla e in many li ensed publi galleries, thus reating the possibility to bring
e perimental art into these spa es. Traditionally, all these galleries were sponsored by
the state, and their e hibitions ser ed strong edu ational purposes. Although this was
still true in theory in the late 1990s, in a tuality most of these publi galleries had to
nan e their own operations, and for this and other reasons had to modify their image
to appeal to a wider audien e. As a result, their programs be ame in reasingly poly-
fun tional. E en the National Art allery in Bei ing routinely held three different kinds
of e hibitions, whi h were more often than not ideologi ally self- ontradi tory. These
329
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oster produ ed on the
o asion of Exhibition of
Recent Works by Zhang Peili
and Geng Jianyi, May 29,
1991, iplomati Missions
estaurant, Bei ing
Yin iu hen. Ruined Capital.

199 . Installation of furniture
and ement at the Art
Museum of Capital Normal
ni ersity, Bei ing
in luded: 1 mainstream e hibitions organi ed by the gallery to support the go ern-

ment s politi al agendas and to show ase progressi e traditions in Chinese art, 2
imported e hibitions of foreign art, in luding a ant-garde Western art, as part of
China s ultural e hanges with other ountries, and 3 short-term and often medio-
re rental e hibitions as the main sour e of the gallery s in ome the gallery olle ts
a handsome fee for renting out its e hibition spa e and fa ilities . It be ame easily
uestionable why the gallery ould show Western a ant-garde art but not Chinese
a ant-garde art, and why it willingly pro ided spa e to an e hibition of ob iously poor
uality but not to an e hibition of genuine artisti e periment.
nable to respond to these uestions but still insisting on its opportunisti pra -
ti es, the National Art allery and indeed the whole e isting art e hibition sys-
tem was rapidly losing its redibility. It is therefore not surprising to nd that the
position of the National Art allery was not always shared by other of ial art galler-
ies. Some of these galleries, espe ially those newly established and semiof ial
ones, were more interested in de eloping new programs to make themsel es more
osmopolitan and up-to-date. The He iangning Art Museum in Shen hen, for
e ample, ad ertised itself as a national modern art museum only se ond to the
National Art allery in Bei ing. Instead of taking the latter as its model, howe er, it
organi ed a series of e hibitions to e plore the omple relationship between
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ao Brothers, Prophecy.
1999. ound ob e ts,
stainless steel. Installation
iew at the Second Year-Long
Contemporary Sculpture
Exhibition, He iangning Art
Museum, Shen hen
e perimentation and publi fun tion, a ademi alues, and isual attra ti eness in
ontemporary art. A similar e ample was the Shanghai Art Museum, whi h assem-
bled a olle tion of ontemporary oil painting and s ulpture in less than e years,
and organi ed Shanghai Spirit: The Third Shanghai Biennale 2000 to feature works
by outstanding ontemporary artists from any ountry, in luding Chinese e peri-
mental artists. The organi ers of this e hibition pla ed a strong emphasis on the
relationship between the show and its site in Shanghai, a ity whi h represents a
spe i and inno ati e model of moderni ation, a regionally de ned but globally
meaningful form of modernity that an only be summed up as the Shanghai Spirit.
Some independent urators were attra ted by the opportunities to help organi e
these new programs, be ause they saw potential in them to transform the of ial sys-
tem of art e hibition from within. In their iew, when they brought e perimental art
into an of ial semiof ial e hibition spa e, this art also hanged the nature of the
spa e. or this reason, these urators tried hard to work with large publi galleries to
de elop e hibitions, although su h pro e ts often re uired deli ate negotiation and
fre uent ompromises.
enerally speaking, howe er, national and muni ipal galleries were still not ready
to openly support e perimental pro e ts by young Chinese artists. E en when they
held an e hibition of a more ad enturous nature, they often still had to emphasi e its
a ademi merit to a oid possible riti ism. Compared with these large galleries,
smaller galleries af liated with uni ersities, art s hools, and other institutions en oyed
more freedom to de elop a more ersatile program, in luding to feature radi al e per-
imental works in their galleries for either artisti or e onomi reasons. If a dire tor was
a ti ely in ol ed in promoting e perimental art, his gallery, though small and relati ely
unknown to the outside world, ould play an important role in de eloping this art.
E amples of su h ases in lude the Art Museum of Capital Normal ni ersity and the
Contemporary Art allery of the Central A ademy of ine Arts, whi h held many origi-
nal e hibitions from 1994 to 199 . If an independent urator wanted to propose to
stage an e hibition for a short period and to keep it low pro le, he was more likely to
use su h e hibition spa es.
E hibitions housed in uni ersities and art s hools be ame pre alent around the
331
mid-1990s, although some urators and artists made a greater effort toward the end of
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the de ade to attra t of ial sponsorship and to make an e hibition known to a larger

audien e. ne su h e ample was the re ent 2000 China: Internet, Video, and Photo Art,
held in the Art allery of the ilin ro in ial Art A ademy. As many as fty-two artists
from throughout the ountry parti ipated in this e hibition their works were grouped
into se tions su h as on eptual photography, multimedia images, and intera ti e
Internet art. The sponsors of the e hibition in luded the ilin ro in ial Artists
Asso iation and ilin ro in ial Art A ademy, whi h pro ided the e hibition not only
with an e hibition spa e but also omputer e uipment, supporting fa ilities for Internet
art, and a fund of 50,000 yuan about S 3,900 . An additional fund of 50,000 yuan
was raised from pri ate businesses in Chang hun. The e hibition attra ted a lo al rowd,
and also linked itself with artists and iewers far away through the Internet.
i : x i i i x i i i- i
iv i
rom the early 1990s, some ad o ates of e perimental art laun hed a ampaign to
de elop a domesti market for e perimental art. The rst ma or initiati e in this regard
was the irst 1990s Biennial Art air in tober 1992, whi h showed more than 400 works
by 350 artists and was super ised by an ad isory ommittee formed by 14 art riti s.
nlike any pre ious large-s ale art shows, this e hibition was sponsored by pri ate
entrepreneurs and with a self-professed goal of establishing a market system for on-
temporary Chinese art. Its lo ation in an international e hibition hall inside a e-star
hotel was symboli . The awards set aside for se eral pri es was 450,000 yuan about
120,000 at the time , an unheard of amount of money for any of the show s parti ipants.
Suffering from the ine perien e of the organi ers as well as antagonism from the more
idealisti artists, howe er, this grand undertaking ended with a feud among the three
ma or parties in ol ed in the e hibition: the organi ers, the sponsor, and the artists.
Two e hibitions held in 199 and 1997 were moti ated by the same idea of de el-
oping a market system for e perimental art, but had a more spe i purpose to fa ili-
tate the earliest domesti au tions of e perimental art. Called Reality: Present and
Future Xianshi: Jintian yu mingtian and A Chinese Dream Zhongguo zhi meng , both
e ents were urated by Leng Lin and sponsored by the Sungari International Au tion
Co. Ltd., and both took pla e in semipubli art galleries. The lo ation of the 199 e hi-
bition was the Art allery of Bei ing International Art ala e lo ated inside the Holiday
Inn Crowne la a Hotel in entral Bei ing. Established in 1991, this gallery was funded
by a pri ate foundation, but obtained the legal status of a publi e hibition spa e
from Bei ing s muni ipal go ernment largely be ause of the politi al onne tions of
the gallery s founder Liu un, who was the head of the semiof ial Artists Asso iation
before he reated this pla e and be ame its rst dire tor. The Yanhuang Art allery,
lo ation of the 1997 e hibition au tion A Chinese Dream, was the most a ti e semiof-
ial e hibition spa e in China in the early 1990s. ounded by the famous artist Huang
hou in 1991 and supported by two foundations, it was a pri ate institution af liated
with an of ial institution, rst with Bei ing s Muni ipal Bureau of Cultural eli s and
then with the Chinese eople s oliti al Consultati e Conferen e.
The semipubli status of these two galleries ga e them greater e ibility to deter-
mine their programs. This is why ea h of them ould hold an e hibition au tion as a
oint enture among three parties: an independent urator, a semipubli gallery, and an
au tion house. The position of the au tion house in this ollaboration was made lear by
its i e hairperson Liu Ting, a daughter of the late Chinese resident Liu Shao i: At
present, as a ommodity e onomy ontinues to e pand in China, how to build up an art
332
market for high-le el works has be ome one of the most pressing issues in ultural and
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artisti ir les. The urrent e hibition, Reality: Present and Future sponsored by the
Sungari International Au tion Co. Ltd., represents one step toward this goal.
Another noti eable e ample of a semipubli gallery is the Chengdu Contemporary
Art Museum, founded in September 1999. Large enough to ontain se eral football
elds, this enormous gallery is part of an e en larger ar hite tural omple in luding
two lu ury hotels one e-star and one four-star . The whole pro e t is nan ed by
Chengdu s muni ipal go ernment and a Chinese Ameri an oint enture ompany
alled the California roup iazhou ituan . eng Hong, the museum s dire tor and
the hairman of the group s board of trustees, states the purpose of the museum:
Twenty years after China opened its doors and began to undertake a series of
reforms, the a hie ement of our ountry in the e onomi domain is now re og-
ni ed by the whole world. But we must also agree that progress in the ultural
sphere, espe ially in the area of ultural infrastru ture, falls far behind our e o-
nomi growth. Sin e the mid-1990s or e en earlier I ha e been thinking that we
should not only build a large-s ale modern art gallery with rst-rate fa ilities, but,
more importantly, need to introdu e more ad an ed operating me hanisms and
new modes in urating e hibitions,in order to fa ilitate and promote the de elop-
ment of Chinese art. . . . This is the fundamental and long-term goal of the
Chengdu Contemporary Art Museum.
The museum s inauguration oin ided with an enormous e hibition. Called Gate of the
New Century Shiji zhi men , this e hibition in luded a onsiderable number of instal-
lations and some performan e pie es ontent whi h would normally be omitted in
a mainstream, state-run gallery. But the e hibition as a whole still followed the mode
of a syntheti , anonymous National Art E hibition. artly be ause of su h riti ism,
the museum de ided to sponsor ersatile e hibitions of more e perimental types.
nlike the Chengdu Contemporary Art Museum, whi h is partially funded by the
lo al go ernment and is thus de ned here as semipubli , some art galleries are
entirely pri ate-owned. A ma or hange in China s art world in the 1990s was in fa t
the establishment of these pri ate galleries, whi h far outnumbered semipubli galler-
ies and pro ided more opportunities to e hibit e perimental art outside the of ial
system of art e hibition. Commer ial galleries rst appeared in the early 1990s, and by
the end of the 1990s onstituted the ma ority of pri ate galleries. Stri tly speaking, a
ommer ial gallery is not a li ensed e hibition spa e. But be ause it is a li ensed art
business yishu qiye , its spa e an be used to show artworks without additional of ial
permissions. In the middle and late 1990s, uite a few owners or managers of these
ommer ial galleries took a personal interest in e perimental art, and supported non-
pro t e hibitions of installations, ideo art, and performan es in their galleries. Maryse
arant, who inter iewed a number of su h owners or managers in Bei ing, noted that
these galleries are also pre ursors. They not only sell, they also ser e an edu ational
purpose, digging a new path for art in China, shaping a market so that artists an on-
tinue their work and be seen. While mainly offering milder types of e perimental art
to Western olle tors, these galleries o asionally held bolder shows organi ed by guest
urators. ne su h show was the actory No. 2 e hibition held in Bei ing s Wan ung Art
allery in early 2000. Curated by three young students in the epartment of Art History
at the Central A ademy of ine Arts, this impressi e e hibition featured installations
and works with e pli it se ual impli ations seldom seen in a ommer ial gallery.
Non- ommer ial, pri ately funded art galleries were an e en later phenomenon
333
in China. These were galleries de ned by their owners as non-pro t fei yingli ,
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meaning that they supported these galleries and their operations with their own

money, and that the art works e hibited there were not for sale. Although most of
these owners did olle t, the main program of these galleries was not to e hibit pri-
ate art olle tions but to hold a series of temporal shows organi ed by guest urators.
These galleries thus differed from both ommer ial galleries and pri ate museums, and
had a greater apa ity to e hibit more radi al types of e perimental art. or this ad an-
tage, some independent urators de oted mu h time and energy to help establish
non- ommer ial galleries.
There had been no pre edent for this type of e hibition spa e in Chinese history.
Nor was it based on any spe i Western model, although its basi on ept was er-
tainly deri ed from Western art museums and galleries funded by pri ate foundations
and donations. Be ause China did not ha e a philanthropi tradition to fund publi art,
and be ause no ta law was de eloped to help attra t pri ate donations to support art,
to found a non- ommer ial gallery re uired originality and dedi ation. It was a tre-
mendous amount of work for urators and artists to persuade a ompany or a busi-
nessman to establish su h an institution to promote e perimental art. But be ause a
gallery like this did not belong to a go ernment institution and was not ontrolled by
any of ial department, some urators and artists saw a new system of e hibition
spa es based primarily on this kind of pri ate institution. Their hope seemed to be
shared by the owners of some of these galleries. Chen iagang, the owner and dire tor
of pri er Art allery in Chengdu, Si huan ro in e, made this statement:
The rise of great art at a gi en time originates not only from the talented imagina-
tion and a ti ities of a few geniuses, but also from the impulse and reati ity of a
system. To a ertain e tent, an artisti work ompleted by an indi idual needs to
be granted its so ial and histori al alue by a system. After the sustained efforts
and stri ing of se eral generations, ontemporary Chinese art has made remark-
able progress. But the system of ontemporary Chinese art still remains mired in
its old ways. Art galleries, agents, pri ate-owned art museums as well as a foun-
dation system ha e not yet been established, whi h, as a result, has obstru ted
the parti ipation of ontemporary Chinese art in ontemporary Chinese life and
establishment of its uni ersality to a ertain e tent. As an important part in the
ontemporary art system, the fun tion and de elopment of art galleries is urgent.
The pri er Art allery has been established to pro ide the nest Chinese art-
ists, riti s, and e hibition planners with a platform in order to support e peri-
ments in and a ademi resear h on ontemporary Chinese art. In this way, it
hopes to stimulate the a hie ement of rst- lass art and its dissemination in
so iety at large and the sele tion of works on a ademi merit.
It is un lear how many galleries of this kind were established in the 1990s the best
known three were respe ti ely lo ated in Chengdu, Tian in, and Shenyang. Ea h of
them had a group of independent urators and e perimental artists as ad isors. Some
of the most original e hibitions of e perimental art in 1998 and 1999 took pla e in
these and other pri ate galleries. Be ause the owners of these galleries were either
large ompanies or ri h businessmen, their in uen e and relationship with lo al of -
ials helped prote t the e hibitions held in their galleries. In addition, their onne -
tions with lo al newspapers and T stations helped turn these e hibitions into publi
e ents. Se eral shows held in the pri er Art allery, for e ample, supplied the media
334
with sensational materials and attra ted people of different professions and lasses to
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the e hibitions. En ouraged by su h attention, some urators took publi intera tion
as their goal, de eloping e hibitions around themes that would arouse publi dis us-
sion and debate. Howe er, there was a serious drawba k to this type of gallery and
e hibition spa e: its operation and e isten e relied on the nan ial situation of its
owner. It was not un ommon that when a ompany began to lose money, it immedi-
ately stopped supporting art e hibitions and e en losed down its e hibition hall.
i v i x i i i : i i x i
i
A signi ant effort made by independent urators and artists was to hold e perimen-
tal art e hibitions in ersatile, non-e hibition spa es. Instead of using either of ial or
pri ate regular e hibition hannels, these were site-spe i e hibitions that ser ed
two interrelated purposes: they brought e perimental art to the publi in a dynami ,
guerrilla fashion, and in so doing transformed non-e hibition spa es into publi e hi-
bition spa es. The organi ers of these e hibitions shared the belief that e perimental
art should be part of people s li es and should play an a ti e role in China s so ioe o-
nomi transformation. Be ause these urators often wanted to demonstrate an
unambiguous relationship between an e hibition and its so ial en ironment, most of
these pro e ts were strongly themati and entered on ertain publi spa es. It was
also ommon for these urators to ask artists to submit site-spe i works for their
e hibitions, and in this way en ourage these artists to onte tuali e their art within a
publi spa e.
This dire tion was e empli ed by a number of original pro e ts de eloped in 1999
and 2000. or e ample, the e hibition Supermarket Chaoshi zhan was a tually held in
a supermarket in downtown Shanghai the fashionable bar Club ogue in Bei ing
be ame the site of the e hibition Art as Food Yishu dacan upon the opening of the
largest furniture ity in Shanghai, ustomers had the opportunity to see a huge
e perimental art e hibition, alled Home? Jia? , on the store s enormous fourth oor.
The fa t that a ma ority of these shows used ommer ial spa es re e ted the urators
interest in a mass ommer ial ulture, whi h in their iew had be ome a ma or for e
in ontemporary Chinese so iety. While af liating e perimental art to this ulture,
their e hibitions also pro ided spa es for artists to omment on this ulture, either
positi ely or riti ally. ra ti ally speaking, an e hibition held in a ommer ial spa e
often in ol ed a nuan ed negotiation between the urator and the owner or manager
of the spa e. nly be ause the latter saw bene t from the proposed e hibition the
prospe t of bringing in more ustomers or gaining the image of being a ultured
businessman ould the negotiation rea h a happy on lusion. n the part of the
urator, howe er, this negotiation was approa hed as an integral omponent of the
e periment, be ause only through this pro ess ould a ommer ial spa e be trans-
formed into a publi e hibition spa e.
elated to su h e periments in e panding publi e hibition spa es was the effort
to adapt popular forms of mass media to reate new types of e perimental art. The
artist hao Bandi, for e ample, not only turned his on eptual photographs into pub-
li welfare posters in Bei ing s subway stations, but also on in ed the dire tors of
CCT Central China Tele ision to broad ast these photographs for similar purposes.
ther e perimental artists reated works resembling a newspaper. The most system-
ati undertaking along this line was a pro e t organi ed by the art riti and indepen-
dent urator Leng Lin. Here is how he des ribed this e periment:
335
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Wang in. To Marry a Mule.
uly 28, 1995. hotograph
of performan e, 109 71
277 182 m
This pro e t was put into pra ti e in uly 1999. Called Talents Yibiao rencai , it ini-
tially onsisted of four artists: Wang in, hu adong, hang ali, and Wu
iao un. Its purpose was to e plore a new way of artisti e pression by adapting
the form of the newspaper. eri ed from this popular so ial medium, this form
ombines e perimental art with people s daily a ti ities, and brings this art into
onstant intera tion with so iety. This pro e t produ ed a printed do ument
resembling a ommon newspaper. Ea h of its four pages was used by one of the
four artists to e press himself dire tly to his audien e. In this way, these artists
nal produ ts be ame inseparable from the notion of the newspaper, and the
idea of artisti reati ity be ame subordinate to the broader on ept of mass
ommuni ation. . . . We put Talents in publi spa es su h as bookstores and fairs.
eople ould take it free of harge.
But for some artists and urators, the newspaper was already too traditional a mass
medium, so they began to e plore newer information te hnologies su h as the
Internet. It be ame a ommon pra ti e in the 1990s for Chinese e perimental artists to
build personal Web pages to feature their artworks. But independent urators also dis-
o ered this spa e to organi e irtual e hibitions. or e ample, supported by the
Website Chinese-art. om based in Bei ing, these urators took turns editing the
Chinese Type Contemporary Art nline Magazine. Ea h issue of the maga ine, primar-
ily edited by an a ti e independent urator of e perimental art, integrated short pie es
of writings with many images the form was more like an e hibition than a on en-
tional art ournal. The signi an e of su h irtual e hibitions ould also be under-
stood in a more spe i onte t: when publi display of e perimental art be ame
dif ult in the early 1990s, some art riti s urated do ument e hibitions wenxian
zhan to fa ilitate ommuni ation between e perimental artists. Consisting of repro-
du tions of works and writings by artists s attered throughout the ountry, these tra -
eling shows pro ided information about re ent de elopments of Chinese e perimental
art. These do ument e hibitions were repla ed in the late 1990s by irtual e hibi-
336
tions on the Internet, whi h ser ed similar purposes in a new period.

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Notes
. I should emphasi e that this sur ey only o ers spa es that ha e been used for e perimental art
e hibitions in re ent years. The arieties listed here thus do not represent all types of e hibition spa e
in China.
. The ed ate allery was one of the earliest pri ately owned art galleries in Bei ing. Its owner, Brian
Walla e, an Australian, be ame interested in ontemporary Chinese art in the s, and began to
organi e e hibitions in Bei ing s an ient bser atory in . He subse uently opened the ed ate
allery in . The Courtyard allery, lo ated in a spe ta ular lo ation a ross the moat from the East
ate of the orbidden City, was established in by Handel Lee, a Chinese Ameri an lawyer. The Wan
ung Art allery is also lo ated in a formal imperial building, in this ase the former Imperial Ar hi es.
A bran h of a Hong ong art gallery, it was established in .
. It is important to note that the non-pro t status of these galleries is de ned by their owners, who fund
the galleries and their a ti ities by using part of their business in ome. A gallery in this ategory usually
does not ha e an independent li ense, and should be onsidered a non-pro t enterprise within a larger
li ensed business for pro t qiye se tor.
. It is true that some publi e hibitions before featured e perimental artworks. or e ample, the
in uential New Generation e hibition was held in in the Museum of Chinese History. But parti ipants
of this e hibition were all a ademi artists, and the show was sponsored by the of ial Chinese Youth Daily
as part of the anni ersary elebration of the May ourth Mo ement that year.
. ne su h pro e t was u Bing s A Case Study of Transference, held in at the Hanmo Art Center, one
of the rst ommer ial galleries in Bei ing.
. These e hibitions in lude Now, Dream of ast: 94 Beijing, International Com-Art Show, Beijing-Berlin Art
Exchange , The First Academic Exhibition of Chinese Contemporary Art , Demonstration of Video
Art 97 China, It’s Me! , and Art for Sale .
. He iangning Art Museum, bro hure of the gallery.
. en elei dire tor of the He iangning Museum , So ial and A ademi oals of the Se ond Annual
Contemporary S ulpture E hibition, foreword to The Second Annual Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition,
at He iangning Art allery Shen hen: He iangning Art allery, , . The enue has sin e hanged
its name to He iangning Art Museum.
. hang ing, an organi er of the e hibition, told me this during an inter iew I ondu ted in April .
. Shanghai Art Museum, Announ ement of Shanghai Biennale .
. or a riti ue of this e hibition, see u Chengfeng, Li iang huyi degangfen yu pibei uang hou
shuangnian han, wen ian han te ie The E itment and E haustion of Idealism A Close- p
bser ation of the uang hou Biennale and the esear h o uments E hibition , in idem., Ganshou
youhou Zhongguo dangdai yishu jingguan Experiencing Temptation A uiet bservation of Contemporary
Chinese Art Chong ing: Chong ing ublishing House, , . or an introdu tion to this biennale,
see L eng, Zhongguo dangdai yishushi 1990 – 1999 ’90s Art China Changsha: Hunan ine Arts
ublishing House, , .
. or a brief introdu tion to these and other semi-of ial galleries, see Ma Hong eng, shi i woguo
meishuguan de fa han gui i yu sikao utlining and e e ting on the e elopment of Art alleries in
China in the th Century , Meishu guancha Art bservation , no. , .
. Xianshi: Jintian yu mingtian Reality: Present and Future Bei ing: Sungari International, , oreword.
. eng Hong, Cu in he fanrong hongguo bentu yishu romoting Nati e Chinese Art , Meishu guancha
Art bservation , no. April , .
. Maryse arant, oreigners e ne Market: City alleries Compete to Supply Contemporary Works.
Beijing This Month, no. April , uotation from .
. Zhuanshi shidai Time of Revival Chengdu: pri er Art allery, , Chen iagang . English
translation re ised based on the original Chinese te t.
. These are the pri er Art allery in Chengdu, Teda Contemporary Art Museum in Tian in, and ongyu
Museum of ine Arts in Shenyang. Among them, ongyu Museum fo uses more on building up a pri ate
olle tion of ontemporary Chinese art. See obert Bernell, Inter iew with Wang Yigang, Managing
ire tor of the ong Yu Museum of ine Arts in Shenyang, Chinese Type Contemporary Art nline
Magazine , no. May une , .
. Leng Lin, Yige hide huyi de dong iang A Noti eable Tenden y , in idem., Shi wo It’s me , Bei ing:
hongguo ederation of Litera y and Art Cir les ublishing, , , uotation from p. .
E erpted from Reinterpretation: A Decade of xperimental Chinese Art 1990 2000 , ed. Wu Hung
uang hou: uangdong Museum of Art, 2002 , 83 97.
337
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Song ong. S NGD NG
Art Travel Agency. 1999.
erforman e during the
e hibition Supermarket,
April 1999, Shanghai
SUPERMARKET ( CHAOSHI ZHAN ): INFORMATION FOR SPONSORS

( 1999 )1
By Xu Zhen, Yang Zhenzhong, and Alexander Brandt

Who are we A group of young urators with the ambition to bring new life into
Shanghai s ontemporary art s ene by making art shows originating from the spirit of
our time.
In May 98, we opened the doors to a rst group show entitled Jinyuan Road no.
310 Exhibition. The name of an ordinary street and a ontemporary art show e hibited
in ust as ordinary li ing spa es.
Now en ouraged by this show s su ess we ontinue this resear h: We are
planning the onfrontation of art and ommer e: we are planning a supermarket
i i
Commer e has be ome the predominant religion in Shanghai sin e the e onomi
reforms of the 1980s. Shopping enters are now ere ted e erywhere and in fa t ha e
be ome the ity s new temples. E erything is for sale. Consumption has be ome the
key me hanism of life in this ity. E eryone is relo ated in this onsumer so iety: eel
free to hoose whate er role you want from salesperson to onsumer
How are art and artists going to fun tion within this system How is the making of
art going to intera t with this business-minded era Can a pie e of art really be owned
through pur hase
There is only one way to nd out: To operate the way ommer e operates. To look
into the a t of onsumption and to look where it happens. To meet the publi in their
onsumer role. And to onsider us artists as salespeople.
It is through the a t of pur hasing that a pie e of art be omes part of the real
world. This prin iple now is pushed e en further:
Supermarket Chaoshi zhan is the aperture through whi h onsumers and audi-
en e enter into the spa e of art and be ome art onsumers.
We want this e hibition to be a riti al re e tion on how to li e with the ommer-
338
ial nature of our ity, a dis ussion about what makes a broader audien e e perien e an
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e hibition, and an e aluation of what it means for art to ad ust to the working of
ommer e.
i v
. Setting a milestone . . .
This e hibition will be an unparalleled e ent: ne er before in Shanghai ha e so many
installation, ideo, and performan e artists ome together to display and e aluate
ontemporary life.
. beyond on ention . . .
In itation mailing, posters, radio ad ertising, and preopening press releases will attra t
a broad publi , further in reased by the large lientele of the SC shopping mall
fteen thousand ustomers per day on a erage . rint, radio, and tele ision o erage
will further support the e ent throughout its duration, while arti les in the profes-
sional art press and a olor atalogue will e tend this e ent beyond its initial duration.
Last but not least, unlike other art e ents, to us sponsorship is not ust a way to
pro ide nan ial support but part of the sub e t itself. This means that in the presen-
tation and on all le els of ommuni ation our sponsors will ha e a front-row seat.
Note
. This te t is part of a printed prospe tus for potential sponsors of the e hibition, whi h also in luded a
detailed budget for onstru tion, installation, e uipment, mailing, poster, atalogue, press onferen es,
Internet, pre iew e ents, media o erage, and other items omitted here. This is a re ised ersion of
the original English translation based on the Chinese te t. Moreo er, although the urators ga e the
e hibition the English title Art for Sale, here the e hibition is alled Supermarket be ause this is the literal
translation of the Chinese title of the e hibition Ed.
riginally published as Chaoshi zhan: hi an hu shang Shanghai: pri ately published, 1999 .
Translation from Wu Hung, Exhibiting Experimental Art in China Chi ago: a id and Alfred Smart Museum
of Art, ni ersity of Chi ago, 2000 , 174.
THE PATH TO TRACE OF EXISTENCE ( SHENGCUN HENJI ): A PRIVATE

SHOWING OF CONTEMPORARY CHINESE ART ( 1998 )
By Feng Boyi
It is not un ommon for global ultural ommuni ation to enhan e the parti ularity of
a parti ipating ulture. In a new East West di hotomy, China is per ei ed as the
embodiment of Eastern otherness, thereby attra ting attention and alidating its
e isten e. Sin e the opening of China in the late 1970s, the impa t of Western art on
Chinese art has not only been unstoppable, but it has turned Chinese art into grist for
its own mill. Chinese art is taken as an alien system, and is gi en a pla e as su h in a
global system of ultural and ommer ial produ tion. A by-produ t of this global om-
muni ation is that the ga e of ontemporary Chinese artists must be ontinually ed
on Western models. E en when Chinese artists o upy the international spotlight, a
Western uratorial bias interferes with their ability to ommuni ate with a Western
audien e as e uals. As long as this situation pre ails, Chinese artists must pander to
the sensibilities of Western urators and adhere to a Western image of what Chinese
ontemporary art should be. espite the many ir umstan es inhibiting the de elop-
ment of ontemporary art within China, this Western approa h to e hibiting Chinese
339
|
Wang ong in. Shepherd.
1998. Single- hannel ideo,
olor, sound, 3:20 minutes
installed with sheep in
Trace of Existence, Art Now
Studio, Bei ing, room
19 8 11 7 3
3.5 2.2 m . Colle tion
the artist
ontemporary art is no less harmful. The aim of this e hibition is to situate ontempo-
rary Chinese art in its so ial onte t of produ tion, i.e., China, in order to further the
de elopment of an independent art.
There are two reasons why Trace of Existence Shengcun henji was hosen as the title
of this e hibition. irst, people lea e tra es of their e isten e e erywhere. These tra es
delineate the spa e in whi h the indi idual e ists. We nd tra es of an artist in his or her
life and works, and we an follow how these tra es emerge and are then o ered and
buried. Tra es of arious artists o erlap and intera t their meaning is re e ted in their
transformation and transmutation. Se ond, in an e en broader sense, the phrase tra e
of e isten e embra es an indi idual s life e perien e, the relationship between an indi-
idual and the world, and the ultural trends shaped by this indi idual s e perien e. The
manifestations of these tra es pro ide a multitude of reati e possibilities for artists.
As the urators of this e hibition, we did not want to impose our artisti ision
onto the parti ipating artists and to inhibit their freedom in designing their pro e ts.
ather, we e tended in itations to ele en artists, who are established members of the
Chinese art s ene, to produ e works in a ariety of media. We hose only ele en art-
ists be ause nan ial reasons limited our sele tion to artists urrently residing in the
Bei ing area. These artists had their own indi idual on erns about a ariety of ultural
and so ial issues. The materials they hose to use also demonstrated a strong reati e
initiati e. The result was a highly on eptual, yet personal, artisti language designed
to represent both the pluralisti and syntheti hara ter of Chinese ontemporary art
and its underlying unity as a way of further de eloping a foundation for future ultural
e hange and dialogue.
Be ause e perimental art does not ha e a proper pla e within the framework of
the of ial Chinese art e hibition establishment, it is dif ult to e hibit this art openly
and freely. We ha e therefore sele ted an abandoned pri ate fa tory in the east sub-
urbs of Bei ing as our e hibition site. We hope to transform this informal and losed
pri ate spa e into an open spa e for reating and e hibiting e perimental art. This
340
lo ation allows our e hibition to make the transition from urban spa e to ountryside
|
in a geographi al sense and from enter to border in a ultural sense. This lo ation
mirrors the peripheral position of e perimental art in China. This e hibition adopts the
ustomary working method of ontemporary Chinese e perimental artists, whereby
they ha e to make use of any a ailable pla e to reate art. The initial point of referen e
for most of the artists was their own so ial en ironment, whi h they attempted to
e plore and interpret through their work. This e perien e was used as a way of further
e ploring their self-image and status. The result was a series of works as di erse in per-
spe ti e as they were in media. Through a ariety of installation and performan e
pie es, the artists not only showed how indi iduals ha e been transformed by the
great so ial and e onomi hanges of the 1990s, but also attempted to grapple with
and e plore the theme of the show: their own tra es of e isten e.
The artist Song ong used the fa tory anteen for the setting of his installation.
He ideotaped himself making o er 1,250 kilograms of pi kled abbage in twel e large
ats and replayed the ideo during the e hibition on monitors mounted in the win-
dows of the anteen. n the walls, he hung illustrations of the traditional methods of
pi kling abbage, long a winter staple in northern China, showing the way it was used
and eaten. At the opening, Song ong pi kled more abbage, in iting the audien e to
ha e a taste. i kled abbage has spe ial signi an e among northern Chinese, and
parti ularly for Bei ing residents, as a symbol of the old planned e onomy and agri ul-
tural poli ies of Maoist China. Many Bei ing residents an still remember a time when
eating pi kled abbage was promoted by the go ernment as a kind of patrioti a ti ity.
Although the flurry surrounding pi kled abbage has subsided in re ent years, it
remains a potent symbol of past e perien e.
When so ial ideology is gi en an image in installation art, it is dif ult to sepa-
rate su h imagery from politi s. Su h was the ase with u e in s installation. In this
work he used a white urtain, a large table o ered with a red table loth, and aglike
wall hangings made of red loth. n the table he pla ed appro imately one hundred
kilograms of pig brains dripping with blood. The smell was o erwhelming. He seemed
to be representing a moment or setting for some kind of personal e perien e. This
work e oked disgust, terror, and a ersion in the spe tator, but it was also a deliberate
bad oke, an assault on the senses, and a riti ue of on entional symbols of power.
han Wang, a s ulptor at the Central A ademy of ine Arts in Bei ing, re- reated
an a ademi s ulpture studio in his se tion of the e hibition spa e. The spa e was fur-
nished with ten plaster gures. These plaster gures remind one of the rigid training of
Chinese art edu ation. han Wang in ited iewers to parti ipate in this installation by
laiming you need only e minutes to a hie e the glory of the masters and produ e
a masterpie e yourself. By a ti ely re ruiting the passi e iewer as an a ti e parti i-
pant in the produ tion of an artwork, han Wang not only blurred the line between
audien e and artist, but also e panded the range of his so- alled New Crash Course Art
Studio Xin yishu sucheng chejian . erhaps there is no uintessential art but only the
pro ess of onstantly de onstru ting established art. The effe t of this parti ular
de onstru tion e posed the relian e of Chinese artists on the models of Western art.
In Plow and Sow Geng zhong , Cai ing imitated real life by plowing the earth
and sowing it in traditional agri ultural fashion, but instead of seeds he used hundreds
of oins. laying with the dream that these oins might grow into money trees, Cai
ing highlighted the human desire for wealth. The aim of this performan e pie e was
to unders ore the root desire that dri es people to struggle through life. A ideo by
Wang ianwei entitled Membrane Mo is another work related to planting. In 1993 on
the Si huan plateau he worked on a pro e t for one year entitled Circulation Sowing
341
and Harvesting Xunhuan zhongzhi . As a ontinuation of that pro e t, Wang ianwei
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glued the orn har ested from Circulation Sowing and Harvesting on the windows of

a bus that was used to transport people to the e hibition. When passengers stepped
onto the bus, they entered a part of Wang ianwei s work. n the way to Yao iayuan
illage, the lo ation of the e hibition, passengers ould not see anything from the
windows learly. By denying the audien e a dire t isual e perien e of the pla e, pas-
sengers had to rely on imagination to reate an e terior lands ape. Through his art,
Wang ianwei draws attention to the arena of so ial rules and intera tion with the
en ironment. Along the .4-kilometer route to the e hibition, hang efeng pla ed
ele en markers on the side of the road. As the audien e tra eled to the e hibition,
passing by these markers made them a ti e parti ipants. Entitled Distance Juli , this
work alludes to the separation between ity and ountryside, enter and periphery,
and aimed both to dispel and foment the underlying an iety that permeates the notion
of distan e.
The two women artists in this e hibition, Lin Tianmiao and Yin iu hen, further
de eloped on epts already present in their earlier work. Yin iu hen emented shoes
into a bri k path as a way of emphasi ing the realness of this path, that is, as a spa e
that has been walked upon. The old shoes now emented in the path mirror the foot-
prints of those who ha e walked on it. In this sense, they on rm the tra es that are
left in daily life. Con rming and repeating the a ti ities of e isten e is also a way of
alidating loss. But what is loss It is the oid, the opposite of e isten e. The artist on-
rms these indi idual memories of e isten e in her installation, bringing them into
being. E perien e is the point of loss. Sometimes we lose our faith in life ust as we
lose the ground beneath our feet. Lin Tianmiao e okes a feminine sensiti ity toward
daily life in a huge ball of otton thread measuring 250 entimeters in diameter and a
loth embroidered with the hara ters Not Amusing hung on the wall. The artist
uses repetiti e and uotidian handiwork to on ey the sheer effort in ol ed in trans-
forming the unbound ob e t into a bound ob e t, re ealing the effort in ol ed in the
uiet and seemingly pliant work of women.
iu hi ie used the s ientifi -sounding title Yaojiayuan Archaeology Pit No. 1
Yaojiayuan yihao keng for his two-part installation pro e t. The rst part was a simu-
lated ar haeologi al site measuring four meters wide, e meters long, and fty enti-
meters deep. Three tele ision monitors pla ed at the bottom of the pit broad ast
images su h as a rose in bloom, ying birds, and a blue sky. The se ond part of the
installation displayed ob e ts a tually found during the pro ess of digging the pit.
These ob e ts and shards were e hibited in a museum display ase, a ompanied by
musi mi ed by the artist himself. In postmodern fashion, this work did not attempt to
present history in the on entional sense, but instead proffered a new meaning of his-
tory as something manufa tured by the artist.
Wang ong in showed a ideo work in a room meters long, 3.5 meters wide,
and 2.2 meters high. In front of the s reen was a li e sheep. n the s reen was shown
a se uen e of images: the artist tending a sheep in a dump and at hing and killing the
animal. It appeared to be more allegori al than do umentary, attempting to highlight
the twisted relationship between man and nature. Confronted with this work, the
human audien e felt un omfortable but the sheep felt nothing. Are humans indeed
humane This uestion haunts this pie e. The ar hite t Yung Ho Chang, howe er, re-
ated a work so subtle that few isitors e en re ogni ed this gate was art as they passed
through it. The work remained relati ely faithful to the basi fun tion of a gate, while,
at the same time, it introdu ed a fantasti design and stru ture. orming the entran e
to the e hibition, this e o ati e gate may be iewed as a metaphor for e ploration and
342
ommuni ation.
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At the opening, two artists staged spontaneous performan es. Liu enghua, dis-
guised as the well-known re olutionary hero Lei eng, helped people in need through-
out the e hibition. This Lei eng double distributed lea ets laiming that due to the
degeneration of moral and spiritual alues in today s world, it has be ome an urgent
matter to lone Lei eng through ultural means. Meanwhile, the se ond perfor-
man e artist, Tang Cheng, paraded about with a broken umbrella and a pla ard that
read, ur home is like an umbrella. Let the whole ountry be mobili ed to prote t
our en ironment. Although these artists had not been in ited to parti ipate in the
e hibition, their spontaneous appearan e was ust like those une pe ted e ents that
always rop up in life.
All the works in this show emphasi ed the artists memories of ordinary e peri-
en e and the uidity of daily life. By allowing the audien e to parti ipate in their instal-
lation and performan e pie es, their work was gi en a present tense. This e hibition
also refle ted a deep suspi ion toward traditional approa hes to the relationship
between art and reality, and represented the artists attempt to trans end these
approa hes by e ploring their own personal tra es of e isten e. These artists often
in luded themsel es in their works and thus de onstru ted the separation between
the sub e t and ob e t. By assuming the double role of author and work, artists ould
better re eal their sub e ti e perspe ti es as well as their ob e ti e e isten e. In this
respe t, this show stressed the so ial and histori al alues of the artists, who ser ed as
mediators, negotiating the many attitudes per olating through so iety.
The emphasis on personal e perien e in e perimental art is losely related to two
urrent phenomena in China: the rapid de elopment of a ommer ial e onomy and
people s growing la k of interest in politi al ideology. Art in reasingly be omes a ol-
lage of life itself. In parti ular, e perimental art obfus ates the boundary between art
and life to merge with a mass isual ulture. This new trend promotes a role re ersal
between art and reality, reating a new independent spa e for the intera tion of audi-
en e and artists. This e hibition attempts to regain the onne tion with reality that has
been lost in mainstream art. In this e hibition, artists and audien e entered into a
ommunion that allowed them to e perien e life and art anew.
Trace of Existence was the rst performan e and installation art e hibition of 1998.
If it has had some resemblan e to the a tual situation of ontemporary China, if it has
re e ted the problems onfronting so iety and has gi en some dire tion to the future
of ontemporary art, then I may be usti ed in laiming this show has made some
ontribution.
riginally published as Shengcun henji de hen i in Shengcun henji: ’98 Zhongguo dangdai yishu neibu
guanmo zhan Trace of xistence: A Private Showing of Chinese Contemporary Art ’98 , eds. eng Boyi and
Cai ing Bei ing: Art Now Studio, 1998 , 9 11. Translation from Wu Hung, Exhibiting Experimental Art in
China Chi ago: a id and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, ni ersity of Chi ago, 2000 , 150 53.
POST-SENSE SENSIBILITY ( HOU GANXING ): A MEMORANDUM ( 2000 )
343
By Qiu Zhijie
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We a tually formed our basi ideas for the Post-Sense Sensibility e hibition as early as
1997. At that time, new art forms su h as installation, performan e art, ideo art, and
on eptual photography had been widely embra ed by ontemporary Chinese artists.
Art trends that were popular in the early 1990s, su h as oliti al op and Cyni al ealism,
had passed their heydays their deri ati es, su h as audy art and Cartoon art in the
south, had also failed to make a real impa t on Chinese art. Together with the a ep-
tan e of the aforementioned new art forms, ideas supplied by Con eptual art had pre-
ailed sin e the mid-1990s and gradually ame to dominate ontemporary Chinese art.
I wrote a series of essays in 1994 and 1995 to argue with Wang Lin and Yi Ying,
whose art theory was based on a ulgar so iologi al interpretation. The entral issue of
this debate was whether a work of art should e ternali e some intrinsi meaning, or
whether it should be the onstru tion of ertain effe ts. By effe ts I mean a real
situation reated through a formal e periment, not an author s inward intentions and
on epts. By taking this position I ould ounteratta k the then-popular notion that
art is determined by its ontent.
By 1997 this determinism was bankrupt and was no longer worth arguing about, but
I reali ed that another dangerous tenden y had begun to ontrol the reati e a ti ities
of ontemporary Chinese artists. This was the populari ation and standardi ation of so-
alled Con eptual art, whi h had degenerated into a stereotypi al taste for minimalist
formulas and a pen hant for petty le erness. The results were manifold: intelle tual
pursuit o erpowered spontaneous feelings for art erbal e planations be ame indis-
pensable and a work was often reated to impress the audien e with the artist s mind,
not to mo e people with its isual presentation. ollowing this dire tion, the whole art
world was engaged in a ra y ui show. I started to riti i e Con eptual art from the
time Wu Mei hun and I organi ed the ideo e hibition in 199 in Hang hou. But, I
found that only some younger artists a epted my ideas among them were the members
of a ideo art group led by ao Shiming, whose works were shown in that e hibition.
In 1997, I reated se eral works in luding one titled Things Wu , whi h empha-
si ed the per eptibility of real situations. Wu Mei hun and I began to en ision an
e hibition to foreground this dire tion. We belie ed that this e hibition should only
in lude younger artists, as established artists had been too poisoned by Con eptual art
and were hopeless. But, where were those young artists who ould understand us
When would they emerge in China s art s enes We had no lear answers to these
uestions. I was e ited, howe er, by the phrase post-sense sensibility hou ganxing ,
with whi h I hoped to label the kind of art whi h I foresaw for the future. But I was
upset when I tra eled to Europe in the autumn of 1997: I heard about the Sensation
e hibition and ursed the Brit who had beat us to the pun h to use the on ept rst.
Around that time, iang hi, Yang udong, and Liu Wei unior s hoolmates of
mine in the he iang A ademy of ine Arts now the China National A ademy of ine
Arts began to de elop their art pro e ts after graduating from the s hool. We also
be ame uite lose to Wu Ershan, a student in the Central A ademy of ilm, whom we
got to know through the 1997 ideo art e hibition. Sheng Tianhong, a younger brother
of my ollege s hoolmate Shen Tianye, was then studying in the Central A ademy of
ine Arts. Through him I met se eral students in that s hool, in luding Yang Sen, ang
He, Wang Wei pl. 41 , and hang an. In anuary 1998, eng Boyi organi ed the Trace of
Existence Shengcun henji e hibition in Cai ing s Art Now Studio at Yao iayuan illage
in Bei ing s eastern suburbs. My work in that show attra ted a group of young artists,
in luding Sun Yuan, hu Yu, and in a they thought that I ould be one of them.
344
Around April 1998, they approa hed me through Ma in, Sun Yuan s girlfriend at that
|
time, who worked for the Art allery of the Central A ademy of ine Arts and in ited
me to isit their studios. So one night I went to see works by hu Yu and some others.
I was glad to know them. These artists were either slightly younger than me or my own
age they seemed unior to me only be ause I had started early as an independent art-
ist. Like me, they intuiti ely disliked the kind of Con eptual art that was dominating
China s art world and onsidered this art unimaginati e and suffo ating. But they
didn t know where to go. They were not mature yet. But if they de eloped their art,
they ould gi e the art world a big sho k one day. They be ame the rst readers of an
arti le I wrote for a onferen e in Shen hen s He iangning Art Museum. It was alled
Con ept: A la e Where Art oes Astray.
We began to dis uss the e hibition more a ti ely. Cai ing, who had ust helped
organi e the Trace of Existence e hibition, wanted to do another show and in ited Wu
Mei hun to urate it in his pla e. Wu Mei hun told him that we wouldn t be inter-
ested unless the show would feature only the group of younger artists we had gath-
ered. We a epted Cai s in itation be ause we knew that no one would nan e a
show featuring a group of unknown artists, but Cai ing olunteered to pro ide 20,000
yuan about S 2,250 at the time to print a atalogue for the e hibition. n May 3,
1998, we organi ed a gathering at my pla e to introdu e Cai ing to the artists and
also to pro ide an o asion for the artists to meet one another. In that gathering, we
tentati ely de ided to title the show Not Alternative Fei linglei . It would re e t these
artists li ing onditions: be ause none were professional artists, to them art wasn t a
means of li elihood, but either a spiritual need or a ehi le for so ial re ognition.
Without ommer ial moti ation, they didn t pursue aestheti ism through their works,
but tended to be blunt and e en brutal. or me, this feature of their work ould be
ery effe ti e in atta king the gentility of pre ailing Con eptual art.
heng uogu was another artist on my wish list. This was be ause I found a er-
tain antiworkmanship fei zouping gan in his work that was uite attra ti e. I myself
ha e often been riti i ed for my la k of interest in produ ing polished works of art.
In that gathering we also dis ussed an alternati e title for the e hibition: Bastards
Everywhere Zazhong congsheng . It was based on the same idea mentioned abo e. Cai
ing stayed on after the meeting and told us that we should s reen our artists. That
night Wu Mei hun and I talked till 3:00 a.m. She felt that this group of people was too
eager for fame and on rete gain and felt hesitant to organi e the e hibition. But it
was too late to pull out the pro e t had rea hed the point that we should soon on-
sider the installation of the show. Be ause it would take a full month for Sun Yuan to
omplete his pie e on site, he was also an ious to start working immediately. n une
29, Cai ing phoned us and said that be ause he was short of funds, the e hibition
had to be postponed till the winter a ation. E en today I still suspe t that he didn t
tell us the real reason rather, he got old feet be ause he didn t ha e enough faith in
those beginning young artists. Afterward, Cai fell ill, so the pro e t was left on the
shelf. We began to think about funding the e hibition oursel es.
It was Sun Yuan who sol ed the problem of the e hibition spa e: he found some
empty basements in the eony residential distri t where he li ed and also tra ked
down the real estate ompany that owned these spa es. ne day in No ember he and
I went to the ompany s head uarters ne t to the uppet Theater and signed a on-
tra t with the person in harge of the property, renting a basement in one of the build-
ings. We got the key and went to see the pla e it onsisted of se enteen or eighteen
ompartments of arious si es. Although the eiling was not high, the rent was
reasonable only a little more than 2,000 yuan about 225 for a whole month. We
345
told the ompany that the reason we were renting the pla e was to prepare works for
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an art e hibition that would be e entually held in an art gallery and that some mem-

bers of the e hibition ommittee would ome in time to see these works. Sun Yuan
got an of ial letter from the esear h Institute of S ulpture in the Central A ademy of
ine Arts. han Wang did the good deed of pro iding this letter. The e hibition was
s heduled to open toward the end of the rental period, on anuary 8 this would gi e
us enough time to prepare for the e hibition. I suggested that e ery parti ipating artist
ontribute 1,000 yuan about 112 toward the printing ost of the atalogue and that
those li ing in Bei ing also share the rental fee for the e hibition spa e. This was
be ause artists in other pla es had to nan e their tra el to Bei ing. By paying the rent,
the Bei ing artists ould show their hospitality as hosts. There were altogether a do en
Bei ing artists ea h of them paid an e tra 200 yuan about 24 to o er the rent.
There was about si months time between Cai ing s disengagement from this
pro e t and the opening of the e hibition. uring this period the artists made impres-
si e progress. Sun Yuan and his friends had a show in the assageway allery Tongdao
hualang in the Central A ademy of ine Arts. They alled this show Inlaid Xiang qian
and in ited i Li to be the urator. The night before the e hibition, about 1:00 a.m.,
three of them ran to my apartment, telling me that han Wang had predi ted that they
would be ondemned for using li e animals as materials. I told them that they should
do whate er they had planned and that I would defend them and help pa ify their
riti s. The ne t day during the e hibition, some people ommented how ruel the
works were and that they would surely e oke protests if they were shown in the West.
I responded that it was fortunate that we Chinese were not yet that stupid. eople
laughed, and the intense moment passed.
When hu Yu made his bottled human brains for the Supermarket Chaoshi zhan
e hibition in Shanghai, I ideotaped the pro ess and edited the footage into a do u-
mentary. hu s pro e t marked the beginning of the use of human orpses as art mate-
rials by this group of artists. Wu Mei hun worried that su h pursuit of unrestrained
ruelty would lead to a se ond East illage a small illage in east Bei ing that be ame
the home of an artisti ommunity in the early and mid-1990s . ther people also had
their own opinions about these works. My iew was that artists in both the East and
the West had pla ed mu h emphasis on sensibility in their works but su h sensibil-
ity was still based on ordinary e perien es and had not gone beyond them. or e am-
ple, skeletons were used to s are iewers and rotting stuff was employed to disgust
the audien e these were all still based on ordinary sensual rea tions.
I ne ertheless also had dif ulty de ning post-sense sensibility the on ept I had
in ented for our forth oming e hibition. At that time, Wu Ershan was de eloping a pro -
e t ombining arious sensual effe ts of light, sound, smell, and taste. Liu Wei showed an
in reasing interest in ideo, and I helped him make a ideo for the Post-Sense Sensibility
e hibition. As for heng uogu, we told him: Your work was originally raw and e peri-
mental, but lately it has been transformed by the art dealer Hans into ommer ial art. You
on e showed a good performan e pie e in an e hibition with the Big-Tailed Elephant an
e perimental art group based in uang hou . Are you still apable of reating a pie e like
that heng pro ed himself to be a remarkable artist who hadn t been ruined by om-
mer ialism. He proposed an e ellent pro e t and also re ommended that the young
woman artist A ue a unior s hoolmate of his oin the e hibition. In early e ember,
the Counter-Perspective Fan shi e hibition was held at uang huang illage. An artist in
that show named Shi ing ame to talk to me and oined our group. We also took in
some artists, in luding eng iaoying, Chen Lingyang, and iao Yu. Shi ing s parti ipation
turned out to be uite important. Be ause he worked for the Ao Mei Ad ertising
346
Company, he designed the e hibition atalogue after hours. He was mainly responsible
|
for the atalogue s style. He was a guy obsessed with his own ideas. We rst all agreed
that the atalogue should ha e a bright and olorful o er something really sensual and
stimulating. But he hanged e erything to bla k-and-white before the atalogue was sent
to the printer. hu Yu and I o ersaw the printing pro ess in the fa tory.
By the time we nally de ided to all the e hibition Post-Sense Sensibility Hou
ganxing , we had stopped worrying that the word sensation was the title of a British
show. I rea hed this de ision after seeing Chang Tsong- ung at a onferen e at
Shen hen in e ember. Chang speaks good English and told me that the word sensa-
tion has onnotations of e itement and e aggeration. After listening to our
e planation of the show, he suggested that we might onsider entitling it ost-Sense
Sensibility to distinguish it from the British e hibition. His ad i e sol ed a problem in
my mind. I de ided that I shouldn t a oid an e isting title, but should feel free to use
any word that ould best on ey my true feeling. But this de ision also put pressure
on us to produ e really good works, be ause people would de nitely say that we got
our idea from amien Hirst. We had to pro e that we didn t opy him and that we
had a tually gone beyond him. We had surpassed him not be ause we had simply fol-
lowed his dire tion and had gone further, but be ause we had de eloped a different
aestheti orientation on our own. Thinking ba k, howe er, this goal may ha e been
too lofty for a group of artists who were still so young.
As urators of the e hibition, Wu Mei hun and I felt that some artists in our group
relied too mu h on using animals and orpses in reating their works and that their use
of these materials was too literal. Their works sometimes aimed merely at e oking fear
and disgust, not at indu ing genuine emotional responses. ea ting to our opinion,
Sun Yuan and some other artists who used su h materials began to see differen es
from us and reali ed that they were looking for different things. To make su h differ-
en es e pli it, we supplied the e hibition with a subtitle: Distorted Bodies and Delusion
Yixing yu wangxiang . In our deep thinking, distorted bodies is only one e pression
of delusion a type of delusion on erned with the body both distorted bodies
and delusion are manifestations of post-sense sensibility. The on ept post-sense
sensibility indi ates a larger ambition on our part to de ne an artisti ategory.
Wu Mei hun and Sun Yuan got into an argument during the installation of the
e hibition. We rst put Sun Yuan s work and Chen Wenbo s painting in a single room.
Sun insisted on adding a partition wall to di ide the room into two spa es, and
demanded that Chen split the ost with him. The nan ial issue was less important
what was serious was that this argument re e ted different on epts of the e hibition.
Clearly Sun Yuan was now preo upied with the notion of produ ing a work that was
self- ontained and self-sustaining. He told me that han Wang had ad ised him that
he should keep his style onsistent during the ne t few years. I was nally able to per-
suade him to forget the partition wall. This was not be ause he a epted my on ept
of e perimental art, but be ause he felt obliged to gi e me respe t. It was sad to see
that under some wrong guidan e, an e ellent young artist like him had departed from
the path of artisti e perimentation and had pla ed areer su ess rst. Compared
with the power of the established art system, what we an hange with our ideas is
really minis ule.
Be ause of the an ellation of the e hibition It’s Me! Shi wo! , we tightly ontrolled
information about our show. nly on the morning of the opening day did we tell people
in the e perimental art ir le about the time and lo ation of the e hibition. That whole
afternoon I was using my ell phone to gi e dire tions to people who were looking for
the pla e. The audien e was une pe tedly large. We printed 1,000 opies of the ata-
347
logue 700 opies were taken away on the spot, so at least 00 to 700 people showed up
|
that afternoon. After the parti ipating artists took their opies, only a ery limited number

of atalogues were left. These opies ha e be ome uite pre ious nowadays.
ea tions to the e hibition were not far from our e pe tations. E eryone was
talking about the distorted bodies aspe t. Li ianting said that the show indi ated
the appearan e of a iolent tenden y in Chinese art. These opinions and interests
should please those artists who fa ored distorted bodies now their art seems to
ha e be ome the reality of ontemporary art. But I worry that by winning su h an
immediate reality, they ha e lost the possibility for future de elopment, as well as a
han e of going beyond Hirst. When I rst be ame an independent artist, I was fa ored
by Chang Tsong- ung and Li ianting, who put me in the ategory of oliti al op in
their Post-1989 e hibition. But it was fortunate that I didn t take their fa or as e ery-
thing, otherwise I would ha e be ome a faded star myself.
In any e ent, there is little doubt in my mind that in organi ing this e hibition we
rea hed our goal: to ounter the ult for le erness initiated by Con eptual art. But
this e hibition also introdu ed a new y le of ompetition in Chinese art: a ompeti-
tion for being ool.
riginally written in 2000 as Hou gan ing hanlan shimo. ublished in iu hi ie, Gei wo yige mianju
[Give Me a Mask Bei ing: China enmin ni ersity ress, 2003 , 3 70. Translation from Wu Hung,
Exhibiting Experimental Art in China Chi ago: a id and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, ni ersity of
Chi ago, 2000 , 1 7 71. Translated by Wu Hung.
The 2000 Shanghai Biennale
TRANSCENDING LEFT AND RIGHT: THE SHANGHAI BIENNALE AMID

TRANSITIONS ( 2000 )
By Zhang Qing
Along with the transitions in Chinese so iety at the beginning of the 1990s, Chinese art
has gradually shifted from blindly imitating Western modernist art toward possessing a
ons iousness of its own ulture. At the same time it has also mo ed from the meta-
physi al to the physi al, from grandiose heroism or utopian narrati es to spe i e peri-
en es in ontemporary life and ulture. oliti al dis ourse has already been de onstru ted
by the dis ourse of the e eryday, as on retely embodied in the e olution from the
New eneration, oliti al op, and the Cartoon eneration to arious artisti e peri-
ments. At the same time, the art market took off throughout China, ourting the aes-
theti s of Westerner-run galleries and embassy ulture in Bei ing and Shanghai. This has
profoundly in uen ed the reati e tenden ies of Chinese ontemporary artists. or their
li elihood and pro t, group after group of artists diligently produ ed new e port paint-
ings, whi h has had an astonishing in uen e. If we were to e a ate the meaning hid-
den within this artisti phenomenon, we would dis o er that not only was this ontrolled
by supply and demand within the Western art market, but it also onformed to the
imagination and dis ourse of ultural olonialism. Moreo er, it was immediately appro-
priated for use in the 45th through 48th eni e Biennales. At the same time, foreign
urators rallying behind internationalism, post olonialism, and regionalism entered
China to olle t spe imens of art made in China both inside and outside the reat
Wall, and north and south of the Yang i. They took this art as fresh ultural ommentary
from the Third World. But, China suffered from a la k of opportunities for legitimate,
348
|
oster produ ed on
the o asion of the
Third Shanghai Biennale,
Shanghai Spirit, No ember
, 2000 anuary , 2001,
Shanghai Art Museum
s holarly, international biennial e hibitions of ontemporary art. i en su h a onte t,

many artists su essi ely tried to ater to others preferen es. Whether a ti ely or pas-
si ely, again and again they remained silent as they entured out into the West.
Why would one want to ha e biennial e hibitions in China Not only for the sake of
making apparent one s international in uen e or ust to oin the ranks of international
biennials, but also be ause the one-hundred-year history of modern art in China has
already engendered uni ue indigenous e perien es. In parti ular, Chinese art of the
1990s has brought together arious e perien es in art, e hibitions, and dialogues. Within
this present reality in whi h we onfront Western ultural entrism, the dis ursi e
power of ontemporary art its power to e aluate and to hoose is parti ularly
important and prominent. If China did not ha e the type of internationali ed and legal-
i ed ontemporary art e hibitions e empli ed by the Shanghai Biennial, then the power
to e aluate and hoose would ha e remained in the hands of foreign biennial urators.
Chinese ontemporary art would always be like an E ho Wall for Western ontemporary
art, or e en be ome something like a ollapsed tomb gurine, and standards for Chinese
ontemporary art would ha e ne er been for efully, e pli itly, and ob e ti ely dissemi-
nated in the international art world. Yet, the Shanghai Biennale s fun tion of ghting to
promote and guide mainstream ontemporary Chinese art has persistently bolstered art-
ists self- on den e and has reated a system of alues and standards for Chinese on-
temporary art. Through this, it has been able to ontinually a uire authority o er art
and the sele tions. The ontemporary Chinese art to whi h all of this has gi en form will
be ome an important onstituent omponent of the international art world. If we were
to say that ultural modernity and ontemporaneity are synonymous with the interna-
tionali ation and globali ation of ulture, then drawing on the Shanghai spirit to build
a ontemporary ulture with Chinese hara teristi s may be pre isely the ultimate s hol-
arly aspiration of the Shanghai Biennale.
er the past fty years, the art e hibition system in China has taken as its norm
national art e hibitions organi ed by the Chinese Artists Asso iation. They ha e ontinu-
ally followed traditional means of lassi ation namely, separating mediums su h as ink
painting, oil painting, prints, s ulpture, New Year s pi tures, and pi ture storybooks that
are ommonly a epted and re ogni ed by both Chinese so iety and people. The ontent
of su h e hibitions and their in luded works fo uses on e tolling bright, shining li es,
349
gi ing e pression to the sentiments of a blessed life, and depi ting the great beauty of
|
lands apes. But, besides the aforementioned types of artworks, the present Shanghai

Biennale also in ludes installation art, ideo art, lm, new media art, photographi art,
ar hite tural art, and parti ipatory art, and thus it seeks to e plore and in estigate broader
transformations in ontemporary artisti thinking and their related uestions. nder the
theme Shanghai Spirit, it brings together arts of different ultural ontent and ontempo-
rary realities reated by artists from eighteen different ountries and regions. Thus, this
biennale will mark a new initiati e in ele ating the a ademi nature of ontemporary art
and reforming the on ept of the e hibition in China s art museums.
In the international relations of this era of globali ation, we not only fa e the e o-
nomi monopoli ation of the Third World by the irst World, but also the irst World s
ultural post oloni ation and Westerni ation of the Third World. We must also deal
with the irst World s attempts to in ltrate ultural forms and ways of life by promul-
gating Western ons iousness and ustoms at e ery le el. All of this weakens the
national ons iousness and ultural forms of Third World ountries. ften using the
e use of helping the Third World to implement e onomi moderni ation, the irst
World gradually transforms the pro ess of the moderni ation of the Third World into
a opy of the pro ess of moderni ation in the irst World. Therefore, in Western bien-
nials, uestions about art seem to be be oming less important. Instead, e erything
from the s holarly fo us of the e hibitions to the artists iews all turned to interna-
tional politi s, rientalism, issues of ra e and history, uestions of lass, identity, and
gender, nan ial issues, transnational apital, uestions about resour es, world super-
powers, and issues of regionalism. Artists ha e made these uestions into uni ersal
phenomena of ontemporary artisti e pression this is pre isely the new ultural e ol-
ogy and lands ape of globali ation and olonialism. The s holarly themes of o umenta
in assel, the eni e Biennale, the Lyon Biennial, and other Western biennials ha e no
way of a oiding the aforementioned uestions. Yet, at the same time, these uestions
are also shaking up the realms of thought and ulture in the West. The ontrol o er ul-
ture is ausing the world of Western thought to re onsider how to treat its own ulture
and how to alue the ultures of the Third World. Myriad s holarly topi s all e pose to
different degrees the reality of the suffo ation of Third World ultures by Western ul-
tural standards. Thus, one an learly see: Western biennials are nothing more than
irst World international ultural strategies to rebuild and ontrol the world indeed,
they e en in ol e the pro ess itself of implementing su h strategies. Be ause the one-
hundred-year history of Shanghai is arterially linked to these uestions, Shanghai was
on e the epitome and uintessen e of the semifeudal olony in China. In the ourse of
its ad an ement and moderni ation, it mi ed together pe uliar ultural hara teristi s
with e perien es of olonial ulture. But, what is e en more important is that o er the
past de ade Shanghai has be ome an international nan ial, ommer ial, and business
enter. Thus, when fa ing the aforementioned uestions, Shanghai has always pos-
sessed a ertain irrepla eable sensiti ity and onne tedness to su h uestions . As the
Shanghai Biennale has fa ed this international ultural en ironment, it, too, has not
simplisti ally engaged in ultural riti ism but instead has penetratingly obser ed the
hanges in the dis ourses of Western globali ed ulture and post olonialism, as well as
their in uen es on ea h other. Moreo er, through its s holarly themes, the Shanghai
Biennale has produ ed a form of ultural riti ism that originates from China, and it
has broad ast the oi es of the arts of China.
Along with the abrupt e onomi rise of the Asia- a i region and in parti ular,
the rapid de elopment of the Chinese e onomy o er the past ten or twenty years
Asian ulture has also ontinually e plored new possibilities within the international
350
ultural en ironment. To this end, e hibitions ha e emerged throughout the Asia-

|
a i region in great numbers. rom their respe ti e iewpoints and using their own
indi idual means, the Yokohama Triennale, the ukuoka Asian Art Triennale, the
wang u Biennale, the Biennale of Sydney, the Asia- a i Triennial of Contemporary
Art at the ueensland Art allery, the Singapore Biennale, and the Taipei Biennial all
in estigate the relationship and possibilities arising between Asia- a i ultures and
internationali ation. Su h a igorous atmosphere is an irresistible appeal to people,
e en in spite of themsel es. This pro ides a good opportunity for introspe ti e retro-
spe tion on all aspe ts of Asian ulture and for seeking new dire tions for future
de elopment. At the same time, while fa ing issues of internationali ation and lo al
ulture, globalism and nationalism, tradition and modernity, East and West, enter
and periphery, oloni er and oloni ed, and pea e and war, the ountries and regions
that ha e organi ed biennial e hibitions ha e produ ed timely and substantial
responses. These different oi es will gather to be ome a new initiati e for Asian ul-
ture and ser e as a ons ious, olle ti e response. In parti ular, their fun tion in om-
bating Western- entri biennials annot be ignored. Although in the ne t ten years,
the arious biennials in Asia will enter a period of ghting for dominan e, the rapid
rise of biennials in Asia is like the rise of Asian e onomies: it indi ates that Asia is ur-
rently produ ing a new kind of ultural tenden y and is forming a orrespondingly
new relationship with Western ontemporary ultural trends. Asian thinkers and Third
World intelle tuals ha e been onsidering and resear hing these uestions for a en-
tury. Yet in the ne t ten years, what is espe ially urgent is the issue of whether or not
Asian urators will be able to arry out a rede nition of the ultural spirit of the East
and thus ause the ethni ultures of Asia to be ome a primary dis ourse in a global-
i ed era. I think that this represents not only the thinking and pursuits of Asian ulture
but also the ideals and pursuits of the Shanghai Biennale.
The Shanghai Biennale, arrying on a dialogue amid these transitions, has already
arri ed at a new rossroads. As it fa es Chinese traditional ulture, the Shanghai Biennale
ob e ti ely ombs through the origins of Eastern ulture, refusing to be limited by tradi-
tion s ompla ent, onser ati e, and neo onser ati e in linations. At the same time, it
a ti ely transforms the essen e of traditional ulture into something that onforms to
trends in the de elopment of Chinese ulture and the ontemporary artisti onte t. As
it fa es an international art world dominated and in uen ed by Western- entrism, the
Shanghai Biennale opposes blindly following Western ulture. In parti ular, it is against
losing one s national positions and attitudes due to opportunisti tenden ies to trawl for
fame and defraud for pro t. At the same time, it en ourages effe ti ely drawing on and
learning from the philosophy and spirit of Western ultural humanism and absorbing the
outstanding ultural a hie ements of foreign ountries. While blending all of this to
a ord with the uratorial on eptions of ore biennials, it gradually re eals the inde-
pendent hara ter of Chinese ontemporary ulture. Conse uently, the Shanghai
Biennale, whi h fa es moderni ation, fa es the world, and fa es the future, is repre-
sentati e of the spe ial hara teristi s of Chinese ontemporary ulture and ideas, as
well as the oi es of the East. Atop this foundation, it a ti ely in estigates and reates
theoreti al systems and riti al standpoints for Chinese ulture, building a self- ons ious,
independent, and ompletely new Eastern ultural spirit and ons iousness. If this is the
ase, then the signi an e of the Shanghai Biennale lies in: trans ending left and right.
riginally published as Chaoyue uoyou huan he hong de Shanghai shuangnian han in Jiangsu
huakan [ Jiangsu Pictorial 240, no. 12 2000 , 4. Translated by hillip Bloom.
CHINA’S FIRST LEGITIMATE MODERN ART EXHIBITION: THE 2000
351
SHANGHAI BIENNALE ( 2000 / 2003 )
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By Zhu Qingsheng

The Shanghai Biennale was China s rst publi , legitimately organi ed e hibition of
modern art.
rom the perspe ti e of biennial e hibitions, the Shanghai e hibition was neither
better nor worse than the eni e or S o aulo biennials, or e en o umenta at assel.
It was simply a biennial. Howe er, onsidering this e hibition with regard to its
so io ultural en ironment and its histori al signi an e, it was a parti ularly unusual
ultural e ent.
- i i v i
No ember , 2000, marks a watershed moment in Chinese art history. After twenty-
two years of opening and reform, twenty-one years of pra ti al e ploration beginning
with the Stars e hibition , and si teen years of publi propagation sin e the National
ine Arts E hibition Symposium on Theory in tober 1984 , modern art was nally
legitimi ed and publi i ed. espite the momentousness of the e ent, e en the staff of
the Shanghai Art Museum maintained a degree of restraint. Thus, in the written pro-
paganda for the e hibition, there was no emphasis on this aspe t of the e hibition,
whi h ould be a result of areful instru tion or, perhaps, modesty. Thus, when one
of the urator s , ang eng ian, in ited me to write an essay on the e hibition for
the general isitor, the abo e-outlined e aluation was deleted.
Nonetheless, the e ent did not ome about easily. ather, it resulted from the
struggles of ountless artists, riti s, theorists, urators, and organi ers. Theoreti ally
and pra ti ally, the e hibition ould be a su ess only through the gradual step-by-
step laying of this foundation. In parti ular, hang ing should be espe ially om-
mended for o er oming many humiliating hallenges in order to bring about this
parti ular e hibition. In 1998, hang ing had already ompleted preparations for
China s se ond modern art e hibition the rst was the China / Avant-Garde e hibition
in 1989 , but sin e modern art was not legal, it fell short. Thus, by the time the
Shanghai Biennale ame about, issues of uality, methods, style, and organi ation
were of se ondary importan e. What was most important was that it was a modern art
e hibition and, furthermore, it was a legitimate Chinese modern art e hibition. Sin e
it had the support of the go ernment, the publi media reported on it, and interna-
tional gures dis ussed it publi ly it also opened in a publi pla e to the entire popu-
la e, and e en offered edu ational talks. Additionally, it prompted si or se en
satellite e hibitions though they were modern art e hibitions with different on epts
and methods pl. 44 . As these satellite e hibitions ould all be arried out normally at
the same time, this swept away the underground or se ret onditions under whi h
these e hibitions used to operate. hang ing had to deal with so many hallenges:
he needed to de lare the signi an e of this e hibition, on in e the poli ymakers,
ease the negati e rea tions to modern art, and omply with the agendas of the arious
urators. He knew how far to go and when to stop. He onta ted arious artists and
riti s, and ould not a oid offending numerous people who were either o erlooked
or e luded. egardless, he pledged to bring about the su essful ompletion of the
e hibition. At the elebration for the e hibition, hang ing wondered how the ne t
Biennale would be approa hed, and I felt that the ne t time would be a different mat-
ter sin e there will be different ways of iewing things and standards for the e aluation
of modern art and its e hibition. So, I replied that on une 23, 323 BCE, Ale ander the
reat lay on his si kbed, ga ing toward the hea ens. He was surrounded by his mili-
352
tary of ers, who asked him who would inherit his throne. Ale ander simply replied,
|
the most outstanding person. After his death, the independent warlords all stro e for
suprema y, and the world di ided. The Shanghai Biennale legitimi ed China s modern
art this matter has on luded. But, from this point forward, the de elopment of mod-
ern art will not ne essarily be asso iated with Shanghai sin e modern art has entered a
new stage.
To me, this Biennale marks an endpoint to a stage in my life. When I returned to
China in 1995, our foremost ob e ti e was to struggle to legitimi e modern art in China
within the ne t e years, or by the year 2000. Thus, I began by sorting out the funda-
mental theory my book Meiyou ren shi yishujia ye meiyou ren bushi yishujia No ne Is
an Artist and No ne Isn’t an Artist was published by The Commer ial ress . To bring
the Ludwig olle tion to China, I ondu ted resear h and wrote e planations. I also
tried my best to parti ipate in those modern art e periments rooted in traditional
Chinese ulture su h as modern ink painting and modern alligraphy . While publi ly
defending and arguing for modern art, in pra ti e, I also urated, organi ed, and tried
to on in e and edu ate people. I fought bitterly, fa ed ridi ule, and worked hard but
a omplished little. With the preparation of the Biennale, I sensed a gleam of hope in
this desperate situation. After No ember , I no longer had to e plain modern art or
do the work of disseminating it. I did not need to onstantly defend it be ause it had
already a hie ed the basi right to e ist. rior to this, I had ne er riti i ed any e plo-
ration or e periment of modern art, be ause it had still not obtained the right to e ist
in China. My approa h ould be des ribed as restraining the powerful to aid the weak
in order to ensure the sur i al of modern art. Although this was not a matter related to
art, I ould not forget this spirit of usti e. Although others harshly riti i ed my stan e
as unre ned or harboring ulterior moti es see iang Nan s essay in Meiyuan Art
Garden 2000: no. 4 , I really did not feel any shame. Sin e I took this stan e for the
sake of argument, riti s often regarded my defensi e language as my own idea of art,
e aluated my work a ording to it, and denoun ed it e en more. rom now on, I no
longer need to speak on behalf of modern art, but may simply speak my own ideas
about art. In so doing, I an fully support and de elop my own reati ity. This kind of
feeling is a huge relief.
Legitimi ed means something that is normal and publi . Howe er, this does not
mean that all e periments in modern art an be arried out publi ly after the Shanghai
Biennale, or that all modern artists an gain so ial re ognition. Not at all It simply
means that from here on out, modern art is no longer illegal or a rime. It will no lon-
ger be denoun ed or protested against or refuted in the publi media. It will no longer
stand for the ob e tionable pra ti es of museums of not displaying installation art, and
it will no longer appease the maga ines that slander modern art.
Modern art is a legitimate re e tion of moderni ation. It was born legitimate, so
the symbol of No ember does not a tually ha e any signi an e, for this ine itable
e ent was simply postponed until this parti ular day. Nonetheless, if the e hibition
had not ome about, the problems would ha e be ome uite se ere, and the on i t
would ha e grown bigger and more ob ious. Therefore, the opening of the Shanghai
Biennale on No ember , 2000, is a signi ant symbol of the beginning of China s his-
tory of modern art.
ublished as hongguo di yi i hefa de iandai yishu han: uanyu 2000 Shanghai shuangnian han in
Piping de shidai [Era of Criticism , ol. 2, ed. ia ang hou uang i: uang i ine Arts ublishing House,
2003 , 347 352. Translated by risten Loring.
THE SHANGHAI ART MUSEUM SHOULD NOT BECOME A MARKET STALL
353
IN CHINA FOR WESTERN HEGEMONY — A PAPER DELIVERED AT THE
|
2000 SHANGHAI BIENNALE ( 2000 )

By Wang Nanming
There is a position in my art riti ism that I ha e always maintained. I am opposed to

standards pla ed upon Chinese ontemporary art that are de ned by Western hege-
mony and are deri ed from a for ed distin tion between Eastern and Western art, as
well as the lasslike distin tions inherent therein. Based upon su h distin tions,
Chinese art is on ned to reating art that looks like this and not like that. If art on-
forms in this way, then it gains admittan e into Western e hibiting systems. It is ust
su h imposed standards that distort the de elopment of Chinese ontemporary art.
Chinese artists li ing abroad are a ase in point. Their work onforms to the Chinese
hara teristi s mandated by the West. But in as mu h as the West seems to be om-
pletely ignorant of re ent de elopments in ontemporary Chinese ulture, its e alua-
tion of Chinese ontemporary art is, at best, based on outdated and rarefied
stereotypes, perpetuated by ultural studies and in the media.
The preser ation of lo al identity through spe ial lassi ations is traditionally the
method by whi h the oloni ers ha e gotten along with the oloni ed, a method that
has persisted until this day in the form of neo olonialism. This is parti ularly the ase
with o erseas Chinese artists. By appropriating simple motifs or symbols left behind by
tradition, they formulate these motifs into some essential markers of Chinese-ness.
Su h artists ha e de eloped a strategy, seeking to ar e out a ni he in order to sur i e
within the order of the dominant ulture. This strategy, whereby one nds spa e for
e isten e at the margins of so iety, has emerged as the neo-Confu ianism of a
Chinatown ulture and theory. n the one hand, this Chinatown ulture is hara -
teri ed by arti ial distin tions between Chinese ulture and Western ulture on the
other hand, it is also ompletely remo ed from the dynami en ironment of China s
ultural present. It essentiali es some old symbols from China s past to ad ertise a
kind of ossi ed Chinese-ness. ust as New York based artist Wenda u has not for-
gotten to add lassi al hara ters in his hair installations, Huang Yong ing s site-
spe i installation in eni e used an allegory from the Classic of Mountains and Seas
Shanhai jing , and Chen hen in ited four Tibetan lamas to beat drums and bells and
to hant mantras pl. 38 , et . Cai uo- iang s ultural strategies are also pregnant
with su h strange offspring pl. 45 . When people see his works, they are awed by the
s ale and e pense of his so- alled artworks, so mu h so that they forget to e amine the
meaning underlying his on eptual approa h. It an be said that the so- alled on-
ept in Cai s art is ust like that whi h we ha e found in works by other o erseas Chinese
artists. It is nothing but a ommitment to an outmoded ulture whi h ultimately
be omes a supplement to Chinatown ulture. or e ample, he employs gunpowder to
make images of a dragon, he imports giant taihu ro ks into Ameri a, he lls a giant
bathtub with Chinese medi ine and then in ites Chinese and people of other nation-
alities to take a bath together. All these and other art pro e ts are at best only on par
with mass re reational a ti ities in China s tourist industry, the ulture of street stalls
and ethni performan es made for tourists. E en his Borrowing Your Enemy’s Arrows
Cao chuan jie jian is merely a physi al illustration of a Chinese pro erb, a simple allu-
sion. Aside from illustrating a traditional Chinese story, it is little more than a super uous
omment otherwise unrelated to either ontemporary Chinese or Western ulture.
Cultural e hange has already be ome an integral part of today s e eryday life as
ontemporary ulture has already entered the age of the Internet. What matters is not
how we onsume ultures of the past. ather, we need to e amine ways in whi h we
354
might gi e a new lease on life to ulture in a new age. The symbols employed by o er-
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seas Chinese artists, in luding Cai uo- iang, ha e nothing whatsoe er to do with
breathing life into today s ultural rein ention. The kind of East and West referen ed
in their dis ourse is based on methodologies pro ided by early ultural anthropolo-
gists and their ethnographi al olle tions, lassi ations, and rudimentary ompari-
sons of different ethni ultures. This kind of ultural study is a tually a produ t of
olonialism and has been repla ed by newer theories. A ru ial differen e in these
new theories is their on ersion of ulture from a noun used by early ultural anthro-
pologists to a erb. Culture is no longer a ed ethnographi al symbol, but rather a
dynami pro ess.
Lea ing the realm of one s own e ol ing ulture and appropriating ultural sym-
bols as nouns for one s artisti material has be ome a ommon thread running
through o erseas Chinese art. The West also has a ri h heritage of symbols and alle-
gory. If su h things were brought to China, naturally they would also interest Chinese
audien es. But, symbols and stories in the West are generally reser ed for use in tradi-
tional holidays and festi als or as memorials to remember one s forefathers. They are
not areas of fo us in ontemporary ulture. Yet, the use of ed symbols from Chinese
ulture is somehow onsidered by the West to be ontemporary art. This reinfor es
the use of hara teristi s from Chinese ulture as stati nouns. The Chinese fable
reated by a Western hegemony has already led to a de nition of Chinese ontempo-
rary artists as mere raftsmen of produ ts for foreign tourism. Almost as if taking orders
at a trade fair, China s lo al urators, riti s, and artists busily ie for a way into this
kind of trade fair, belie ing somehow that this is the road to su ess for Chinese on-
temporary art. This should ser e as a wake-up all to all of us. China s e hibition sys-
tem and ultural poli ies should take the position that the art of a people should be
reated rst for its people, that ontemporary art should spring from its own dynami
ultural realm and breathe new life into that realm. uite the opposite o urs when
so- alled ontemporary art from China s tourist ulture has departed from its own
audien e and ulture, largely to offer Western audien es the roman e of e oti , imag-
ined lands. China s art museums should take the initiati e to de elop issues that are
most rele ant to our e perien e, to set right the distortions of Chinese ontemporary
art and, abo e all, to not be ome a market stall in China for Western hegemony.
ublished in Chinese Art at the Crossroads: Between Past and Future, Between East and West, ed.
Wu Hung Hong ong: New Art Media London: Institute of International isual Arts, 2001 , 2 5 8.
Translated by obert Bernell.
PREFACE TO FUCK OFF ( BUHEZUO FANGSHI ) ( 2000 )

By Ai Weiwei and Feng Boyi
This olume is a ompilation of ontemporary Chinese art do uments sorted out during
the a ti ities of uck ff Buhezuo fangshi, meaning literally Ways of Non-Cooperation .
uck ff is an e ent that is based on the mutual identi ation and oint parti i-
pation of its organi ers and artists. In today s art, the alternati e is playing the role of
re ising and riti i ing the power dis ourse and mass on ention. In an un ooperati e
and un ompromising way, it self- ons iously resists the threat of assimilation and ul-
gari ation. A ultural attitude that takes a stand against power and makes no ompro-
mises with ulgari ation is together with independent, indi idual e perien es,
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Interior iew of the uck ff e hibition, No ember 4 20, 2000, Eastlink allery, Shanghai
feelings, and reations what e tends the pursuit and desire of art for spiritual free-
dom, an e erlasting theme. Su h a ultural attitude is in ariably e lusi e and alien-
ated. It aims at dealing with themes su h as ultural power, art institutions, art trends,
ommuni ations between East and West, e oti ism, postmodernism, and post olo-
nialism, et .
uck ff emphasi es the independent and riti al stan e that is basi to the e is-
ten e of art. Within a state of ountless ontradi tions and on i ts, it maintains its
status of independen e, freedom, and plurality. It tries to pro oke an artist s responsi-
bility and self-dis ipline, and sear hes for a way in whi h art li es as wildlife, and
raises uestions about some issues of ontemporary Chinese art.
Allegory, dire t uestioning, resistan e, alienation, dissolution, enduran e, bore-
dom, bias, absurdity, yni ism, and self-entertainment are aspe ts of ulture as well as
features of e isten e. Su h issues are re-presented here by the artists with unpre e-
dented frankness and intelligen e, lea ing behind fresh and stimulating information
and tra es of e isten e.
In this e hibition, parti ipants and their works are not ob e ts of hoi e, identi -
ation, and udgment. They ha e no uest for any kind of e use. roup identi ation
and inner differen e are both so fully respe ted and en ouraged that it may be
doubted if there is e en the need for the presen e of an audien e.
n-site ambiguity and un ertainty for es one to seek meaning and satisfa tion
only in the form of proliferation and postponement. erhaps there is nothing that
e ists on-site, but what will last fore er is this un ooperati eness with an authorita-
ti e dis ursi e system.
tober 2000
ublished in Buhezuo fangshi u k ff ed. Ai Weiwei and eng Boyi China: pri ately published,
2000 , 9.
CONTEMPORARY CHINESE ART IN THE
356
GLOBAL CONTEXT
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C
ontemporary Chinese art was “discovered” by Hong Kong, Taiwan, and

Western curators and dealers in the early 1990s. A series of events in 1993,
including the beginning of the world tour of the hina ew rt, Po t 1989 exhibi-
tion organized by Hong ong’s Hanart TZ Gallery, the appearance of young Chinese
“avant-garde” artists in the 50th enice Biennale, and cover articles in Flash Art
and The New York Times Magazine, introduced this art to a global audience.
Throughout the 1990s, contemporary Chinese artists attracted growing interna-
tional attention. To list a few facts: solo exhibitions of Cai Guo-Qiang’s work were
held in both America and Europe in 1997;1 two survey exhibitions of contemporary
Chinese art took place in the United States in 1998 and 1999;2 Xu Bing received a
MacArthur Foundation “genius” award in 1999, and Wenda Gu was featured on
the cover of Art in America that same year ( March 1999 ); twenty Chinese artists
were selected to present their work in the 1999 enice Biennale, more than the
combined number of the American and Italian participants; and Huang Yong Ping
represented France in the same Biennale and made an imposing installation for
the French Pavilion.
The success of selected Chinese artists in the international arena, however,
also triggered strong reactions, even resentment, in China. If most Chinese artists
and critics in the early 1990s assumed that the globalization of contemporary
Chinese art would strengthen their standing domestically, toward the later part of
the decade such optimism increasingly gave way to disappointment and suspicion
[pl. 46 ]. Some Chinese critics raised questions about the standards used by
Western curators to evaluate Chinese art and criticized works by overseas Chinese
artists, which in their view catered to foreigners’ penchant for Oriental exoticism
and Cold War sentiment. The copyright dispute surrounding Cai Guo-Qiang’s
prize-winning piece in the 48th enice Biennale, Venice’s Rent Collection Courtyard,
highlighted many internal contradictions in contemporary Chinese art. It would
be too simplistic to attribute this dispute merely to the nationalistic sentiment of
the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, which threatened to sue not only Cai Guo-Qiang
but also the enice Biennale and its curator Harald Szeemann. Rather, centered on
the authorship of the ent olle tion ourtyar a Cultural Revolution
“masterpiece” — this dispute revealed growing tension between Chinese artists
and critics associated with the domestic sphere and those associated with the
international sphere.
Notes
. These are Cultural Melting Bath: Projects for the 20th Century at ueens Museum of Art, New York and
the Flying Dragon in the Heavens at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, enmark.
. These are Inside ut: New Chinese Art, o-organi ed by the Asia So iety and the San ran is o Museum of
Modern Art, and opening in New York at the Asia So iety and .S. Contemporary Art Center, New York,
before an international tour and Transience: Chinese xperimental Art at the nd of the 20th Century,
organi ed by and opening at the Smart Museum of Art, Chi ago, whi h toured nationally.
Contemporary Chinese Art in the West
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CONTEMPORARY CHINESE ART IN THE GLOBAL CONTEXT
THE RECEPTION IN THE WEST OF EXPERIMENTAL MAINLAND CHINESE
ART OF THE 1990S ( 2002 )
By Britta Erickson
i i
uring the 1990s, the o erseas pro le of the Chinese art world in reased dramati ally,
as the number of o erseas e hibitions and publi ations fo using on or featur-
ing Chinese art grew year by year. At the same time, the relationship between
Chinese artists and o erseas art workers and onsumers e ol ed from one of keen but
largely uninformed interest to one that was both better informed and more self-
ons ious. By 2000, Chinese art had a hie ed a sustainable pro le on the international
art ir uit, and s holars, riti s, urators, and olle tors had begun to treat it as part of
the general s enery, rather than as an e oti ism. The artist hou Tiehai has famously
stated in his 1997 painting Press Conference that The relations in the art world are the
same as the relations between states in the post Cold War era. I would say that the
art world relationship between China and the outside world, parti ularly the West,
de eloped more like a romanti relationship during the 1990s: at rst, both parties were
urious about the newly dis o ered other, and wondered what ould be gained from a
onne tion. By the end of the 1990s, the heady e itement had gone, repla ed by a
sustainable long-term asso iation. Although there is now a deeper understanding, there
are still areas of un ertainty, moments of idio y, and room for en oyable irtation.
or the sake of larity and simpli ity, this essay onsists of separate histories of the
pro le of art by mainland Chinese artists as it appeared in e hibitions, publi ations,
and s holarly resear h in the West, with an additional small se tion about strategies.
The re eption of Chinese art in other parts of Asia, parti ularly apan, is a separate and
ri h story re ol ing around different shared interests and different misper eptions, and
will not be o ered in this essay.
x i i i
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, ontemporary Chinese art was featured in a few
e hibitions in the West, either small e hibitions at minor enues, or as a minor ele-
ment of a large e hibition. In North Ameri a, for e ample, the rst e hibitions of a ant-
garde Chinese art were held in olleges in the 1980s and were not widely publi i ed.
These in lude Painting the Chinese Dream: Chinese Art Thirty Years after the Revolution,
urated by oan Lebold Cohen at the Smith College Museum of Art 1982 and Artists
from China — New Expressions at Sarah Lawren e College 1987 . In Europe, Chinese
art was featured as a minor element in ean-Hubert Martin s 1989 e hibition, Magiciens
de la Terre, at the Centre eorges ompidou, whi h introdu ed the young a ant-garde
artists u e in, Huang Yong ing, and Yang ie hang and other Third World artists
to an important enter of the ontemporary art world. Ten years later, a ant-garde
Chinese art was in demand for ma or e hibitions.
The 1990s witnessed both rapid globali ation and the artisti results of China s
poli y of striding to the world. This on uen e of ir umstan es implied an interest
on the part of the West in other ultures and the produ tion in China of art intended
for onsumption o erseas. arti ularly a de ade ago, to introdu e an e hibition of
ontemporary Chinese art into the s hedule of a museum or publi gallery re uired
determination, le erage, and strategy. er the years, the strategi ing has be ome
more sophisti ated, and more effe ti e. The other side of the oin is the fa t that some
358
Chinese artists ha e set out to design works of art to suit o erseas onsumption, often
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laying their ma hinations bare as part of the work.

Three issues olored Western re eption of Chinese art at the beginning of the
1990s, and endure to this day: rst, estiges of the olonialist sear h for e oti ism in
the other persisted se ond, une 4 , 1989 dominated Western per eptions of China
third, Western art e perts fre uently had dif ulty seeing beyond the surfa e appear-
an e of ontemporary Chinese art, with the result that they per ei ed mu h as deri a-
ti e. The rst two issues ha e surfa ed in e hibitions, and may ha e been e ploited as
points of a essibility for the art, parti ularly in group shows where there is a need for
a unifying theme. Criti s a used Magiciens de la Terre, for e ample, of fostering the
per eption of Chinese artists as shamans.
Early solo e hibitions laun hed the o erseas areers of outstanding migr artists.
In 1987, Wenda u installed a ma or show, Dangerous Chessboard Leaves the Ground, in
the Art allery of York ni ersity in Toronto. Yang ie hang e hibited in aris and
London in 1990 and 1991, and Chen hen had shows in those same years in aris and
ome. u Bing s rst solo e hibition in the West was Three Installations by Xu Bing in
Madison El eh em Museum of Art in 1991. Huang Yong ing and Cai uo- iang
began to ha e ma or solo e hibitions in the West slightly later. In the early 1990s Cai
li ed in apan, where he was a resounding su ess. Flying Dragon in the Heavens
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, enmark, 1997 was Cai s rst solo
e hibition in Europe, and Cultural Melting Bath: Projects for the 20th Century ueens
Museum of Art, New York, 1997 his rst in the nited States.
This group of e eptional artists was drawn on as a ore for se eral group e hibi-
tions, in luding Art Chinois, Chine Demain pour Hier urated by ei awei, ourri res,
1990 , Silent Energy urated by a id Elliott and Lydie Mepham, eight artists,
Museum of Modern Art, ford, 1993 , Fragmented Memory: The Chinese Avant-Garde
in Exile urated by ulia Andrews and ao Minglu, four artists, We ner Center for the
Arts, Columbus, hio, 1993 , and ut of the Centre, urated by Hou Hanru, e art-
ists, ori Art Museum, ori, inland, 1994 . These artists be ame integrated into the
fabri of the international realm of Con eptual art, appearing in su h important e hi-
bitions as Heart of Darkness an e hibition of artists from throughout the world ,
urated by Marianne Brouwer r ller-M ller Museum, tterlo, 1994 .
In general, Australia and Europe pro ed to be open to e perimental Chinese art
earlier than the nited States. While for de ades Australia had onsidered itself ultur-
ally linked to Europe and the nited States, during the 1990s it in reasingly re ogni ed
ties to its neighbors in Asia. This mindset laun hed the Asia- a i Triennial A T , origi-
nally planned as a series of three e hibitions to be held at the ueensland Art allery in
Brisbane in 1993, 199 , and 1999, under the dire tion of Caroline Turner. The e hibitions
su ess has resulted in the triennials ontinuation into the twenty- rst entury. Although
the art in luded in the A T e hibitions was not limited to China the rst, se ond, and
third triennials featured eight, si , and ele en Chinese artists, respe ti ely , the e hibi-
tions are ne ertheless signi ant for Chinese art be ause of the idealism behind their
organi ation, in luding the minimal in uen e e erted by ommer ial galleries and ol-
le tors in the sele tion pro ess. As the triennial s Senior ro e t ffi er, hana
e enport, stated, the A T ore prin iples in lude: the desire to enhan e ultural
understanding through long-term engagement with ontemporary art and ideas from
Asia and the a i a ommitment to o- uratorship and onsultation and the lo a-
tion of the artist and the artist artwork audien e relationship as entral to the entire
pro ess. What set this series of e hibitions apart from all others were the e treme
lengths to whi h the organi ers went in their efforts to be open to new kinds of art. or
359
the rst triennial, a ons ious de ision was made to not organi e the e hibition a ord-
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ing to an o erall theme a method that had be ome de rigueur for large periodi al e hi-

bitions but rather to allow multiple urators to sele t art representati e of the area
for whi h they were responsible. The se ond triennial sought to a oid a Euro-
Ameri entri perspe ti e, rst, by on ening a series of forums to dis uss issues rele ant
to the uratorial pro ess, and se ond, by forming fteen uratorial teams ea h of whi h
in luded a urator nati e to the ountry whose art the team was sele ting. or the third
triennial, fty-three urators and resear hers worked with se enty-se en artists, ensur-
ing a plurality of ision. While the uratorial pro ess be ame umbersome, it en our-
aged the emergen e of artists who would not ha e otherwise a hie ed re ognition. The
east oast of Australia also saw the rst signi ant Australian e hibition de oted e lu-
si ely to Chinese art: Claire oberts s small but powerful New Art from China: Post-Mao
Product, at the Art allery of New South Wales, Sydney, in 1992 se en artists .
uring the mid-1990s, Europe produ ed a urry of group e hibitions fo using on
ontemporary a ant-garde Chinese art, beginning with China Avant-garde: Counter-
Currents in Art and Culture, at the Haus der ulturen der Welt in Berlin in 1993 si teen
artists . In 1995, Change Chinese Contemporary Art, organi ed by olke Edwards,
opened at the onsthallen in teborg, Sweden se enteen artists and Des del Pais
del Centre: avant-gardes artistiques xineses ut of the Middle ingdom: Chinese Avant-
garde Art , urated by Imma uy, was e hibited at the Centre d Art Santa Moni a in
Bar elona thirty-four artists . The ne t year, China Zeitgen ssische Malerei, urated
by ieter onte, Walter Smerling, and E elyn Weiss, opened at the Bonn Art Museum
thirty-one artists . An almost identi al e hibition, “Quotation Marks”: Chinese
Contemporary Paintings, opened at the Singapore Art Museum in 1997, with twenty-
se en artists. Many others followed.
robably the most in uential of all the early 1990s e hibitions of ontemporary
Chinese a ant-garde art was the 1993 blo kbuster, China’s New Art, Post-1989. Co-
urated by Chang Tsong- ung and Li ianting, China’s New Art, Post-1989 opened at
the Hong ong Arts Centre and City Hall, and featured fty-four artists, most of whom
had drawn attention at the 1989 China / Avant-Garde e hibition Zhongguo xiandai
yishuzhan at the National Art allery in Bei ing. China’s New Art, Post-1989 went on
to tour the globe for se eral years, and had a long-lasting impa t, shaping the o erseas
roster of important Chinese artists. A pared-down spin-off of this e hibition, Mao Goes
Pop, China Post-1989 with twenty-nine artists , appeared at the Museum of
Contemporary Art, Sydney, in 1993.
roup e hibitions from the first half of the 1990s introdu ed ontemporary
Chinese a ant-garde art to the West. Typi ally the atalogue te ts a ompanying the
e hibitions lo ated the art in terms of its politi al and so iologi al ba kground, and
sometimes e plained its histori al de elopment. Some atalogues in luded omments
from the artists. n e ontemporary Chinese art had been thus introdu ed, howe er,
e hibitions in this ein be ame redundant, e ept to the lo al populations.
Important e hibitions of the later 1990s pro ided new angles or introdu ed new
materials. E amples in lude Die H lfte des Himmels: Chinesische nstlerinnen, organi ed
by Chris Werner, iu ing, and Marianne it enar at the rauen Museum in Bonn in
1998 twenty-four artists from mainland China . This e hibition of female artists works
was a dire t rea tion to China Zeitgen ssische Malerei, whi h had appeared in Bonn two
years earlier, purporting to present a omprehensi e iew of Chinese painting but in lud-
ing no women among its thirty-one artists. The under-representation of female artists is
a per asi e problem in the eld, and Die Hälfte des Himmels made a de isi e statement.
360
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oster produ ed for the

e hibition China’s New Art,
Post-1989. E hibition orga-
ni ed by Hanart T allery,
tour opening in Hong ong,
anuary 31 ebruary 14,
1993 Hong ong City Hall ,
ebruary 2 25, 1993 Hong
ong Arts Centre
Some e hibitions e plored parti ular media. In 1997, Another Long March: Chinese
Conceptual and Installation Art in the Nineties, urated by Chris reissen and Heidi an
Mierlo eighteen artists undament oundation, Breda, the Netherlands fo used on
installation and performan e art. That same year saw a ma or e hibition of ontem-
porary Chinese photography, Zeitgen ssische otokunst aus der olksrepublik China, at
the Neuer Berliner unst erein si teen artists .
ther e hibitions brought out parti ular themes. Im Spiegel der Eigenen Tradition:
Ausstellung Zeitgen ssischer Chinesischer unst, urated by E khard S hneider at the
erman Embassy, Bei ing te hni ally erman territory thirty-four artists in 1998,
show ased modern e pressions of traditional artisti pra ti es and aestheti s. Three
e hibitions fo using on language appeared in 1999 and 2000: Contemporary Chinese
Art and the Literary Culture of China, urated by atri ia Ei henbaum aret ky, Lehman
College Art allery ten artists 1999 Power of the Word, urated by Chang Tsong-
ung and ir ulated by Independent Curators International, New York si mainland
Chinese artists 2000 and Word and Meaning: Six Contemporary Chinese Artists,
urated by Shen uiyi, for the ni ersity at Buffalo Art allery, Buffalo, New York e
mainland Chinese artists 2000 . Transience: Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the
Twentieth Century, urated by Wu Hung for the Smart Museum of Art at the ni ersity
of Chi ago twenty-one artists 1999 broke e perimental art into se eral themati
di isions, emysti ation, uins, and Transien e.
egionalism pro ed a iable angle for the e hibition Jiangnan: Modern and
Contemporary Art from South of the Yangzi River, organi ed by Hank Bull, a id Chan,
heng Shengtian, and ia Wei, e hibited in arious an ou er enues eighteen ontem-
porary mainland artists 1998 . Another angle was painting genres: in urating Representing
the People for the Chinese Arts Centre, Man hester ten artists 1998 , aren Smith
fo used on gurati e paintings. All of the fo used e hibitions pro ided their audien es
with a iew of China as a multifa eted ulture, breaking down the notion of China as a
homogeneous monolith, and en ouraging a more nuan ed appre iation of Chinese art.
The se ond blo kbuster e hibition of Chinese a ant-garde art after China’s New
Art, Post-1989 , Inside ut: New Chinese Art, was urated by ao Minglu in asso iation
with the Asia So iety and the San ran is o Museum of Modern Art forty-two main-
land Chinese artists groups . Although its ore onsisted of the ma or artists of the
85 Art New Wa e mo ement, its s ope was widened to in lude younger artists, as
361
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ront o er of Inside ut:
New Chinese Art, ed. ao
Minglu. San ran is o:
San ran is o Museum of
Modern Art New York:
Asia So iety Berkeley and
Los Angeles: ni ersity
of California ress, 1998 .
E hibition organi ed by
Asia So iety alleries and
San ran is o Museum of
Modern art, tour opening in
New York City, September
15, 1998 anuary 3, 1999
Asia So iety alleries and
.S. 1 Contemporary Art
Center
well as artists from Hong ong and Taiwan. After opening at the Asia So iety and .S. 1
in New York in 1998, the e hibition tra eled to other Ameri an enues and se eral
ountries. This e hibition brought wide attention to Chinese art, and en ouraged a
debate on the iability of onsidering artists from mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong
ong as a unit. The e hibition s presen e in New York had the side effe t of temporar-
ily heating up the market for ontemporary Chinese art.
The end of the de ade saw two shows that made reati e use of the e hibition
format. Wu Hung s Canceled: Exhibiting Experimental Art in China Smart Museum of
Art, Chi ago, 2000 on ured a an eled Bei ing e hibition as an opportunity to address
the spe ial issues surrounding the display and re eption of art in China. Word Play:
Contemporary Art by Xu Bing, featuring many works reated during the 1990s, was the
Arthur M. Sa kler allery s Washington, .C. 2001 rst ma or e hibition of ontem-
porary Chinese art. Through the u taposition of early Chinese art with u Bing s
works, I intended the e hibition to establish a pro o ati e tension that led iewers to
uestion whether the ontemporary pie es drew on the super ial appearan e of the
traditional art, or made a deeper onne tion.
The 1990s saw the in reasing in lusion of Chinese artists in group e hibitions of
international artists. or the 1993 eni e Biennale, urator A hille Bonito li a on-
sulting with ran es a dal Lago in luded fourteen Chinese artists in a se tion titled
Passaggio a riente. Cities on the Move, an inno ati e e ol ing e hibition urated by
Hou Hanru and Hans- lri h brist, opened at the Wiener Se ession, ienna, in 1997,
with works by nineteen mainland Chinese artists. Twenty Chinese artists appeared
two years later in the 48th eni e Biennale, urated by Harald S eemann. In 2000
ean-Hubert Martin sele ted si teen for Partage d’Exotismes: The Fifth Lyon Biennial of
Contemporary Art. In hoosing twenty per ent Chinese artists, S eemann sho ked
many people yet twenty per ent of the world s population is Chinese, and we an
guess that a similar proportion of the world s artists are Chinese. Many a used the
urator of playing the China ard, parti ularly when he hose only three Chinese art-
ists for the following biennial. The same was thought of ean-Hubert Martin, who
sele ted se eral artists who reated sho king works from animal or human body
parts supposedly e oti works that were reated in an e oti land. Con i ting
feelings surround the sele tion for important o erseas e hibitions: the desire to be
in luded, plus an inse urity on erning the moti ations for in lusion.
362
Notes
. oan Lebold Cohen, Painting the Chinese Dream: Chinese Art Thirty Years After the Revolution Northampton,
Massa husetts: Smith College Museum of Art, .
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. Artists from China-New Expressions Bron ille, New York: Sarah Lawren e College, .
. ean-Hubert Martin et al., Magiciens de la Terre aris: Centre eorges ompidou, .
. Bru e arsons, omp., Dangerous Chessboard Leaves the Ground Toronto: Art allery of York ni ersity, .
. Britta Eri kson, Three Installations by Xu Bing Madison, Wis onsin: El eh em Museum of Art, .
. Anneli u h and eremie Barm , Flying Dragon in the Heavens Humlebaek, enmark: Louisiana Museum of
Modern Art, .
. ane ar er urator and eiko Tomii, Cultural Melting Bath: Projects for the 20th Century New York: ueens
Museum of Art, .
. ei awei, Art Chinois, Chine Demain Pour Hier aris: Carte Se rete, .
. a id Elliott and Lydie Mepham, eds., Silent Energy: New Art from China ford: Museum of Modern Art,
.
. ulia . Andrews and ao Minglu, Fragmented Memory: The Chinese Avant-Garde in Exile Columbus, hio:
We ner Center for the Arts, The hio State ni ersity, .
. ari- ekka anhala, ed., ut of the Centre ori, inland: orin Tadeimuseo, .
. Marianne Brouwer, ed., Heart of Darkness tterlo: Sti htung r ller-M ller Museum, .
. Beyond the uture: The Third Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art Brisbane: ueensland Art allery,
, .
. Claire oberts, New Art from China: Post-Mao Product Sydney: Art allery of New South Wales, .
. o hen Noth, et al., eds., China Avant-Garde: Counter-Currents in Art and Culture Hong ong: ford
ni ersity ress, .
. olke Edwards, Change Chinese Contemporary Art teborg, Sweden: onsthallen, .
. Imma on le uy, et al., Des del Pais del Centre: Avantguardes artistiques xineses Bar elona: eneralitat de
Catalunya, epartament de Cultura, .
. ieter onte, Walter Smerling, E elyn Weiss, et al., China Zeitgen ssische Malerei Bonn: umont, .
. ieter onte, Walter Smerling, E elyn Weiss, et al., “Quotation Marks:” Chinese Contemporary Paintings
Singapore: Singapore Art Museum, .
. Chang Tsong- ung, et al., China’s New Art, Post-1989 Hong ong: Hanart T allery, .
. China / Avant-Garde uang i eople s ublishing House, .
. Ni holas ose, ed., Mao Goes Pop, China Post-1989 Sydney: Museum of Contemporary Art, .
. Chris Werner, iu ing, and Marianne it en, eds., Die H lfte des Himmels: Chinesische nstlerinnen
Bonn: rauen Museum, .
. Chris reissen and Heidi an Mierlo, eds., Another Long March: Chinese Conceptual and Installation Art in
the Nineties Breda: undament oundation, .
. Andreas S hmid and Ale ander Tolnay, Zeitgen ssische otokunst aus der R China Berlin: Edition Braus,
.
. E khard . S hneider, et al., Im Spiegel der igenen Tradition: Ausstellung Zeitgen ssischer Chinesischer unst
Bei ing: Bots haft der Bundesrepublik euts hland, .
. atri ia Ei henbaum aret ky, Contemporary Chinese Art and the Literary Culture of China Bron , New York:
Lehman College Art allery, .
. Chang Tsong- ung, Power of the Word New York: Independent Curators International, .
. Shen uiyi, Word and Meaning: Six Contemporary Chinese Artists Buffalo, New York: ni ersity at Buffalo Art
allery, .
. Wu Hung, Transience: Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the Twentieth Century Chi ago: Smart Museum
of Art, ni ersity of Chi ago, .
. Hank Bull, ed., iangnan: Modern and Contemporary Art from South of the Yangzi River an ou er: Annie
Wong Art oundation and Western ront So iety, .
. aren Smith, Representing the People Man hester: Chinese Arts Centre, .
. ao Minglu, ed., Inside ut: New Chinese Art Berkeley: ni ersity of California ress, .
. Wu Hung, Exhibiting Experimental Art in China Chi ago: Smart Museum of Art, ni ersity of Chi ago, .
. La Biennale di enezia, XL sposizione Internationale d Arte, ol. eni e: Marsilio Editori, .
. Hou Hanru and Hans- lri h brist, eds., Cities on the Move st ldern- uit, ermany: erlag erd Hat e,
.
. Harald S eemann and Ce ilia Li eriero La elli, eds., La Biennale di enezia, 48th sposizione Intemationale
d’Arte eni e: Marsilio Editori, .
. Thierry rat, Thierry aspail, ean-Hubert Martin, et al., Partage d xotismes: 5e Biennale d’Art Contemporain
de Lyon eunion des Mus es Nationau , .
. or more information about the in lusion of Chinese artists in ma or international periodi al e hibitions,
see ran es a dal Lago, rom Crafts to Art: Chinese Artists at the eni e Biennale, ,
unpublished paper.
E erpted from a te t originally published in Reinterpretation: A Decade of Experimental Chinese Art,

1990 – 2000, ed. Wu Hung uang hou: uangdong Museum of Art, 2002 , 105 12.
ENTROPY, CHINESE ARTISTS, WESTERN ART INSTITUTIONS:
363
A NEW INTERNATIONALISM ( 1994 )
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By Hou Hanru

...
ii
b iously, there is in the West a la k of knowledge and understanding of ontempo-
rary art of China. This is in a way understandable. There are some essential differen es
between China and most Third World ountries in a histori al, politi al, e onomi al,
and ultural sense. or although struggles against all kinds of imperialism ha e been
one of the most important aspe ts of modern Chinese history, China as a whole has
ne er been oloni ed by any imperialist power, e en during the eight years of apanese
o upation. Whilst fa ing dangers of being oloni ed and half- oloni ed, as Mao
edong had often warned, the ery entre of modern history of ulture in China has
been o upied by debates and e plorations of the relationships between East and
West ulture. Moderni ation of national and traditional ulture and, moreo er, a er-
tain idealism of bridging Western and Eastern ultures by no means implies a simple
laim of a single national ultural identity. This situation annot be in luded in the dis-
ussions of the olonialism-post olonialism problem and is, of ourse, not o ered by
Western anthropologi al resear h, whi h has pro ided the modern antira ist and anti-
olonialist mo ements with s ienti usti ations. This fa t also helps us to under-
stand why there is a la k of knowledge and understanding of Chinese ontemporary
art in the West.
I generali e here, be ause during the past few years the Western art world has
begun to be aware of Chinese ontemporary art. There ha e been se eral e hibitions
of Chinese A ant-garde art in museums and galleries in ran e, ermany, reat
Britain, the S, Holland, enmark, oland, and Italy. This interest in Chinese A ant-
garde art is not oin idental. It is onne ted to the West s sudden interest in China
during the 1989 Tiananmen e ent. In other words, the e ent itself e posed the reality
of a politi al iolen e and a totalitarian ideology in the ountry, whi h awakened the
humanist ons ien e of Westerners. The mira le of China s e onomi boom during
the last few years has also attra ted Western interests, although these ha e ui kly
e panded into ultural-artisti domains. What is interesting is how often, although of
ourse not always, one an dete t these fa ts. In organi ing Chinese ontemporary art
e hibitions in Western institutions, a ertain ideologi al superiority on the part of the
West an be tra ed ba k to Cold War ideologi al ompetitions between the West and
the East, and to nineteenth- entury e oti ism. Sometimes this is the ery moti ation
for organi ing these e hibitions.
Most work by ontemporary Chinese artists hosen by Western institutions and
galleries ome from two groups of painting that ha e been oined by some riti s as
oliti al op and Cyni al ealism. or the most part, these paintings appeared after
the 1989 China / Avant-Garde e hibition Zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan and the
Tiananmen e ent. They are a tually re e tions of a yni al mentality among some
young people who ha e failed to dis o er imaginati e solutions to the dramati so ial-
politi al and ultural shifts fa ing ontemporary Chinese so iety. The only thing they
ha e found interesting and useful is to play yni ally with the status uo by manipulat-
ing or ombining images of of ial propaganda with the signs of a growing popular
ulture, one reated by a newly born onsumerism in the ountry. The artisti lan-
guage of these paintings is often deri ed from Chinese So ialist ealism and Ameri an
op art. These kinds of yni al games of anti-of ial propaganda satisfy a Western
publi s e pe tation for their own ideologi al superiority as mentioned abo e. Their
364
artisti alue an be ompared to many of the supposedly ob e ti e reportage about

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China that one nds in Time or Newsweek, whi h e pli itly propagates this ideologi al
preo upation. In other words, the kind of Chinese painting largely wel omed in the
West is a tually another form of politi al propaganda.
The Western professional art press has not been able to a oid this propaganda li-
h . The writers of most arti les on Chinese ontemporary art, instead of dis ussing
the artists reati e efforts and the ultural-intelle tual alues of the wok, on entrate
their energies and interests on re ealing how unof ial artists suffer from politi al
pressure in the ountry, as if the signi an e of both artists and work an only be
found in ideologi al struggles. This re alls the methodology of the Western of ial ide-
ologi al propaganda during the Cold War.
Lynn Ma it hie s re ent arti le re arious aths on the Mainland Art in
America, Mar h, 1994 , whi h reports on the present situation of the Chinese art world,
is summed up with the following senten e: While today s A ant-garde Chinese artists
ha e had some su ess abroad, they ontinue to fa e unpredi table go ernmental
rea tions at home. In this arti le, whi h o upies e pages of the maga ine, one an
nd hardly any detailed information or interpretation of the work itself. Instead, it is
full of des riptions of how the artists are enduring of ial ensorship and feeling unsafe
in their ountry. What is parti ularly worth noting is that her arti le begins with a
report on ilbert and eorge s e hibition in China, a ompanied by a olor photo-
graph of them posing with a ouple of Chinese opera singers. The e oti , The Last
Emperor type photo itself tells us learly why the artists de ided to show their work
and themsel es in China Ma it hie admits it was be ause of ilbert and eorge s
show that she went to China in the rst pla e, and one easily understands the purpose
of her arti le as an e tension of the myth that the artists as well as the people of China
are still the e oti other in both the ultural and ideologi al senses.
I ha e pointed out that most of the oliti al op and Cyni al ealist work has
nothing to do with real A ant-garde resear h in Chinese ontemporary art, whi h has
too often been ignored. ne should not forget that these oliti al op or Cyni al
ealist artists ha e bene ted from the present market e onomy to enri h themsel es
and they ha e rarely been banned. A new situation appearing in the ountry is a so ial
ompromise between offi ial politi al power and intelle tual laims for freedom,
ena ted by repla ing the ideologi al on i ts with materialist alues. And these artists
are those of the typi al nou eau ri hes, the ery produ ts of the so ial ompromise.
Cons iously or un ons iously, they ha e be ome the best tools of both of ial Chinese
and Western ropaganda. Western interests in these artists re alls the ogue for the
unof ial art of the So iet nion in the 1980s. omar and Melamid s su ess in the
West is a typi al e ample of this phenomenon. The olish-born artist r ys tof
Wodi ko s omment on these artists an pro ide us with a rele ant referen e to
today s A ant-garde Chinese artist s su ess abroad :
. . . But, in fa t, omar and Melamid are not learly riti al of either system. They
submerge themsel es with per erse pleasure in the repressi e realities of both
So iet and Ameri an e isten e, wallowing in what they see as the e ui alent de -
aden e of both empires. They perform art-histori al manipulations to support
their politi al nihilism, reating, for e ample, pop-art ersions of so ialist realism.
I uestion the politi al larity and so ial effe ti eness of adopting pop-art strate-
gies for the riti ue of So iet ulture. E en though they de eloped a powerful
humor, whi h would ha e been a liberating e perien e in intelle tual ir les, it
would hardly ha e been so liberating for anyone who did not en oy the pri ileges
365
granted to artists in the So iet nion. There is a similar problem in the re eption
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of their work here in the nited States, where people only ha e the most general

notion of so ialist realism and of the So iet reality.
This Western politi al propaganda, whi h has framed Chinese ontemporary art
as other, is onne ted to on entional West- entri and olonialist ultural iew-
points. Its inner logi is that Chinese artists as the other are purely aestheti i ed
as an e oti ob e t, rather than an indi idual whose ontribution to international
ultural e hanges is approa hed in an a ti e and most aluable way. Su h a preo u-
pation an also be dete ted in many other writings on Chinese ontemporary art. or
e ample, for some Western writers, it is una eptable to e press the riental mind
with the idental language of A ant-garde art. The alue and signi an e of a
Chinese artist an only be legitimi ed through their use of ink-wash or alligraphy.
ne an ne er nd anything more nai e and narrow-minded than su h an assump-
tion. f ourse, its result is the dis rimination of the other. This nai et an be
found in two re iews of the e hibition Silent Energy held at the Museum of Modern
Art, ford, published respe ti ely in frieze tober 1993 and Art Monthly tober
1993 . It seems that the authors failed to understand the importan e of riti ally
re iewing the ultural tradition and Chinese identi ation with the real A ant-garde
spirit histori ally initiated in the West for the indi idual reations of artists in both the
Chinese and international ontemporary onte ts. Ignoring the fa t that works by
Huang Yong ing, Wenda u, Chen hen, Cai uo- iang, Yang ie hang, i ian un,
and Wang Luyan are a tually on erned with the urgent problems of international
life, their riti ue is that these artists only imitate Western art in Huang Yong ing s
ase to Arte o era, and here, I really annot understand this attribution, when look-
ing into the work itself and ha e betrayed multi ultural prin iples. The problem is
that the authors understand multi ulturalism as a kind of regionalism or national-
ism while the artists understood it as internationalism, ne er refusing international
e hanges and mutual in uen es ne writer omplains that the artists ha e been
in uen ed by Western sour es, e en asking, How mu h of the Hea enly ingdom
remains frieze . He is ignorant of the fa t that Chinese people ha e buried the
Hea enly ingdom for almost a entury. The logi in this riti ism and mode of
thinking should lead one to on lude that ohn Cage and obert illiou, among many
others, won t ost a penny
Notes
. A Con ersation with r ys tof Wodi ko, in Discourse: Conversations in Postmodern Art and Culture New
York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art Cambridge, MA: MIT ress, .
E erpted from a te t rst published in Global Visions: Towards a New Internationalism in the Visual
Arts, ed. ean isher London: ala ress in asso iation with the Institute of International isual Arts,
1994 , 79 88. eprinted in Hou Hanru, n the Mid-Ground: Selected Texts, ed. Yu Hsiao-Wei Hong ong:
Time one 8, 2002 , 54 3.
Questions about the “International Identity”
366
of Contemporary Chinese Art

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OLIVA IS NOT THE SAVIOR OF CHINESE ART ( 1993 )

By Wang Lin
In 1993, A hille Bonito li a, the dire tor of the 45th eni e Biennale, ame to China
to sele t artwork. Although his lo al Chinese onta t pro ided him with detailed
materials and for efully ad o ated a more omprehensi e introdu tion to the present
onditions of a ant-garde Chinese art, li a ultimately still ust sele ted the things
that interested him: oliti al op and Cyni al ealism. isputes o er authority in the
end be ame the right to rule. Li ianting, the person who assembled e erything for
the China side, stated: We ha e no hoi e, we need to adapt to their rules be ause
this is a Western e hibition.
The rst as ent of a ant-garde Chinese art to a large-s ale international e hibition,
and moreo er its position as a featured highlight, is naturally an o asion worthy of
elebration. We annot deny that Mr. li a has in isi e foresight. After the ollapse of
the former So iet nion and the Warsaw Treaty, he rapidly turned his attention to
China, although he laims, Con i ts in the international arena ha e already been reori-
ented from the East-West to the North-South a is, the stru ture of opposing ideologies
has been super eded by problems in e onomi onditions the ri h and the poor .
Although the pressures pre iously shaping art all o er the world ha e dissipated,
China is still ripe with ideologi al antagonism. li a rmly belie es that the in lusion
of unof ial Chinese a ant-garde art is e plosi e news for the eni e Biennale.
In Westerners eyes, China is the last fortress for the opposition between East and
West despite being so une enly mat hed and a li ing fossil of the Cold War although
it s in the midst of transforming . Thus, Chinese artists on prin iple are all produ ts
of the Mao edong era they are bearers of ideologi al burdens and embody powers of
resistan e. In ontrast, Chinese oliti al op and Cyni al ealism utili e the in uen e
of the Mao edong era: oliti al op makes a show of ilifying politi al myths using
anoni al Cultural e olution imagery, while the grinning fa es and e eryday s enes
depi ted in Cyni al ealism mo k a hollow idealism. Thus, a ant-garde Chinese art is
doomed to be a ontemporary resolution for its Mao edong omple , a shift from
the regions of the former So iet nion and Eastern Europe. A tually, Chinese oliti al
op and Cyni al ealism are artisti languages not only deeply in uen ed by Warhol
and reud, but also ery similar to the ontent of art from the former So iet nion,
for e ample Stalin and Marilyn Monroe toasting, Lenin fa ing a Co a-Cola sign and
speaking, et . li a belie es that warfare in the Middle East has opened up ne er-
before-used hannels for ommuni ation, and initiated a moment in Third World
ountries in whi h te hnologi al re olution and ultural re itali ation will go forth
hand in hand, demonstrating the instrumental apa ity of the mass media. This kind of
understanding has potentially formed a tremendous interest in art trends that borrow
mass media and symboli forms, parti ularly in a Third World ountry like China.
My intention is not to deny li a s hoi es. I only want to point out a possible
onse uen e that an result from this kind of sele tion. When one group of trendy art-
ists board li a s international train to eni e, a large group of people imitating these
trends will subse uently swarm the station, awaiting a train that will ne er return. The
limitations of li a s sele tions are not only due to the ontingent and opportunisti
nature of his engagement with a ant-garde Chinese art, but are also lo ated in the
o ert Euro entrism on ealed in his standards of e aluation. rofound transforma-
367
tions in 1990s a ant-garde Chinese art not only entail the resolution of a Mao edong
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omple . The fundamental issues of China s ontemporary ultural re itali ation are

taking pla e in a onte t in whi h ideologi al burdens ha e already ne essarily been
eliminated. More and more dire t onne tions are being made with ontemporary ul-
tural issues in the world, for e ample onfronting the e tensi e ommer iali ation of
so iety, an in reasingly super ial ultural state, and in uiries into and resolutions for
man s most basi problems of e isten e the preser ation of indi iduality, spiritual
autonomy, and the rehabilitation of relationships between people, so ial groups, and
nations. The parti ularity of Chinese art is lo ated in its omple ities and dilemmas, and
not in its deta hment from these problems. The burden of ideology, a pre apitalist
mentality, and the de onstru ti e fun tion of popular ulture together onstitute the
power of an alienated a ant-garde art. The true independen e that Chinese intelle tu-
als ha e a hie ed in the 1990s on i ts with these aforementioned alienating for es,
ausing them like intelle tuals the world o er to e perien e the real trials of post-
modern ulture. Chinese oliti al op and Cyni al ealism ame into being through a
state of ompromise between a spiritual push ahead and for es of alienation. They no
doubt presented the a tual situation of China s post- 89 ultural reality and mindset
the 45th eni e Biennale broad ast these onditions, whi h is irreproa hable , but this
kind of emergen e is ob iously e le ti and fle ible. It ontained the parti ipants
opportunisti mentality, and it is pre isely this kind of opportunism toward material
gain and fame that has pre ented them from addressing the real predi aments in
Chinese people s li es: the gap between the ri h and the poor produ ed by the market
e onomy is shaking up the ideologi al system of egalitarianism, the spiritual pillar prop-
ping up all of China and her history. a ing the end of the entury and the genuine ol-
lapse of the old and new traditional spirit, how do we look for a foothold to re itali e
ontemporary ulture This is pre isely the spiritual and ultural problem that a ant-
garde Chinese art must onfront today. It belongs to a time of openness in China and is
not part of a losed era this is the ontemporaneity of a ant-garde Chinese art. If we
don t want to shallowly appro e of the West s outdated or urrently in the pro ess of
be oming outdated alue system, if we are ons ious that this problem has a tually
already rea hed beyond the histori al demar ations of Eastern and Western ulture and
formed a new artisti pursuit for art s aluing of human e isten e, then we won t put so
mu h sto k in this kind of limited appro al from other ountries or international on-
ne tions. A true onne tion is onstituted by mutual sele tion, and not appro al
granted from a ommanding height and turning a rude essay into a literary gem.
To tell the truth, when I heard the following dialogue I found it ery funny: An
inter iewer said to a Chinese artist famous for his oliti al op, It s ery lear that in
1992 oliti al op has already be ome mainstream in China, when it be omes profes-
sional politi al painting, this will signify that lass is o er. This artist replied, Then I
will take it to start a lass in aris
I don t belie e that something that is nished in China will be ome ontent for
something to begin in aris, I only belie e that it ser es as proof of the do trine of
Western power. erhaps it s ne essary to furnish this kind of proof, but it is not the
true mission of ontemporary Chinese art, parti ularly a ant-garde art. I submit to
e eryone a statement that Mr. li a made on another o asion, whi h I hope people
will remember: An artist needs to gi e his art a kind of dignity, sin e it does not seek
or a ept e ternal ollusion The Enemy of Art .
What s worth elebrating is the fa t that there are still many a ant-garde
Chinese artists who ha e maintained their independen e and riti al spirit. Against a
ba kground where a new ulture is repla ing the old, not only are they re e ting on
368
traditional ulture, but they are also on guard against the mainstream. They fully real-
|
i e the relationship between Chinese art and ideology, but don t peddle ideologi al or
anti-ideologi al produ ts. ather, their ideas penetrate e en more deeply into hidden
histori al issues in Chinese so iety, and re e t on the ultural onstraints that one
must s uarely fa e within the nite ourse of one s life. They a ept in uen es from
Western modern and postmodern ulture, but at the same time are ons ious that the
radi alism opened up by modern i ili ation s rebellion and pluralism is no more than
an indi idual s san tuary. And, this has led to the loss of e tensi e relationships
between man and so iety, others, and nature. They are also ons ious of the super -
iali ation, populari ation, and ommer iali ation of postmodern ulture, and that its
mass hedonism is a smiling fas ist banning the indi idual spirit. They are not yes-
men of the world, but are riti s. egardless of whether the world is onsidered
Eastern or Western, whether it s onsidered an ideologi al or ommer iali ed ulture,
their absen e illustrates how Mr. li a is ombating North Ameri an hegemony and
has not yet ast off his Euro entrism. This is the histori al aw of the 1993 eni e
Biennale. And, real art pre isely testi es to these histori al short omings.
In his essay After Art: 21st Century Art, Mr. li a notes: Art originally de eloped
from an e perimental spirit produ ed through a parallel e periment with e onomi s. It
began in the West, and after the fall of the Berlin Wall it appeared in the East. I sup-
port this kind of iewpoint, that is, art riti ism should sele t those artists possessing an
e perimental and reati e spirit based on the logi of Chinese art s own de elopment.
And, those Chinese art riti s on ersant with this onte t ha e the authority to do so.
inal urisdi tion o er Chinese art does not lie with li a or eni e, but in how Chinese
art riti s truly and persistently present Chinese a ant-garde art s reati e spirit and ul-
tural alue. I am always imagining another possibility: if Chinese art riti s organi ed a
large-s ale international art e hibition, what would that situation be like
riginally published in Dushu [Reading , 1993: no. 10. Translated by eggy Wang.
The Rent Collection Courtyard Controversy
THE RENT COLLECTION COURTYARD COPYRIGHT BREACHED OVERSEAS:

SICHUAN FINE ARTS INSTITUTE SUES VENICE BIENNALE ( 2001 )
Introduction by Britta Erickson
The Rent Collection Courtyard is a s ulptural installation of life-si ed lay gures, arranged
in a series of tableau throughout the former property of Liu Wen ai, the pre-1949 land-
lord of Si huan s ayi istri t. In 19 5 Wang uanyi, an instru tor from the Si huan
ine Arts Institute in Chong ing, and some students from the institute onstru ted
an early ersion of the Rent Collection Courtyard. Employing found ob e ts su h as
farm tools, tables, and hairs, the tableau depi ted star ing peasants for ed to turn o er
their last grain, beaten or ensla ed when the amount failed to meet the landlord s
e pe tations. The purpose of the s ulptures was to remind iewers of the terrible life
peasants fa ed before the e olution. The Rent Collection Courtyard won the appro al
of Mao s wife, iang ing, and was subse uently repli ated in Bei ing, first at the
National Art allery and then at the ala e Museum 19 5 . Similar s ulptural
groups were onstru ted in other areas of China. The Three Stones Museum in Tian in,
for e ample, in luded life-si ed lay s ulptures date of their addition to the museum
369
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Cai uo- iang. Venice’s Rent Collection Courtyard. une 1999. 108 life-si ed s ulptures reated on site
by Long u Li and nine guest artisan-s ulptors 0 tons of lay, wire-and-wood armatures , other
props and tools for s ulpture, four spinning night lamps, fa similes and photo opies of do uments
and photographs related to Rent Collection Courtyard dated 19 5 . eali ed at eposito ol eri,
Arsenale, eni e, Commissioned by the 48th eni e Biennale. Artwork not e tant
un lear grouped in tableau depi ting the terrible li ing and working onditions of
indentured fa tory laborers. ne hundred and si life-si ed lay gures formed the
Wrath of the Serfs reated . 1973 75 at the Tibet Museum of e olution in Lhasa.
In 1972 the Si huan ine Arts Institute built another lay opy of the Rent Collection
Courtyard, this time in Chong ing. inally, in 1974 78 the go ernment awarded the
Si huan ine Arts Institute a ery large sum of money 320,000 yuan to reate a ber-
glass ersion hen eforth, it would be relati ely simple to make additional opies for
other parts of China, or for friendly nations su h as ietnam.
uring the Cultural e olution, the Rent Collection Courtyard was a laimed as a
model s ulpture. To ful ll the Maoist ideal, indi idual artists subsumed their identities
in the interest of the olle ti e and a knowledged peasant ad isors. Now those same
indi idual artists are emerging to argue o er who deser es redit for the original on-
eption and reation of the s ulpture. Ironi ally, other myths ha e been shattered,
too: the re iled landlord, Liu Wen ai, was not an ultrasinister indi idual, as repre-
sented in the Rent Collection Courtyard.
The press release, translated below, was issued three months ago, when the
Si huan ine Arts Institute threatened to sue the eni e Biennale for e hibiting a opy
of the Rent Collection Courtyard in 1999 as a work of art by Cai uo- iang, who had no
onne tion with any earlier ersions of that s ulptural installation. While it no longer
seems likely that the Si huan ine Arts Institute will sue the eni e Biennale, the
Biennale s urator Harald S eemann, or Cai uo- iang, the sensation surrounding the
press release has brought attention to the institute and, no doubt, to the law rm rep-
resenting the institute. The threat to sue is indi ati e of the rise of nationalisti senti-
ment in China o er the past few years. But atta king a su essful Chinese artist li ing
o erseas and the Western art institution that has a orded him e eptional re ogni-
tion Cai won an International Award at the 1999 eni e Biennale will not ser e the
best interest of the Chinese art world. A lawsuit would be doomed to failure, only
370
ser ing those who would bene t from the notoriety gleaned in the pro ess.
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, i i i i , i , 20 2000
The world-renowned large-s ale s ulpture pro e t, the Rent Collection Courtyard, was
rst reated in 19 5. At the time, it was intended as both a harsh reminder of the past
and a ray of hope for the future in the ountry s lass edu ation program. The allery of
the ayi County Si huan Landlord s Manor had in ited the Si huan ine Arts Institute
to support the effort. Shortly thereafter, the Si huan ro in ial Bureau of Culture issued
an of ial letter re uesting the institute to parti ipate. The Si huan ine Arts Institute
de ided it would make ompletion of the pro e t a graduation and tea hing e er ise for
its tea hing staff and the graduating lass that year. sing lay for the ayi Landlord s
Courtyard ersion in 19 5 and berglass in 1974 for a reprodu tion intended for inter-
national e hibitions and now part of the Si huan ine Arts Institute s olle tion the
institute formed the entral for e in the olle ti e reation of both pro e ts.
The Rent Collection Courtyard is a massi e-s ale s ulpture pro e t omprising 114
gures and 108 found props, stret hing almost 100 meters from end to end. It an be
subdi ided into se en tableau : Bringing the Rent, Examining the Rent, Measuring the
Grain, the Struggle, Calculating the Rent, Forcing the Rent, and Revolt. There are o er
twenty-si s enes. It remains a s ulptural work unpre edented in China s art history.
pon ompletion, the work a hie ed e traordinary su ess and national a laim.
In a report by the Chinese Artists Asso iation about the Bei ing e hibition, it was
reported that rom e ember 24 to Mar h , the e hibition of the Rent Collection
Courtyard has ounted more than 473,500 isitors, total. It is estimated that the e hibi-
tion will be seen by o er two million isitors. The national media, ultural leaders,
and artists of the time all hailed it as a nu lear bomb, an important beginning, a
re olution in the history of s ulpture. In the 19 0s and 1970s, word spread a ross the
ountry. E eryone knew of it.
The Rent Collection Courtyard has been e hibited o erseas on numerous o asions,
where it drew broad international attention. At assel ni ersity, a professor organi ed
a resear h task for e to study the work, ad o ating edu ation and art reform and e en-
tually sparking a student rally. In 1972, Harald S eemann, urator of the internationally
renowned assel Documenta e hibition, whi h takes pla e on e e ery e years, in ited
the Rent Collection Courtyard to parti ipate in that year s e hibition. The plan ne er
ame to fruition as China was in the midst of the Cultural e olution at the time.
As a politi al work of art, the Rent Collection Courtyard is powerful, profound, and
full of isual and emotional for e. As an antifeudal work reated for the masses, it is
signi ant both histori ally and pra ti ally. E en today, it remains a rst in the interna-
tionali ation of politi al art and art s politi i ation.
As a s ulptural work, its emphasis on en ironment and realisti portrayal marks an
important step forward in the progression of lassi al So ialist ealism. Its signi an e
and in uen e in China s history of s ulpture ontinues to be far-rea hing. The work has
also pro en to be a fountainhead for en ironmental s ulpture in southwest China.
As a hyper-realist work of art, the Rent Collection Courtyard is still the most uni ue,
ibrant, and largest s ale work of its kind e er done. Its omple organi ation of so many
gures into a uni ed work gi es it ualities that are highly literary, borrowing espe ially
from the narrati e te hni ues of illustrated history. It remains perhaps the only work on
Chinese soil that is free of Western modernist in uen es, but still highly progressi e and
reati e. Its signi an e, howe er, is not limited ust to China, but is worldwide in nature.
So it was that this unpre edented, grand work of art was appropriated by Cai uo-
iang, an o erseas Chinese artist, domi iled in apan, and then subse uently repro-
371
du ed and renamed enice’s Rent Collection Courtyard for the 48th enice Biennale,
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without opyright permission. epresented as his work, it then went on to win the top

pri e at the Venice Biennale. The e hibition urator was none other than the Harald
S eemann, who had in ited the Rent Collection Courtyard to be e hibited in assel in
1972. The Venice Biennale is an important international art e ent. The fa t that the orga-
ni ers, the urator S eemann, the panel of urors, and the artist Cai uo- iang ignored
international opyright laws and opyright on entions has sparked a furor in the a a-
demi , media, and ultural worlds. In as mu h as China is a signatory member of the
Berne Con ention, the Si huan ine Arts Institute, together with some of the original
authors of the work are now ling a lawsuit against the eni e Biennale e hibition, its
urator Harald S eemann, and the artist Cai uo- iang. This lawsuit not only on erns
and in ol es opyright prote tion and legal standards it also in ol es issues of a a-
demi standards in ontemporary art. We hope this matter will re ei e the attention
and on ern of all elements of so iety.
or more information, onta t the Art Museum of the Si huan ine Arts Institute,
8 -23 851-0473, or the ine Arts Studies epartment of the Si huan ine Arts
Institute, 8 -23 850-5423.
ublished Chinese Art at the Crossroads: Between Past and Future, Between East and West, ed. Wu Hung
Hong ong: New Art Media London: Institution of International isual Arts, 2001 , 52 55. ress release
translated by obert Bernell.
THE REPRODUCTION OF RENT COLLECTION COURTYARD AND

POSTMODERNISM ( 2000 )
By Dao Zi
The 48th eni e Biennale, under the theme d A E Tutto penness o er All , was
held in eni e, Italy, from une 12 to No ember 7, 1999. n the day of the opening er-
emony, urator Harald S eemann de lared on behalf of the Biennale Committee that
.S.-based artist Cai uo- iang the winner of the Biennale s International Award.
Cai s work was a performan e-based reprodu tion of Rent Collection Courtyard
Shouzuyuan , the famous 19 0s s ulpture from China.
News of Cai s award-winning reprodu tion of Rent Collection Courtyard at the
eni e Biennale instigated widespread debate in art, a ademi , and legal ir les in
mainland China and abroad. Some belie ed that by re- reating the pro ess of produ -
ing Rent Collection Courtyard, Cai was hallenging the fun tion of of ial history and
epi tradition in art. Moreo er, the performan e art aspe t of this repli ation pre isely
aptured the hara teristi s of modern and postmodern art. As this ommonly o urs
in Western modern art, it should therefore not onstitute opyright infringement
or plagiarism.
Howe er, others belie ed that Cai uo- iang s work, whi h relo ated the thirty-
year-old Rent Collection Courtyard from China to Italy and added the word eni e to
its title was nothing but pure theft, delusion, and ommer ial manipulation. The
bu word onne ting Cai s work to modern art, reprodu tion, has tou hed upon
legal issues. The so- alled performan e was merely a prete t for sa ing on shipping
fees and other osts. The merry-go-round lanterns in the installation were dire tly
pur hased as readymades from the market. And, the sket hes for the images used
inside the lanterns had already been drawn thirty years earlier at the time that Rent
Collection Courtyard was reated. When Cai repli ated the s ulpture, he deliberately
372
hired more than ten s ulptors from mainland China to work for him as hired laborers,
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all of whom were artists well trained in a ademi realisti representation. There s a dif-
feren e between Cai hiring people to make Venice’s Rent Collection Courtyard and
someone opying works by Mi helangelo and Auguste odin. It is also different from
Mar el u hamp adding a musta he to da in i s Mona Lisa. The term of prote tion
for artwork by odin and other great masters has already e pired, and the readymade
urinal in u hamp s Fountain was a mass-produ ed ommodity that the artist had
personally pur hased from a store. Cai laimed that his idea was to hange the notion
of looking at s ulpture to looking at the making of s ulpture. Howe er, immedi-
ately after the opening day of the Biennale and Cai s re ei ing of the award, the s ulp-
tors that Cai hired stopped their repli ating, while Cai himself left the e hibition hall
entirely e days later. His work utterly failed to demonstrate the manufa turing pro-
ess behind the reation of the s ulptures.
Taiwan s Yishu xinwen [Art News maga ine hallenged Cai s work, noting that the
entire artwork seemed to la k any bodily in ol ement by the artist i.e., Cai . Not only
were the s ulptures made by the ele en s ulptors, and the merry-go-round lanterns
bought from the market, but e en the sket hes within the lanterns were also taken
from elsewhere. Cai seemed to ha e only been playing the roles of the playwright and
the produ er. b iously, Venice’s Rent Collection Courtyard epitomi es the problems
on erning the nature of artisti reation raised in the ontemporary artisti pra ti es
of performan e and repli ation, along with arious attendant opyright and legal
issues. This arti le does not intend to take part in this debate, but instead dis usses the
pe uliar signi an e of the reprodu tion of Rent Collection Courtyard from the per-
spe ti es of art history and ultural studies.
The large-s ale group s ulpture Rent Collection Courtyard marks an e traordinary
milestone in Chinese modern art history. The work offers a isual ase study in the
di erse alues represented in the blending of art, historiography, politi al s ien e,
so iology, and e en law. Today, the dynami s of world ulture ha e undergone funda-
mental hanges. The emergen e of de onstru tionism startled stru turalism from its
dreams and shattered any remaining on den e it might otherwise ha e. e e tions
on this artisti heritage, laden with hea y memories and ompli ated dis ourses, not
only tou h upon the uestion of how to rewrite and res rutini e modern art history,
but also denote a starting point for onsidering the future of a Chinese modern art,
whi h has already weathered so mu h. ltimately, it signi es the true meaning behind
the pro ess of onstru ting a Chinese ultural identity.
ii. i : i i i i
i i
Studying Rent Collection Courtyard as a losed te t ne essarily leads to ommon pitfalls
asso iated with a te t- entered methodology: namely, se ering all ties between art and
so iety ideology, politi s, ethi s , history, reality, and e en onne tions to the original
author, the audien e, opiers, plagiari ers, the antite t, the apo ryphal te t, and the
prete t. To get an understanding free of suppositions of Rent Collection Courtyard, we
ought to pla e it ba k in its rele ant onte t in twentieth- entury world art history and
analy e, ompare, and seek out its underlying meanings. By perhaps e pelling the on-
tamination of nihilism, utilitarianism, and post olonialism, one an re eal its inherent
e isting alues and features as well as dimensions to its interpretations and meanings.
Rent Collection Courtyard was originally reated in 19 5. At the time, it was om-
missioned for the Communist so ial lass edu ation program of longing for the sweet
through remembering the bitter. Here, the author ites the press release at length,
373
whi h has been translated in full in the te t abo e, The Rent Collection Courtyard
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Copyright Brea hed erseas: Si huan ine Arts Institute Sues eni e Biennale. To

sa e spa e we ha e omitted it here. Ed.
Interestingly, Rent Collection Courtyard seems to ha e been put under a spell of
reprodu tion sin e its birth. Its fate has been intertwined with the pro ess of repro-
du tion as it has fallen under the di ergent alues of different time periods. In
e ember 19 5, Rent Collection Courtyard underwent four reprodu tions following the
su ess of its e hibition at the National Art allery in Bei ing. The original work om-
men ed its fate of repeated reprodu tion through histori al de onstru tion.
In Mar h 19 , Rent Collection Courtyard was mo ed from the National allery to
the ala e Museum, be ause the gallery ould not a ommodate the tens of thou-
sands of daily isitors, both in terms of its spa e and its human resour es. After a few
months, the audien e re uested a omplete reprodu tion. At the time, with the
rapid approa h of the Cultural e olution, the strained atmosphere presaged the
eruption of on i t on the hori on.
In September 19 , a group onsisting mainly of professors and ed uards from
the Central A ademy of ine Arts and the Central A ademy of Arts and Crafts with the
parti ipation of only three artists who took part in the original editions repli ated the
Rent Collection Courtyard in its entirety at the An estors ala e of the ala e Museum.
The ed uard rebels, in order to highlight the idea of re olution is blameless, and rebel-
lion is righteous, hanged the omposition parti ularly toward the end of the s ulpture.
nder the ag of the Chinese Communist arty, it was re ised to represent snat hing the
regime, ghting in the mountains, and arrying forward the re olution. That in ident laid
the pre edent for distorting the original Rent Collection Courtyard.
In Mar h 19 7, the oreign Cultural Conne tion Commission of China organi ed
another pro e t of reprodu ing the Rent Collection Courtyard, this time in order to
e port re olutionary art to the omrade- um-brother so ialist ountries of ietnam
and Albania. S ulptors from Si huan, Bei ing, and Shanghai e e uted the reprodu tion
in the Hall of Literary lory of the orbidden City. By that time, the Cultural e olution
pra ti e of resorting to iolen e had spread nationwide, and the ultraleftist ideology
had rea hed its peak. The theory of lass struggle in ltrated the work down to e ery
gure and e ery detail. The landlord Liu Wen ai, who had died before the Liberation
1949 , was depi ted as being aptured ali e. The ba kground of this re olution was
a blinding red sun Mao edong and the whole work was hea ily laden with politi-
al slogans and e erpts from Mao s treatises. After the reprodu tion whi h was
ompleted in half a year, the s ulpture was ast in plaster and shipped on a hartered
boat to Albania for e hibition. The ensemble ne er returned to China. In ietnam, the
work was e hibited through a few s ulptural figures while the rest onsisted of
photographs.
In 1970, when the rebels in the Si huan ro in ial arty Committee learned of the
potential for obtaining re olutionary apital through international touring e hibi-
tions, they immediately assembled s ulptors to alter the original work at the Landlord s
Manor. A ording to the new dire ti es, they emphasi ed rebellious coup d’etat and
ontinued re olution. ursuant to the do trines of tall, grand, and omplete, the
rebels reated additional s enes of bright lamp guiding the way, the rebel army, open-
ing the sha kles and liberation, apturing tyrants ali e, establishing a politi al state,
and ontinuing re olution.
In 1972, a fourth reprodu tion pro e t of Rent Collection Courtyard was arried out
at the Working eople s Cultural ala e in Chong ing. The stated reasons for this were
that the Landlord s Manor s edition was sub e t to the e hibition hall s spatial limita-
374
tions and failed to fully represent the arty s rule and the peasants struggle.
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Therefore, the alterations were on entrated at the end of the s ulpture: Maoist phi-
losophy leads the way, under the leadership of the working lass, rebellious destru -
tion, military struggle against ent Colle tion, apturing Liu Wen ai ali e, and the
Liberation Army freeing imprisoned women. . . .
In 1974, ust before the end of the alamitous Cultural e olution, artists from the
Si huan ine Arts Institute obtained the right to restore Rent Collection Courtyard ba k
to its original form. The edition in opper-plated glass at the Si huan Institute s art gal-
lery and the lay edition are both e ually regarded as original editions and are entitled
to opyright prote tion. Howe er, Rent Collection Courtyard s fate of reprodu tion did
not end there, it only hanged form.
Along with the ad ent of the industrial age, reprodu tion has eliminated the
fetishisti aura pre iously emanating from artworks. The uni ue e isten e and mystery
inherent in the original artwork s worship alue shifted to an e hibition alue. This
engendered a transformation in the on epts and so ial fun tion of art. un tional sea
hange su h as this allowed the pro ess of reprodu tion to mo e from produ ing ide-
ologi al symbols to de onstru tion performan e.
In fa t, the fun tional hange in reprodu tion is also part and par el of the trans-
formation from modern art to postmodern art. As we know, during the rst half of this
entury the twentieth entury , Western modern art was like Rent Collection Courtyard
in its fer ent emphasis on ideologi al fun tions. To name but a few: sin e the 1920s,
So iet ussian a ant-garde stemming from uturism and Constru ti ism and Me i an
fres os of liberation theology alongside Latin Ameri an Magi al ealism in the 1930s,
Sal ador al s sub ons ious illusions riti uing realism in the propheti Premonition
of Civil War 193 , i asso s politi ally allegori al Guernica 1937 , whi h protests war
and alls for world pea e, and Mar Chagall s White Crucifixion 1938 , whi h in orpo-
rates politi al, histori al, and religious narrati e onte ts and re eals the politi al per-
se ution imposed upon the ewish population. In mainland China in the 1930s, Lu un
proposed the New Wood ut Mo ement and introdu ed the spirit of enlightenment
and sal ation in modern art. The de onstru tion of politi al ideology was a signi ant
impetus behind postmodern art. Therefore, reprodu tion used as a performan e for
de onstru tion purposes pro ided an important means for postmodern art to ta kle
the pree isting ideologies that were hanneled through symboli art forms. The Rent
Collection Courtyard from last year pro ided but one additional e ample.
iii.
The author of Rent Collection Courtyard was Cai uo- iang, but the man behind the
pro e t was the urator S eemann. Born in 1933 in Bern , Swit erland, S eemann was
looked up to as the guru of independent urating, who proudly onsidered his artis-
ti preferen e to be aestheti s of haos for ha ing internali ing Maoist, adaist,
and anar hist philosophies. S eemann s uratorial motto is Museum of bsessions.
He adheres doggedly to the belief that in the past as well as at present, the bottom
line for urators is anar hy and se ual re olution. This obsession in the aestheti
sense runs a ross all of his so ial a ti ities and uratorial strategies. In the 19 0s,
S eemann took part in the lu us mo ement in the S and Europe. In 1972, he
dire ted the assel s o umenta 5 and based it on art that was uni ersally e alted.
In 1980, S eemann oined the Italian art riti A hille Bonito li a in organi ing the
40th eni e Biennale. This tra e tory led to his urating of the last eni e Biennale of
the twentieth entury.
uring the 19 0s and 1970s, the global antiestablishment mo ements engen-
375
dered two types of antiestablishment ulture. ne onsisted of areer politi ians who
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dire tly in ol ed themsel es in demo rati mo ements and organi ed traditional ot-

ers using new methods. The other type inherited the traditions of usta e Courbet s
era that tied the notion of the a ant-garde to radi al art and radi al politi s and made
art an instrument for sub erting so iety and reforming ideas. or them, artisti e per-
iments were not any less of a politi al mo ement than se ual re olution and anar-
hism. Apparently, S eemann belongs to this latter type of artisti re olution and
aestheti rebellion.
S eemann s omple for Rent Collection Courtyard similar to ean- aul Sartre s
omple for the newspaper Renmin Ribao [People’s Daily whi h was sold on news-
stands in aris during May 19 8 presumably originated from an ideologi al angst and
a ultural misunderstanding from 19 8 until the end of the Cultural e olution, the
oreign Languages ress published albums of Rent Collection Courtyard in English,
ren h, erman, apanese, ussian, Spanish, orean, ietnamese, and Albanian .
Meanwhile, Western modern art also en ountered the risis in representation of rep-
resenting the unrepresentable. Super- ealism emerged on the hori on and, in on-
un tion with other postmodern for es, ended the status uo whi h had e isted for
more than half a entury. or instan e, eorge Segal s theatri al gures ast in plaster
and shrouded in a melan holi air, uane Hanson s life-si e gures, made from glass-
reinfor ed polyester, and lad in real lothes, and ohn de Andrea s three-dimensional
photorealist gures all re e t the true onditions of e isten e of the little people li -
ing on the margins of so iety. This allowed urators to metaphori ally pro e t their
e perien es from well-trodden territory into a urious terra in ognita guided by the
Euro entri light and through the magnifying lens of obsession, urators sought out
ommon ob e ts that were uni ersally e alted to ll the e hibition spa e.
In terms of artisti language, Rent Collection Courtyard materiali ed artisti ideas
through tangible readymade ob e ts, adopted a narrati e rhetori of isual e pression
using high art and basi natural resour es, and emphasi ed the in situ aspe t of the
s enes. The work furthered the reati e language of s ulptural realism for both Eastern
and Western traditions, and highlighted the idiosyn rati hara teristi s naturally
deri ed from Western modern art the hallmarks of mainstream Western modern art
after 1945 were populari ation, physi ality, and grassroots efforts . E en more remark-
ably, the work re ised the status of politi al art as a simula rum for the propaganda
ma hine. It went a step further in making politi al art rely on aestheti forms to restore
people s histori al memories, and represented the widespread desire among the
peasant lass to re olt against their typi ally ab e t li es. Rent Collection Courtyard
thereby offered a site where riti al e hange, independent of the aestheti e peri-
en e, ould be ondu ted.
The point of departure for Rent Collection Courtyard was not its realist forms they
did not a t as a priori models and molds for asting. Instead, they were a measure of the
intrinsi oid, they were the people s politi al un ons ious, and they were ultimately
an e pli it e pression of the ontent s depths of logi . Suf e it to say, Rent Collection
Courtyard has a truly and profoundly re olutionary ontent that has already taken o er
and be ome its form, and its power to rouse resonates with trends in spontaneous
postmodern art.
Thus, it an be seen that realism is a relati e mindset orresponding to hanges in
on epts and ideas, the essen e of whi h is an artist s surging instin t to pursue the
truth within the pro ess of realisti representation. In the oordinates of the erti al
dimension of time and the hori ontal dimension of spa e, realism always materiali es
in the form of a non-rhetori al ontinuous body of hange, in essantly e panding and
376
morphing, sometimes hidden and sometimes isible. uring the mid-nineteenth en-
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tury, realism depi ted the life of proletarian so iety and re e ted the true e isten e of
the weak and impo erished. In the 1930s, realism fo used on e posing the dark side of
so iety. After the age of Stalin, realism s prefi so ialist was repla ed in fa or of
heroi , and realism was re ruited to systemati ally promulgate Heroi ealism for
the Third World. The histori al materialist theory of art re e ting life and theory of
lass struggle seriously underestimated realism s intrinsi re olutionary nature and aspi-
rations for human liberation, and subse uently surrendered it to its opposing idealist
do trines. The three prominen es san tuchu born during the Cultural e olution
were another ersion of this heroi model, whi h also ser ed as this period s theoreti-
al basis for altering Rent Collection Courtyard.
What one may nd sola e in, howe er, is the fa t that although Rent Collection
Courtyard was born to a sermoni ing and morali ing mission, it intuiti ely and effe -
ti ely ommitted itself to a omprehensi e proposition for humanity in lusi e of par-
ti ular so ial lasses in lo al areas , and naturally embodied onnotations of ultural
politi al riti ism, that is, an allegory of sa ing mankind from a miserable e isten e, a
manifestation of liberation, and the indi tment of a feudalist, inhuman annibalisti
history. In light of su h signi an e, Rent Collection Courtyard may be omparable to
its ontemporaneous art forms from the S and Europe, su h as New ealism, Neo-
adaism, Super- ealism, and e en op art, among others. The British artist Adrian
Henri on e weighed in on the omparable traits in these artisti phenomena in his
treatise Total Art. He was ama ed how, under the onditions of a losed so iety, one
was able to initiate and de elop elements of postmodern art. It all boils down to the
primal realisti spirit an e iled spe ter. Its interferen e and trans enden e in the
ontinuity of a ontradi tory modern human history determined the ultural mutation
of arious systems. In other words, the mighty modernist spe ter would fore er a ti-
ate more omple dimensions of meaning and through the density of time, would
in rease an artwork s spa e for information. To put it more bluntly, it was pre isely
due to the work s ideologi al parti ularities that Rent Collection Courtyard ame to
arry distin t hara teristi s during the pro ess of its de onstru tion. Su h may be the
impli ations of an art-philosophi al reading of the 1999 Venice’s Rent Collection
Courtyard e ent.
Notes
. Wenhua hi ian de yaobai: Cai uo- iang fangtanlu a illations in Culture: Inter iew with Cai uo- iang
in Diaosu [Sculpture no. .
. Hein Norbert- o ks I he liebe stets mehrere inge glei h eitig: Ein espr h mit Harald S eemann
I Always Lo e Se eral Things at the Same Time: A is ussion with Harald S eemann, unstforum
International, no. .
. The original lay s ulptures in Rent Collection Courtyard deri ed from the folk tradition of s ulpting in lay,
and used materials and a manufa turing pro ess similar to that of people s folk s ulpture. A ording
to trends in s ulpting, the s ulpture was rst ere ted in wood and iron wire, it was then bound in straw
rope, and then a ne mi ture of mud made from sand and otton was used for depi ting details. Spe ially
red glass balls were used as eyes, lending the gures an e en more lifelike demeanor and e pression.
eadymade ob e ts in luded, among other things, large wi ker baskets arried on a shoulder pole,
ehi les, fans, tables and hairs, s reens, aba uses, straw hats, and railings.
. Adrian Henri, Total Art: Environments, Happenings, and Performances New York: ford ni ersity of
ress, , . This te t arries out parallel omparati e studies of the ontent and methods of art from
different ountries. It also tou hes upon the interrelationships between art and other bran hes of learning.
It surpasses those studies whi h only emphasi e what is emitted from the art and negle t the in uen e
on the re ei er as in so- alled re eption theory.
riginally published as Shouzuyuan de fu hi yu hou iandai huyi in 21 Shiji [Twenty-First Century]

no. 8 2000 . Translated by ela Shang.
QUOTING DOES NOT EQUAL PLAGIARISM ( 2000 )
377
By Liu Xiaochun
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How should one regard Cai uo- iang s work at the 48th eni e Biennale, Venice’s
Rent Collection Courtyard Weinisi shouzuyuan , whose award of the International ri e
ui kly prompted an international lawsuit
A ording to the news on May 25, the Chinese Communist arty Ministry of
ropaganda of the Chong ing Muni ipal Committee and the Si huan ine Arts
Institute ointly on ened a news onferen e on the opyright issues surrounding Rent
Collection Courtyard Shouzuyuan . Luo hongli, president of the a ademy, solemnly
announ ed, rom today, the Si huan ine Arts Institute and some of the artists who
took part in this work will formally open a lawsuit against the organi ing ommittee of
the eni e Biennale and its dire tor Harald S eemann, as well as the winner of the
International ri e , Cai uo- iang. He ontinued, As for the lawsuit that we ha e
initiated, no matter how long it takes or how dif ult it pro es to be, we are on dent
that we will be i torious.
The root of this matter lies in the su ess of the work, Venice’s Rent Collection
Courtyard, by the Chinese artist Cai uo- iang at the 1999 eni e Biennale. At this
most authoritati e of international e hibitions, the artist aptured one of the Biennale s
three highest awards. Howe er, Venice’s Rent Collection Courtyard simply reprodu ed
the lay s ulptures of Rent Collection Courtyard, a work familiar to e eryone in China.
This not only aused the original artists to angrily denoun e it as plagiari ing, opying,
and a opyright infringement, and riti s to resolutely refer to it as, ingratiatingly
atering to the Western dis ourse, but it also ultimately led Si huan ine Arts
Institute resident Luo hongli to issue his own ehement iews.
Sin e the issue of law is best resol ed in the udi ial realm, this essay will pri-
marily fo us on the issue of prin iples.
Cai uo- iang s work is not an ordinary s ulpture. Instead, it is an installation
that also in orporates performan e he himself has alled it a fluid installation
liudong zhuangzhi . The appropriation of readymades is not only a on entional
method in installation art, but an e en be onsidered its most signi ant innate har-
a teristi . This a iom of installation art was put forth by its originator, Mar el
u hamp, and has been widely a epted and adopted.
u hamp raised two points: 1 All readymades are art ob e ts, our attitude
toward artisti fun tion determines how we treat them. This point is most readily
demonstrated by Fountain in whi h the artist hanged the lo ation of its installation,
and the dire tion of its display 2 All art ob e ts are readymades, our attitude toward
readymades determines how we treat them. This point is most re ogni able in
L.H. . . . in whi h the artist added a musta he onto a reprodu tion of the Mona
Lisa . The pre ious Rent Collection Courtyard was simply appropriated by Venice’s Rent
Collection Courtyard as a readymade.
The most thorough a t of appropriation is a hie ed without any reworking. or
instan e, the model and design for u hamp s erami urinal Fountain was ertainly
not reated by u hamp himself, but rather presented his on epts of appropriation
and the readymade.
Cai uo- iang did not dire tly relo ate Rent Collection Courtyard, but instead
he arried out a non-reprodu ing reprodu tion. Thus, it differs from what is usually
onsidered appropriation. I prefer ei awei s iew of it as, uoting. At the eni e
Biennale within this typi al Western onte t he uoted something Eastern in a
purely apitalist onte t, he uoted something so ialist in a onte t full of postmodern
on epts, he uoted something lassi al, realist, and narrati e in today s post Cold
378
War present, he uoted a er ely antagonisti ideology from the Cold War era. . . . This
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kind of uoting spans a broad spatiotemporal transformation, ausing Rent Collection

Courtyard to produ e omple meanings and an intense impa t that were not origi-
nally part of Rent Collection Courtyard. In this way, the four lanterns installed on-site
suggest an additional layer of meaning outside of Rent Collection Courtyard itself.
In order to emphasi e that the work was not his own, but rather iting the work
of another artist, Cai uo- iang pla ed photographs of the original work along with
ten thousand booklets of the originally distributed propaganda throughout the e hibit
for the audien e to freely peruse.
To highlight the a t of uoting, Cai uo- iang reprodu ed the original work
without dire tly reprodu ing it, and adopted a rather lukewarm attitude toward the
original. n the one hand, he in ited one of the original artists to parti ipate in the
manufa turing, so that e ery effort was made for the reprodu tion to resemble the
original. n the other hand, he redu ed the one hundred or so original gures into
eighty-one skeletons of iron and steel. After the opening of the e hibition, there were
a number of omplete or nearly omplete gures, in luding fty lay gures with dif-
fering degrees of nish, while the remaining ones had wood or ross-shaped patterns
af ed to their wire frames. Howe er, the ebellion and Sei ing ower se tions
still retained the partially abstra t modeling of the iron-and-steel skeletons. The work
does not e hibit a omplete reprodu tion, but instead shows the reprodu tion pro-
ess. It does not e hibit s ulpture, but shows the on ept of the pro ess be oming
the work. The audien e is also positioned to iew this as a pro ess of transforming the
nal result into what is on ealed behind it.
There is one more signi ant aspe t of Venice’s Rent Collection Courtyard, whi h
is that the lay that Cai uo- iang used was not highly pro essed, so that when they
began working on the rear, the front had already begun to split and flake. Thus,
besides seeing a ontinuously uid pro ess from beginning to end, the audien e was
barred from seeing a ompletely inta t Rent Collection Courtyard. Cai uo- iang
refused to allow the work to be olle ted, so when the e hibit losed, the artwork
departed along with the departure of the e hibition, thus emphasi ing the meaning
of the on ept of uoting.
nder what ir umstan es should one uote a spe i ob e t, and in what parti -
ular style should one uote it What kind of impa t does uoting ha e on thinking
and on eptual inspiration These are the main points of Venice’s Rent Collection
Courtyard. The artist s reati ity, imagination, wisdom, and insights are found in this
ery spe i and parti ular a t of uoting.
If we a knowledge that installation art is an e tremely important mode of re-
ation today, then we also a knowledge the rationality of appropriation. If we a knowl-
edge the rationality of appropriation, then we also a knowledge that appropriation
within installation art annot be negati ely treated as plagiari ing or opying.
E erpted from a te t originally published in une 2000 as Yinyong Chao i on Century nline
China Art Networks Shiji zaixian Zhongguo yishu wang , n. l2000. om. eprinted in Piping de shidai
[Era of Criticism , ol. 1, ed. ia ang hou uang i: uang i ine Arts ublishing House, 2003 , 218 20.
Translated by risten Loring.
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ILLUSTRATIONS
379
380
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ILLUSTRATIONS
26 27
Cai Jin
Canna 106. 1997. il on
bi y le seat, 9 5 × "
25 15 0.5 m . Colle tion
Chang Tsong- ung
Lin Tianmiao
Bound Unbound. 1997.
Installation of otton-thread-
wrapped household ob e ts
and ideo pro e tion, 5 ft.
200 m . Colle tion Hong
ong Arts Centre
381
|
28
Yin Xiuzhen
Clothes Chest. 1995.
Installation of wooden bo ,
on rete, and the artist s personal
garments, 19 19 29 "
50 50 75 m . Colle tion
the artist
382
|
ILLUSTRATIONS
29 30
Yang Fudong
The First Intellectual. 2000.
Chromogeni print, 7 50
193 127 m
Lu Hao
Flower, Bird, Insect, Fish —
Fishbowl. 1999. le iglas,
water, and gold sh, 35 24 11
90 0 28.5 m
4. Wang Keping
Silence. 1978. Bir h,
48 m height .
Colle tion of the artist
383
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31
Zhang Dali
Dialogue. 1998. Bla k-and-
white photograph, 39 3 8 59
100 150 m . Colle tion 32
Larry Warsh AW Asia
Rong Rong
1997 No. 1 1 Beijing. 1997.
elatin-sil er print, 39 3 8 59
100 150 m . a id and
Alfred Smart Museum of Art,
ni ersity of Chi ago
384
|
ILLUSTRATIONS
33 34
Song Dong
Stamping Water. 199 .
Chromogeni prints, ea h
24 1 2 42 m .
Colle tion Artur Walther
Hong Lei
After Liang ai’s Song-Dynasty
Masterpiece Shakyamuni
Coming out of the Mountains.
1999. Chromogeni print,
39 3 8 31 100 81 m
385
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35 36
Gu Dexin
ctober 31. 1998.
Chromogeni prints, ea h
49 39 125.7 100. m
Wang Gongxin
Sky of Brooklyn. 1995.
Installation with tele ision
set and ideotape with sound,
depth of well 11 3.5 m .
386
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ILLUSTRATIONS
37
Qin Yufen
In Between. 1998. utdoor
installation with silk, 328
100 m . Colle tion the artist
387
|
38
Chen Zhen
ue Chang, ifty Strokes to 39
Each. 1999. Installation and
performan e at the 48th Huang Yong Ping
eni e Biennale Theater of the World —
Bridge. 1993 95. Cages of
metal and wood, bron e
s ulptures, turtles, snakes,
and inse ts, 34 10 9
10.4 3.2 1.8 m . Colle tion
uy Myriam llens
oundation, ene a
388
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ILLUSTRATIONS
40
Ai Weiwei
Han-Dynasty rn with
Coca-Cola Logo. 1994. Cerami
with paint, 9 11 11
25 28 28 m .
Sigg Colle tion, Swit erland
41 42
Wang Wei
1 30th of a Second nderwater.
1999. 8 photographi
transparen ies, ea h 48 48
122 122 m , sound 4-minute
loop on C
Zhu Yu
Skin Graft. 2000. Color
photograph of installation
and performan e, Bei ing
389 |
390
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ILLUSTRATIONS
43
Zhou Chunya 44 45
Black Lines, Red Torso. 1992,
il on an as, 7 3 Xu Zhen
200 1 0 m . Colle tion The Difficulty with Colors. 2000.
Shen Manyuan Chromogeni prints, o erall
35 11 10 90 3 0 m
Cai Guo-Qiang
Bringing to Venice What Marco
Polo Forgot. 1995. Installation
in orporating wooden shing boat
from uan hou, Chinese herbs,
earthen ars, ginseng be erages,
bamboo ladles and por elain ups,
ginseng 100 kg , hand art, and
other works by the artist presented
as omponents: Acupuncture for
Venice 1995 , Water, Wood, Gold,
Fire, Earth 1995 . imensions
ariable boat: 23 31 2 5 11
700 950 180 m .
Commissioned by the 4 th eni e
Biennale installation iew there.
Colle tion the Museo Na ale di
ene ia shing boat pri ate
olle tions other omponents
391 |
392
|
ILLUSTRATIONS
46
Hong Hao
Selected Scriptures, Page 331,
The Strategic Defense Order.
1995. S reenprint, 22 30 " 47
5 78 m . uangdong
Museum of Art, China Cao Fei China Tracy
RMB CITY: A Second Life City
Planning. 2007. Internet pro e t.
Colle tion the artist, ourtesy
itamin Creati e Spa e
393
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48
49
iew of the Rong Rong
and inri Tui — Transfiguration Wenda Gu
e hibition at ayaolu Forest of Stone Steles — A
Workshop, a tory 798, Retranslation and Rewriting
Bei ing, 2003. hotograph of Tang Poetry. 1993 2005.
by ong ong Installation of 50 stone
steles and 50 ink rubbings,
ea h stele 8 3 7 3
20 110 190 m . Installation
iew of si stone steles and si
ink rubbings at the ni ersity
of North Te as, enton, SA
394
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ILLUSTRATIONS
50
Xu Bing
A Window facing Pudong.
2004. Wall drawing of early-
20th- entury iew of u ong
distri t, Shanghai, dimensions
ariable. Installation iew at
Shanghai allery of Art, 2004
CODA: ENTERING THE
395 | ENTERING THE NEW MILLENNIUM
NEW MILLENNIUM
The Third Shanghai Biennale (2000) marked the end of 1990s contemporary Chinese
396
art, just as the China / Avant-Garde exhibition in 1989 brought a kind of closure to
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the 1980s avant-garde movement. A brief comparison of these two exhibitions

CODA
highlights the many important changes that took place in the intervening ten years.
China / Avant-Garde was an unofficial exhibition that resulted from a grassroots
movement. It followed the logic of a political campaign called duoquan “taking
over an official institution” that derived from the Cultural Revolution. The show
was a purely domestic event: it featured works only by Chinese artists, contempo-
rary Chinese art had not yet become a part of the global art scene, and it was inti-
mately related to China’s internal political situation at the time. The exhibition
realized its avant-garde intent in positioning itself as a collective “art happening.” It
was shut down three times by the authorities, but such disturbances only served to
unite artists with different intentions and stylistic identities. As a collective
social artistic experiment with a common agenda and shared excitement, the exhi-
bition transcended individual expression.
The Third Shanghai Biennale also realized its significance by billing itself as a
historical event. But the engineer of this event was a state-run institution, and the
project’s major purpose was to make itself into “an established activity of interna-
tional scale and academically addressed to the issues of globalization, postcolonial-
ism and regionalism, etc.” This goal determined not only the exhibition’s content
but also its curatorial method. It featured transnational contemporary art repre-
sented by carefully selected examples from different countries, along with contem-
porary Chinese artists who were for the first time official representatives in a
multinational gathering. Following the convention of international biennials, the
museum invited two independent curators to design the show. But, because many
compromises had to be made among the curatorial team, the museum, and the city
of Shanghai, no clear lines could be drawn between independent decisions and
government directives. This Biennale marked a new stage in the normalization of
contemporary art in China, but it also threatened the independence of the art by
placing it under state patronage. In a more profound sense, this exhibition indi-
cated the main directions of contemporary Chinese art in the following decade,
which would be characterized by depoliticization, commercialization, and height-
ened productivity, as well as an emerging historical consciousness about its own
origin and developmental logic.
i i i i i
Following the Third Shanghai Biennale, a host of large-scale biennials and triennials
emerged in major Chinese cities, signaling the country’s entry into an era of mega-
exhibitions. The year 2005, for example, saw the staging of a dozen or so such
shows, including the Chengdu Biennale in Sichuan, Guiyang Biennale in Guizhou,
Shenzhen Biennale in Guangdong, Chinese Art Triennial in anjing, Guangzhou
Triennial, Guangzhou Photography Biennale, Macao Design Biennial, Shenzhen
International Urban Sculpture Biennale, Beijing International Calligraphy Biennale,
and others. Many of these exhibitions were sponsored by provincial or municipal
governments, whereas others were collaborative undertakings of entrepreneurs,
independent curators, and artists. Some of these exhibitions displayed contempo-
rary art in an encyclopedic manner; others focused on a particular visual form.
Despite such differences, the buzzwords “biennale” or “triennial” in their titles tes-
tified to an urgent desire to be contemporary. By transplanting international-style
biennials and triennials to Chinese cities, they also began to feature a large number
397
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ENTERING THE NEW MILLENNIUM
Front cover of Reinterpretation:
A Decade of Experimental
Chinese Art 1990 – 2000 ,
ed. Wu Hung (Guangzhou,
China: Guangdong Museum
of Art, 2002 . ublished on
the occasion of The First
uang hou Triennial
Reinterpretation: A Decade
of Experimental Chinese Art
1990 – 2000, No ember 18,
2002 anuary 19, 2003
uangdong Museum of Art
of installations and multimedia works art forms which defied a rigid cultural iden-
tity. Painting and sculpture remained, but increasingly echoed the most fashionable
styles in the West. By adopting a globalized artistic and exhibition language, these
China-based international exhibitions confirmed the country’s newly gained status
as a future-oriented contemporary nation in the making.
The penchant for the contemporary also explains an interesting phenomenon in
the early 2000s: although the Chinese cultural authorities had been known for their
open hostility toward contemporary art throughout the 1990s, they began to send
contemporary art exhibitions abroad soon after the new millennium began. The two
earliest such shows were Living in Time in 2001 at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin
and Alors la Chine? (Well Then, China?) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris in
2003. The former featured twenty-nine artists, the latter, fifty; the list of participants
in both shows reads like a Who’s Who of contemporary Chinese art. In explaining
the second exhibition, Fan Di’an, the curator of the show and the director of the
ational Art Museum of China (formerly the ational Art Gallery), was uoted as
saying: “We hope that, via the artists we selected and their works, we will be able
to demonstrate the changes and major features of Chinese art at the turn of the
century, so that French or Western audiences will better understand what’s in
the minds of Chinese artists in this rapidly transforming society due to the increas-
ingly fast pace of globalization in the 21st century.” The same intention led to the
establishment of the Chinese Pavilion at the enice Biennale in 2005, which offi-
cially clinched China’s participation in global contemporary art.
It would be wrong to see these events both the domestic biennials and the
officially sponsored overseas exhibitions simply as a kind of window dressing to
showcase China’s progressive image. They signaled more fundamental changes in
the world of contemporary Chinese art. One of these changes was the transforma-
tion of public museums, which began to embrace not only contemporary art forms
but also the concept and function of the contemporary art museum. The Shanghai
Art Museum, Guangdong Museum of Art, and He Xiangning Art Museum in
Shenzhen spearheaded this trend in the early 2000s. Their examples have been fol-
lowed by many other public museums. While these museums cannot go too far
because they still remain within the official system, they have experimented with
different possibilities to balance political demands with creative artistic and
educational programs. A relatively more progressive example can be found at the
398
He Xiangning Art Museum, which has established an experimental “terminal” to

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develop exhibition and research programs centered exclusively on contemporary art.

CODA
Then there are new museums and exhibition spaces funded by private compa-
nies and individuals, which first appeared in the late 1990s and have become a reg-
ular feature of cities like Beijing and Shanghai. The heated art market in recent years
has definitely played an important role in attracting entrepreneurs, often real estate
developers, to establish such institutions. But with their impressive size, skilled
curatorial staff, and ambitious programs, these museums have shown a serious
commitment to promoting contemporary art in Chinese society. After an initial
period of development, some of them have emerged as the most dynamic contem-
porary art spaces in China. Beijing’s Today Art Museum, for example, is situated in
the central business district in Chaoyang District and features an impressive 2,500-
s uare-meter exhibition space. Established in 2002, it “aims to promote Chinese
contemporary art based on an internationalized vision and a contemporary ideol-
ogy. As the first not-for-profit, non-government-run art museum in China, it is dedi-
cated to exploring an appropriate development strategy for museums of its kind
within a Chinese context.” Shanghai’s Zendai Museum of Modern Art and
anjing’s S uare Gallery of Contemporary Art ( both established in 2005 ) have
invested heavily in building their facilities to rival the Today Art Museum in scale
and ambition. The opening of the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art and the Three
Shadows Photography Art Centre in 2007 both located in Beijing’s Dashanzi-
Caochangdi art district further added two new types of private exhibition space,
the former founded by a foreign collector and the latter by independent artists.
It is unclear at this point how these non-official institutions will develop in the
future. Lacking foundation support and vulnerable to any financial crisis, the ideal
of a truly non-profit and independent contemporary art museum must still over-
come many obstacles. But the appearance of these museums and art spaces, along
with the transformation of public museums and the flourishing of commercial gal-
leries, has fundamentally changed the meaning of contemporary art in China. If this
art was largely synonymous with unofficial or alternative art throughout the 1970s,
1980s, and 1990s, it entered mainstream culture in the 2000s, promoted not only by
foreign curators and galleries, but also by domestic supporters and even the gov-
ernment. Some artists still insist on maintaining an unofficial stance, using art to
comment on social and political issues. But, they have become increasingly isolated,
struggling against both official censorship and the irresistible tide of commercial-
ization that has made 1990s contemporary Chinese art a gold rush.
i i i i i
A few facts suffice to demonstrate the extraordinary rise of the contemporary
Chinese art market in the 2000s, which has become the single fastest-growing seg-
ment of the international art market during the past five years. othing is more
astonishing than the spectacular appreciation of prices: a painting in Zhang
Xiaogang’s Big Family series sold for US 76,000 in 2003 when it first appeared at
Christie’s Hong Kong; the price for a work of his jumped to 2.3 million in 2006 and
again to 6.1 million in 2008. A set of fourteen gunpowder drawings by Cai Guo-
Qiang sold for 9.5 million in 2007; similar works had brought less than half a mil-
lion dollars only a year before. Other luminaries in this field include Yue Minjun, Liu
Xiaodong, Liu Ye, and Zeng Fanzhi. The 2008 auction of Zeng’s as eries No 6 for
9.6 million at Christie’s Hong Kong remains the record for contemporary Chinese
399
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Sotheby s, New York, au tion, Mar h 31, 200
art at the time of writing. According to the Art Price Index, Chinese artists took
thirty-five of the top 100 prices for living contemporary artists at auction in 2007,
rivaling Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, and other important Western artists.
The rapid ascension of art prices also meant record earnings for auction houses
and commercial galleries. In a comprehensive review of the contemporary Chinese
art market, Barbara Pollack notes that in 2004 Sotheby’s and Christie’s together sold
22 million in Asian contemporary art, most of it Chinese. But, two years later, gross
sales of the two auction houses in this area had leaped to 190 million, a spectacular
rise realized through a series of record-breaking auctions in ew York, London, and
Hong Kong. In China, as many as 1,600 registered auctioneers, most of whom
appeared after 2000, competed to sell art. The two flagships are the Poly International
Auction Company and China Guardian Auctions Company, which generated a com-
bined 67 million in contemporary art sales in spring 2007, including the 8.2 million
fetched by Liu Xiaodong’s Hot ed No 1, a record for a domestic sale.
Similarly, there has been a huge explosion of commercial galleries in Beijing
and Shanghai. Before 2000, Beijing had only five galleries specializing in contempo-
rary art; by 2008 there were more than 300. At least 100 new galleries also opened
their doors in Shanghai during the same period. These numbers include both
domestic galleries and foreign dealers, such as Continua from Italy, Urs Meile from
Switzerland, Arario and PKM from South Korea, Beijing Tokyo Art Projects from
Japan, and Tang Art from Indonesia. In 2008, two major ew York galleries,
PaceWildenstein and the James Cohan Gallery, opened branches in Beijing and
Shanghai, respectively. PaceWildenstein boasts a 22,000-s uare-foot space in the
center of the 798 art district, redesigned at a cost of 20 million by the architect
Richard Gluckman. The James Cohan Gallery Shanghai is located in a pictures ue
Art Deco building in the old French Concession. These international galleries handle
both Chinese and Western contemporary art a direction which is also encouraged
by the proliferation of large-scale art fairs, another new phenomenon in China in
the 2000s. Represented by Beijing’s China International Gallery Exposition (CIGE)
and Art Beijing, Shanghai’s ShContemporary, and Hong Kong’s ART HK, these inter-
national art fairs have generated much excitement, attracting an increasing number
of young people to China’s urban centers. These events are thus important not
400
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CODA
oster in the 798 art distri t

ad ertising an independently
organi ed e hibition during
the 2003 Bei ing Biennial
simply for conducting commercial transactions but also for creating a multifaceted
contemporary art scene that defines Beijing and Shanghai as emerging hubs in the
global space of contemporary art.
Another aspect of contemporary Chinese art in the 2000s is closely related to
the trend of commercialization: the emergence of a new type of urban art district.
Unlike previous “artists villages” which were often located in cheap, semirural areas,
this type of district is geographically and culturally connected to the expanding
downtown of a major city, and integrates previously separate art and entertainment
spaces into a single, highly concentrated area. The most famous among such spaces
is Beijing’s 798, a Bauhaus-style former munitions complex that has become the
capital’s hottest art center. The transformation of the decayed industrial complex
took merely five or six years to complete. The first art gallery opened its doors there
in 2002; by 2008, the district was filled with 150 galleries and exhibition spaces,
including big names such as PaceWildenstein and the Ullens Center for Contemporary
Art. In a SoHo-like fashion, various kinds of showrooms, design centers, bookstores,
gift shops, fashion studios, trendy caf s, music bars, and cool restaurants also mush-
roomed, attracting tourists and a large crowd of urban youth year-round.
Although people often directly attribute the emergence of 798 and similar art
districts to China’s social transformation and the booming art market, the estab-
lishment of these spaces in fact owed much to artists’ initiatives. In Beijing, the art-
ist Huang Rui and his friends started the project ema ing 798 as early as 2003, to
preserve the old factories in the area and to transform them into a contemporary
yishuqu (art district) pl. 48 . They imagined the future of this space in a manifesto:
“Here, the ideal of the avant-garde will coexist with the flavor of the past, the notion
of experimentation will be emphasized together with social responsibility, and spir-
itual and financial pursuits will prevail simultaneously.” These words recall a previ-
ous episode in the history of contemporary Chinese art. In a similarly idealistic
spirit, a group of art critics campaigned in the early 1990s to establish a market sys-
tem for contemporary art because they believed that laying an economic founda-
401
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oster produ ed on
the occasion of the art
event Reconstruction 798,
April 13, 2003, Bei ing
tion was indispensable to the development of this art. Their goal was fully realized
a decade later. But, by then, these critics had become disillusioned with the out-
come of their campaign and had abandoned their na ve views of the market.
Following a similar logic but in a much shorter period, the ema ing 798 project
blossomed, but the overwhelming success of the initiative has also driven artists
away to cheaper and uieter spaces.
i v i
The sweeping commercialization, globalization, and depoliticization of contemporary
Chinese art in the 2000s have redefined the field. The rivalry between domestic and
overseas artists has considerably subsided, largely due to the increased intermingling
of the two camps: they now deal with the same museums and galleries, and show
works in identical spaces. For one thing, both groups are eagerly pursued by Western
galleries. As a conse uence, by 2008, almost every major ew York gallery had signed
one or more Chinese artists: Zeng Fanzhi with Ac uavella, Zhang Xiaogang and Zhang
Huan with PaceWildenstein, Yan Pei Ming with David Zwirner, Xu Zhen with James
Cohan, Huang Yong Ping with Gladstone, Yang Fudong with Marian Goodman, Liu Ye
with Sperone Westwater, Ai Weiwei and Liu Xiaodong with Mary Boone. One can
hardly distinguish which of these artists live abroad and which in China.
Indeed, hundreds of overseas Chinese artists have been going back to China on
short- or long-term visits for different purposes. This trend started in the 1990s
with Ai Weiwei, Wang Gongxin, and Lin Tianmiao returning from the United States,
and Zhang Dali from Italy. But at the time such a move was considered a permanent
decision, and could never close the gap between domestic and overseas artists.
Starting from the early 2000s, however, well-known overseas artists fre uently held
exhibitions in Chinese museums or received commissions to conduct art projects in
China. Cai Guo-Qiang, for example, had mainly showed his works abroad before
2000 and earned international fame. Some Chinese critics labeled him a “banana”
(xiangjiao ren, meaning “yellow on the outside and white on the inside”) and
severely criticized him for appropriating the Rent Collection Courtyard in the 48th
402
enice Biennale. But, from 2001, a series of domestic engagements indicated a new
|
direction in his career and a reconnection with his homeland. These activities
CODA
started with a high-profile art project in Shanghai, commissioned by OT (Oriental

Television) for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in 2001. It was
a spectacular display of fireworks along the Huangpu River in front of world leaders.
Accompanied by Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the show was perceived by many as
an affirmation of China’s aspirations to become an economic superpower. The next
year Cai held his first solo exhibition in China, at the Shanghai Art Museum, in a city
where he had attended college twenty years before. He had participated in the
enice Biennale several times and received the International Golden Lion Prize in
1999. When he returned to enice again in 2005, however, it was no longer as an
independent artist, but as the curator of the newly established Chinese national
pavilion. In 2008, he famously designed the fireworks for the opening ceremony of
the Beijing Olympics. Also in that year, midcareer retrospective organized by the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum traveled to China and was exhibited in the
ational Art Museum of China.
Other overseas artists have followed suit, but in varying degrees and different
ways. Huang Yong Ping has basically kept his main residence in Paris, but his retro-
spective organized in 2005 by the Walker Art Center, House of Oracles, traveled to
the Ullens Center in Beijing in 2008, after appearances at the Walker in Minneapolis
and at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. In a much-publicized
action in early 2008, Xu Bing accepted the invitation of Beijing’s Central Academy of
Fine Arts his alma mater to become the school’s vice president. He thus drasti-
cally changed his position from independent artist to leader of China’s higher art
education. Zhang Huan returned to China in 2005 and established an enormous
workshop in Shanghai, employing some 100 young artists, craftsmen, and techni-
cians to realize his various painting, sculpture, print, installation, and performance
projects. The workshop’s products, impressive in both conception and scale,
appeared in multiple shows around the world in the following years. This mode of
art production and exhibition is shared by many other “hai gui” (slang for “returnees”
from abroad) artists, who use cheap Chinese labor and materials to produce works
for an international audience.
It is interesting to speculate about what has attracted these artists, who had
left China in the 1980s and 1990s to seek artistic freedom in the West, to reembrace
their homeland in the 2000s. The reasons must be complex and include China’s
deepening social transformation and rise as a major global economic power, the
enormous changes in living conditions and the cultural scene in large Chinese cities,
the growing domestic interest in contemporary art and the unprecedented open
atmosphere, the social privilege and financial well-being enjoyed by famous artists,
curiosity for the new in the society at large, the exhilarating speed of construction
and manufacturing which stimulates artistic imagination, familiarity with the
mother tongue and the ease of living among other Chinese, and, as mentioned
above, the cheap labor and materials which facilitate ambitious art projects. For
thoughtful artists, however, homecoming is never a simple matter of changing
addresses, but rather provides an occasion to reimagine globalization and cultural
negotiation. This subject is at the heart of two important works realized by Wenda
Gu and Xu Bing in the 2000s.
Wenda Gu conceived his Forest of Stone Steles — A Retranslation and Rewriting
of Tang Poetry in the 1990s and took twelve years to complete it. Consisting of fifty
solemn stone slabs, each 190 centimeters (75 in.) long, 110 centimeters (43 in.) wide,
403
and 1.3 tons in weight, the creation of this mammoth work parallels his United
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Nations project in time and visual splendor pl. 49 . But if United Nations focuses on

the world, the Forest of Stone Steles is a personal tribute to Chinese culture. The
two inspirations for this project the Forest of Stone Steles, a repository in Xi’an
which houses the largest collection of steles in China, and Tang-period poetry
both symbolize China’s glorious past; and Gu employed traditional techni ues of
stone-carving and ink-rubbing to produce the work. Instead of passively revering
tradition, however, he uestions its current state in a global context. The fifty steles,
each bearing four different forms of a Tang poem achieved through semantic, ideo-
graphic, and phonetic translations of the original Chinese-language version, high-
light the impossibility of reaching genuine understanding between cultures. Thus
the Forest of Stone Steles is on the one hand imbued with a deep sense of history,
amalgamating Gu’s traditional education with his respect for the Chinese past, and
on the other hand a deconstructive work that reflects his profound uestioning of
global communication. The result is an ironic integration of idealism and cultural
criticism on a monumental scale. This work was shown in its entirety in 2005 at the
OCT Contemporary Art Terminal in Shenzhen, followed by a symposium entitled
“Translating isuality.”
Xu Bing’s Tobacco Project consists of two site-specific exhibitions. The first,
Tobacco Project: Durham, took place in 2000 in Durham, orth Carolina. The second,
Tobacco Project: Shanghai pl. 50 , in 2004, continued the project on the other side of
the Pacific. The move from America to China mirrored the expansion of the American
tobacco industry in the early twentieth century: starting from Durham, James B. Duke
eventually built a cigarette empire in China. In a mere ten years from 1905 to 1915, his
company’s investments in China increased sixfold, from 2.5 million to 16.6 million,
and its sales skyrocketed from 1.25 billion cigarettes in 1902 to 80 billion cigarettes in
1928. From 1915 through the 1920s, United States companies sold more cigarettes per
year (with one exception) in China than to the rest of the world combined. Duke’s
firm alone amassed a profit of over 380 million between 1902 and 1948.
Because of its location, Tobacco Project: Durham naturally focused on the rela-
tionship between James B. Duke and the local American economy, politics, and
education. Following the exhibition’s relocation to Shanghai, the central concept of
the project subtly shifted to the Sino-American relationship and globalization.
Some works in the show evoked memories of the past; others interacted with the
present. These images mixed and overlapped, generating confusion in a visitor’s
historical perception, as if past and present were staged simultaneously by means
of the cigarette. The sites of the exhibition the Shanghai Gallery of Art in the
fashionable Three on the Bund building further enhanced such confusion. Just as
foreign economic invasion helped turn China into a semicolonial society a century
ago, so too the current Chinese “economic miracle” relies heavily on foreign invest-
ment and is a by-product of globalization. iewers of this exhibition seemed to hear
constant echoes between the past and the present: once again there is the trans-
mission of foreign money, technology, and management, and once again China pro-
vides the world with cheap labor as well as an oversized market. In a way, this
exhibition was “historical” in both content and presentation. A similar sensitivity to
history also characterizes the scholarship on contemporary art in the 2000s. In it,
the origins and development of contemporary art itself have become the subject of
historical research and reflection.
i i i
404
Even in its early days, contemporary Chinese art showed a strong tendency to con-
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struct its own legacy through historical writing. The first major book on this art, A
CODA
History of Contemporary Chinese Art, 1985 – 1986, was completed in 1988 and pub-
lished in 1991. Whereas this volume edited by Gao Minglu focused only on the ’85
Art ew Wave movement, L Peng and Yi Dan’s A History of Modern Chinese Art:
1979 – 1989, which appeared the following year, provided the first comprehensive
account of contemporary Chinese art in its first decade. The authors of these and
other early histories of contemporary Chinese art were without exception active
insiders, and their work combines historical reflection with critical evaluation and
mission statements.
Although these pioneering publications often amassed a rich body of informa-
tion from the authors’ close contact with artists, their purpose was not to produce
detached scholarship based on systematic analyses of archival materials. This style
of historical writing continued into the 1990s, as testified to by a ten-volume series
on major trends in recent Chinese art. In this sense, the establishment of the Asia
Art Archive (AAA) in 2000 marked a turning point in the study of contemporary
Chinese art. Based in Hong Kong, the primary goal of this non-profit organization
was to lay a foundation for studying contemporary Asian art in general and contem-
porary Chinese art specifically. By 2009, the AAA had built one of the most compre-
hensive collections of primary and secondary source materials on contemporary
Asian art, with more than 20,000 titles accessible to researchers and the general
public (the majority of holdings focus on mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan).
More than a passive repository of books, exhibition catalogues, and documents
donated by artists, the archive has initiated various research and educational pro-
grams. With an academic advisory board made up of active critics and curators in
the field, and with research posts in China and other Asian countries, AAA also acts
as an “idea center” and provides a platform for scholarly communication.
Differing from the global coverage of the 2000 Shanghai Biennale, the First
Guangzhou Triennial in 2002 focused on China. The rationale was that in order to
become a vital component of world contemporary art, contemporary Chinese art
should first establish its own historiography and analytical framework. The title of
the exhibition einterpretation: A Decade of E perimental Chinese Art 1990 –
2000 summarizes its purpose: it aimed not only to showcase a group of seminal
works from the 1990s, but also to reach a historical interpretation. The various means
employed to achieve this goal by the curatorial team, which consisted of Wu Hung,
Feng Boyi, and Wang Huangsheng, included selecting the works for the exhibition
through a comprehensive review, developing an interpretative structure, and com-
piling a massive catalogue to frame individual artists and their works within a series
of interpretative texts. The catalogue starts with Wu Hung’s overview of 1990s
Chinese experimental art, followed by fourteen essays focusing on various aspects
of this art, from art medium to artists’ status, and from exhibition channels to over-
seas reception. Written by international scholars, together these essays depict a
large and rich picture of contemporary Chinese art in this important decade.
A surge of historical research on contemporary art was published in 2007 and
2008. The focus was on the ’85 Art ew Wave. At the center of the activity were
two sets of publications, both devoted to collecting and presenting primary data on
this past avant-garde movement. The first set, edited by Gao Minglu and titled The
85 ovement, consists of two companion volumes. olume one, The Enlightenment
of Chinese Avant-Garde, is an updated version of Gao’s 1991 book A History of
Contemporary Chinese Art, 1985 – 1986. olume two, An Anthology of Historical
405
Sources, contains 1,000-plus documents written mainly by avant-garde artists,
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including manifestoes of art groups, letters between artists and critics, and unpub-

lished essays, poems, and notes. Matching the structure of volume one, these
materials are associated with twenty-six avant-garde groups and divided into six
chapters on specific trends and activities around the mid-1980s. Organized in this
way, the documents vividly reflect interactions between artists and the feverish ide-
alism during that period. Gao Minglu emphasizes in his preface that in order to pre-
serve historical authenticity, the volume contains first-hand materials by both
well-known and obscure artists. He hopes that widely inclusive data will encourage
new research on contemporary Chinese art, and will also stimulate researchers to
conduct further “archaeological excavations” to discover unknown historical evi-
dence for the early history of contemporary Chinese art.
The second set was compiled by Fei Dawei under the title Archives of the 85 New
Wave. It will eventually consist of six volumes; but so far only the first two have come
out. Like Gao Minglu, Fei also emphasizes the importance of primary sources, which
according to him constitute the foundation of historical research. Unlike Gao, how-
ever, he has structured the series primarily around a dozen or so artists. olume one
is devoted exclusively to Wenda Gu, Wu Shanzhuan, and Xu Bing; and volume two to
Huang Yong Ping and Xiamen Dada. Artists covered in the next two volumes will
include Wang Guangyi, Shu Qun, Zhang Peili, Geng Jianyi, Gu Dexin, L Shengzhong,
and the members of the Analysis group. While the groupings of the artists reflect
similar artistic orientations (for example, the three artists in olume 1 were all
engaged in “pseudowritings” in the 1980s), these connections are not spelled out in
the volumes. Rather, as Fei states in his preface, his duty is to provide original materi-
als as objectively as possible, creating an open field for future research. evertheless,
his emphasis on individual artists reflects a particular notion of art history. ot coin-
cidentally, the first publications in the series coincided with the inaugural exhibition
of the Ullens Center in 2007, titled 85 New Wave: he irth of Chinese Contemporary
Art. As the curator of the exhibition (as well as the first director of the Ullens Center),
Fei Dawei selected 137 works by 30 of China’s best-known artists. The lavish show
was accompanied by a catalogue with separate Chinese and English versions; the
texts and images were again structured around individual artists.
One may consider Gao Minglu’s approach “sociological” and Fei Dawei’s “art
historical.” Beyond this difference, however, both of their compilations have con-
tributed to laying a basis for studying the history of contemporary Chinese art. As
important advocates of the ew Wave movement, both author editors have real-
ized the importance of preserving historical evidence; both have also developed a
constructive distance from the past, which allows them to observe history with
more detachment. Their difference in methodology is actually a sign of the maturity
of this field, which is no longer dominated by a single ideology but has begun to
generate different modes of historiography.
This “historical turn” in research is also evident in many case-oriented exhibi-
tions and research projects, and in databases developed by museums and research
centers. At Peking University, for example, Zhu Qingsheng established an archive of
modern and contemporary Chinese art in 2005. In collaboration with the OCT
Contemporary Art Terminal in Shenzhen and the Center for the Art of East Asia at
the University of Chicago, his institute at Peking University has also begun to pub-
lish a series of Contemporary Chinese Art Yearbooks, envisioned as a documentary
resource as well as an index to theoretical development. In south China, continuing
the momentum of the First Guangzhou Triennial, in 2006 the Guangdong Museum
406
of Art decided to develop a series of exhibitions and symposia on important artistic

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phenomena since the ’85 Art ew Wave. So far, three such exhibitions symposia
CODA
have taken place, focusing on three “cradles” of contemporary art: the northeast,
the southwest, and Guangdong. In Shenzhen, the He Xiangning Art Museum and
its OCT Contemporary Art Terminal have organized retrospectives of contemporary
art on various scales. Their 2006 Creating History exhibition provided yet another
survey of the ’85 Art ew Wave. The more recent Visual Polity: Another Wang
Guangyi (2008), instead reexamined the career of this important artist and proposed
a revisionist interpretation. Both of the exhibitions were curated by Huang Zhuan.
While the earlier exhibition investigated the history of contemporary Chinese art
through a macroscopic lens, the latter scrutinized microscopically.
The present sourcebook carries this “historical turn” beyond China’s borders. As
mentioned in “About this olume,” in compiling it we consulted numerous Chinese
publications and also discussed its content and structure with Chinese art historians
and critics. Because of its specific purposes and readership, however, this source-
book differs from all data collections and archives published to date in China. Most
importantly, unlike the exhaustive archives compiled by Gao Minglu and Fei Dawei,
it contains only the most representative texts, so that it can survey the thirty-year
history of contemporary Chinese art in a single volume. As such, this sourcebook is
envisioned as an initial step toward more comprehensive compilations and transla-
tions, which will present increasingly detailed historical information on contempo-
rary Chinese art to the English-speaking world. Like any field of historical research,
the study of contemporary Chinese art must go through a process of collecting, dis-
seminating, and interpreting primary evidence. This process has started. We hope
that this volume, while being a result of the process, will also push it forward.
Notes
. See Wu Hung, The Shanghai Biennale: The Making of a Histori al E ent, ArtAsiaPacific, no.
, .
. ang eng ian, refa e, Shanghai Biennale 2000 Shanghai: Shanghai Art ublishing House, ,
unpaginated
. www. hinaembassy.org.np ulture features respe t grows.htm.
. rom the museum s Website: www.artnow. om. n.
. or these and the following gures, see Barbara olla k s informati e report on the market for
ontemporary Chinese art, The Chinese Art E plosion, ARTnews , no. September , .
. See ibid., .
. See the e hibition atalogue Wenhua fanyi: Gu Wenda Beilin Tang shi houzhu [Translating Cultures:
Wenda Gu’s Forest of Stone Steles A Retranslation and Rewriting of Tang Poetry] (Guangzhou: Lingnan
Art ublishing House, .
. See Sherman Co hran, Big Business in China: Sino- oreign Rivalry in the Cigarette Industry, 1890 – 19 0
Cambridge, Mass.: Har ard ni ersity ress, . See also Wu Hong Wu Hung , Xu Bing: Yancao jihua
[Xu Bing: The Tobacco Project Bei ing: China enmin ni ersity ress, , .
. ao Minglu, ed., Zhongguo dangdai meishushi 1985 – 1986 [Contemporary Chinese Art 1985 – 1986]
Shanghai: Shanghai eople s ublishing House, .
. L eng and Yi an, Zhongguo xiandai yishu shi, 1979 – 1989 [A History of Modern Chinese Art: 1979 – 1989]
Changsha: Hunan ine Arts ublishing House, .
. hang iaoling, ed., Zhongguo dangdai meishu xianxiang piping wencong [Collections of Critical Essays on
Chinese Contemporary Art Phenomena , ols. ilin: ilin ine Arts ress, . Written by different
authors, the ten olumes in the series fo us on New eneration art, women s art, abstra t art, New
Literati art, op art, Con eptual art, New Ink ainting, and other sub e ts.
. Asia Art Ar hi es Website: www.aaa.org.hk.
. ao Minglu, ed., ’85 meishu yundong: 80 niandai de renwen qianwei Lishi zhiliao huibian [The ’85
Movement: ol. , The nlightenment of Chinese Avant-Garde ol. , An Anthology of Historical Sources]
uilin: uang i Normal ni ersity ress, .
. Ibid., : .
. ei awei, ed., ’85 xinchao dang’an [Archives of the ’85 New Wave , ols. Shanghai: Shanghai
eople s ublishing House, .
October: The State Council formally
CHRONICLE 1976–2006
[ Information on important sociopolitical
e ents in China between 197 and 200 is announces that the ational College
printed in bold type. ] Entrance Exam, interrupted for ten years,
is to be resumed.
1976 December: The Ministry of Culture
March: The journal Art ( Meishu ) resumes announ es that the Central A ademy of
publication. ine Arts, Bei ing Central A ademy of Arts
April: Spontaneous activities memorial- and Crafts, Bei ing Bei ing ilm A ademy
izing Premier Zhou Enlai in Tiananmen and other art institutions are to be reopened.
Square are suppressed. This event has since
been historically referred to as the “April 1978
Fifth Incident” ( see illustration p. 220 ). January: The journal Review of oreign Art
July: The journal Art 197 :3 publishes se - ( Guowai meishu ziliao , renamed Compilation
eral artworks on the theme of Counterattack- of Translations in Art (Meishu yicong , begins
ing the Trend to e erse the Anti- ightists publi ation at the he iang A ademy of ine
Movement (Fanji youqing fan’an feng). Arts, Hang hou it starts publi ir ulation
September: Mao Zedong dies of illness. in 1980.
October: The Chinese Communist Party February: Series on Art ( Meishu congkan )
( CCP ) dismantles the “Gang of Four,” ending begins publication in Shanghai.
the decade-long Cultural Revolution. March: Nineteenth-Century French Rural
Landscape Painting Exhibition ( aguo 19 shiji
1977 nongcun fengjinghua zhan , sponsored by
February: The National Art allery, C A C, opens at the National Art allery.
Bei ing, holds the National Art Exhibition to April: The CCP decides to reinstate all
Enthusiastically Celebrate the Inauguration rightists.
of Comrade Hua Guofeng as the Chairman of May: The China ederation of Literary
the CCP and the Chairman of the Central and Art Cir les Zhongguo wenxue yishujie
Military Commission and to Enthusiastically lianhehui resumes and establishes prepara-
Celebrate the Great Triumph of Smashing the tory ommittees for arious af liated
Gang of Four’s Scheme to Usurp the Party’s societies.
Power ( Relie qingzhu Hua Guofeng tongzhi Guangming Daily ( Guangming ribao )
ren zhonggong zhongyang zhuxi, zhongyang publishes the editorial “Practice Is the Only
junwei zhuxi, relie qingzhu fensui “sirenbang” Criterion of Truth” ( “Shijian shi jianyan zhenli
zhuandang duoquan yinmou de weida shengli de weiyi biaozhun” ). Reprinted in People’s
quanguo meishu zuopin zhanlan ). Daily ( Renmin ribao ) the next day, the article
May: The Art Exhibition to Commemorate starts a national debate over “criteria of truth.”
the 35th Anniversary of Mao Zedong’s Talks The journal Art publishes Xin Bingmao’s
at the “Yan’an Conference on Literature and arti le The refa e to the 197 Inaugural
Art” inian Mao Zedong zai Yan’an wenyi Issue of Art ught to be Criti i ed Meishu
zuotanhui shang de jianghua fabiao 35 197 nian huangkan i bi u pipan .
zhounian meishu zuopin zhanlan ) opens at August: Lu inhua s short story S ar
the National Art allery, sponsored by ( Shanghen is published in Literary Daily
the Ministry of Culture. ( Wenhui bao and oins the term S ar
July: The Third Plenary Session of the 10th Literature Shanghen wenxue . Later, Bei ing s
Central Committee of the CCP passes the Picture Stories ( Lianhuan huabao ) arranges
Resolution to Reinstate Comrade Deng for Liu Yulian, Chen Yiming, and Li Bin to
Xiaoping. reate an illustrated story ersion of S ar.
August: The 11th ational Congress of the November: The Xinhua ews Agency
CCP is held in Beijing, and passes the new reports the Beijing Municipal Committee’s
Constitution of the Communist Party, elects resolution to redress the April Fifth Incident
Hua Guofeng as chairman and Deng Xiaoping of 1976.
as vice chairman of the Central Committee. December: The Ministry of Culture
Hua delivers a political report on behalf of the issues Notes on Art Institutions se of
CCP proclaiming China’s entry into Models Guanyu meishu xueyuan he meishu
a new era of development. chuangzuo bumen shiyong mote de tongzhi ,
September: Chinese eople s Asso iation whi h allows art institutions to use nude
for riendship with oreign Countries models for tea hing and reating art.
C A C sponsors an e hibition of nineteenth- China and the U.S. issue the Joint
and twentieth- entury omanian paintings Communiqué on the Establishment of
at the National Art allery. Diplomatic Relations Between the People’s
409
Republic of China and the United States a hen s arti le A Brief Introdu tion to
of America. Modern Art S hools in the West ifang
The Third Plenary Session of the 11th iandai meishu liupai ian ie . The ournal
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Central Committee of the CCP convenes Chinese Art ( Zhongguo meishu ) begins
in Beijing to establish a political position publication. Art 138:5, 1979 publishes
centered on economic construction and Wu uan hong s arti le ormalist Aestheti s
organizational principles based on demo- in ainting Huihua de ingshi mei ,
cratic centrism. This firmly establishes a new whi h triggers an e tensi e debate.
path to socialist modernization through July: The No-Name ainting So iety
opening and reform, a new theory of ( Wuming huahui holds its rst publi
building socialism with Chinese characteris- e hibition in Huafang Studio in Bei ing s
tics, and a new generation of CCP leaders Beihai Park.
with Deng Xiaoping at its center. The Central Committee of the CCP and
The Art Exhibition Commemorating the the State Council decide to establish Special
85th Anniversary of Chairman Mao’s Birthday Economic Zones in designated areas in
( inian Mao Zedong danchen 85 zhounian Shantou, Shenzhen, Xiamen, and Zhuhai.
meizhan opens at the National Art allery. Japanese Modern Painting Exhibition
( Riben xiandai huihua zhanlan ) opens at the
1979 Working eople s Cultural ala e in Be ing.
January: The Central A ademy of ine August: Chen Yiming, Liu Yulian, and Li
Arts, Bei ing, resumes publi ation of its ournal Bin’s Maple ( Feng pl. 3 is published in
Fine Arts Research (Meishu yanjiu). For the Picture Stories. It becomes a representative
rst time, the ournal Art publishes artworks work of S ar Art Shanghen meishu , and
re e ting on the April ifth In ident. Art starts an enduring debate o er truth in art
returns from being a bimonthly publi ation ( yishu zhenshi ). This group of works wins
to a monthly publi ation s hedule. rst pri e at the National Fine Arts Exhibition
February: New Spring Landscape and Still Commemorating the 30th Anniversary of
Life Paintings Exhibition ( Xinchun fengjing the Founding of New China ( Xin Zhongguo
jingwuhua zhan ), also alled the New Spring chengli 30 zhounian quanguo meizhan ).
Painting Society Exhibition (Xinchun huahui September: Large-s ale murals are
zhanlan , is held in Sun Yat-sen ark in Bei ing. ompleted at the new terminal of the Bei ing
Twelve Artist xhibition ( Shi er ren Capital International Airport, among whi h
huazhan is held at the Huangpu istri t Yuan Yunsheng s The Water Splashing
Children s ala e in Shanghai. estival — Song of Life (Poshuijie — shengming
The Shanghai ainting So iety Shanghai de zange sparks er e ontro ersy and
huayuan holds the Welcoming Spring Painting ultimately has to be o ered.
Exhibition (Yingchun huazhan) in which the The e hibition Paintings by Hirayama
sculpture Wounds (Chuangshang is the rst Ikuo ( Pingshan Yufu huazhan is held at the
nude artwork on publi display sin e 1970. Working eople s Cultural ala e in Bei ing.
March: In his speech at the Party’s n September 27, The rst Stars Art
conference on theory, Deng Xiaoping Exhibition ( Xingxing meizhan ) opens in a
advocates the position that “in order to small garden to the east of the National Art
realize the Four Modernizations in China, allery, featuring more than 150 works of oil
we must uphold the four basic principles.” painting, ink painting, woodblo k prints, and
April: The photography e hibition Nature, wood- ar ing. It is banned on September 29.
Society, and Man (Ziran, shehui, ren , spon- n tober 1, some members of the Stars
sored by the April hotography So iety, ( Xingxing on ene in front of the idan
is held at the r hard oom in Sun Yat-sen emo ra y Wall and begin to mar h in the
ark, Bei ing see p. 7 . streets see p. 9 . Between No ember 23
Art 135:2, 1979 publishes summaries and e ember 2, the e hibition is mo ed
of a group of spee hes, in luding Liu ai u s to Huafang Studio in Beihai ark under the
ne Must Abide by the Laws of Art support of the chairman of the Chinese
Yao an yishu guil banshi , iang eng s Artists Asso iation, iang eng, and the
emo ra y Cannot be i en, It Must be leader of the Bei ing Artists Asso iation,
ought for Nin hu yao heng u, buneng Liu un.
kao en i , and ang Cheng s Without November: The Third Conferen e for
emo ra y, There Are No Cari atures members of the Chinese Artists Asso iation
Meiyou min hu iu meiyou manhua . is held in Bei ing, where they pass a new
June: The journal World Art ( Shijie meishu ) Constitution of the Chinese Artists
begins publi ation and publishes Shao Asso iation, from whi h leftist ontent
has been remo ed. iang eng is ele ted The publi ation of Wu uan hong s
410
as the chairman of the association. n Abstra t Aestheti s in ainting uanyu

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hou iangmei in Art 154:10, 1980 in ites

1980 widespread dis ussion in art ir les on issues
January: Wild Grass — Peer Exhibition on erning ontent and form, formalism,
(Yecao tongren huazhan) is shown in Shapingba and abstra t aestheti s.
ark in Chong ing, Si huan pro in e. Later in November: The Political Bureau of the
the year, in No ember, the Chong ing Wild Central Committee of the CCP convenes
rass ainting So iety Yecao huahui is founded. nine times, and advises the selection of Hu
Deng Xiaoping declares at a CCP meeting, Yaobang as the chairman of the Central
“We cannot settle down to engage in construc- Committee, and Deng Xiaoping as the
tion without political stability and unity.” chairman of the Central Military Commission.
February: The National Fine Arts Exhibition The Bei ing il ainting Study So iety
Commemorating the 30th Anniversary of the ( Beijing youhua yanjiuhui opens its third
Founding of New China ( ingzhu Zhonghua e hibition at the National Art allery. Their
Renmin Gongheguo chengli 30 zhounian di erse styles and emphases on formal elements
quanguo meishu zuopin zhanlan , aka The Fifth of painting attra t e tensi e attention.
National Fine Arts Exhibition (Di wujie quanguo
meizhan opens at the National Art allery 1981
as the rst national art e hibition sin e the January: The State Council issues
Cultural e olution. Cheng Conglin s oil Temporary Regulations Regarding Self-
painting Snow on X Day X Month, 1968 (1968 Funded Study Abroad ( Guanyu zifei chuguo
nian X yue X ri xue pl. 4 and ao iaohua s liuxue de zanxing guiding ) clearly stating
oil painting Why (Weishenme) win honors. that self-funded study abroad is one channel
The rass So iety Caocao she organi es for fostering talent.
the 1980s Painting xhibition ( Bashi niandai The Supreme People’s Court Special
huazhan , held in the Luwan istri t Cultural Session holds trial of ten leading members
Center in Shanghai. of the Lin Biao and Jiang Qing Anti-
March: Art 147:3, 1980 publishes e Revolutionary Clan.
works from the rst Stars Art Exhibition as Art 157:1, 1981 publishes Chen an ing s
well as Li ianting s arti le About the Stars Tibetan Series and Luo hongli s Father
Art Exhibition uanyu Xingxing meizhan . ( Fuqin pl. 5 .
Artist u Leilei argues self-e pression is The Second National Young Artists
the nature of art, and subse uently triggers Exhibition (Di er jie quanguo qingnian meizhan)
a debate that lasts for se eral years. opens at the National Art allery. Luo
April: Art publishes a olumn i e Nude Art Zhongli’s oil painting Father wins top honors.
a air iew heng ue duidai renti meishu , March: Art 159:3, 1981 publishes Wu
whi h instigates a debate on the topi . uan hong s arti le Content etermines
The se ond Nature, Society, and Man orm Neirong ueding ingshi whi h
photography e hibition is held in Huafang not only uestions this theory but is also
Studio in Beihai ark. met with intense debate.
June: The Stars art so iety formally registers The First Exhibition of Modern Art in Xi’an
with the Bei ing Artists Asso iation. ( Xi’an shoujie xiandai yishu zhan , i an,
July: The journal Art laun hes a debate Shaan i, is held and attended by more than
on realism. 0,000 people.
Contemporary Generation Oil Painting The Bei ing bran h of the Chinese Artists
Exhibition ( Tongdairen youhua zhan is held Asso iation and the Bei ing il ainting Study
at the National Art allery. So iety osponsor a symposium on Bei ing
The art group Shen So iety Shen she ) oil painting studies, dis ussing the urrent
is founded in unming, Yunnan, and holds situation and de elopment of the medium
their rst e hibition at the Yunnan Museum. as well as issues su h as lo ali ation and the
August: The se ond Stars Art Exhibition relationship between ontent and form.
is held, at the National Art allery. June: The Sixth Plenary Session of the 11th
October: The 1978 Graduation xhibition Central Committee of the CCP passes the
of Graduate Students at the Central Academy Resolution on Certain Questions in the
of Fine Arts ( Zhongyang meishu xueyuan 1978 History of Our Party since the Founding
ji yanjiusheng biye zuopin zhan is held in of the People’s Republic, reaching some
the e hibition hall at the a ademy. Chen conclusions about key historical events in
an ing s Tibetan Series e.g., pl. and other the previous 32 years, especially the Cultural
works create great impact. Revolution.
September to November:
411
pants in lude Huang Yong ing. Be ause
Important riginal Works from the Collection of the ontent, the organi ing work units
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of American Paintings at the Museum of ( danwei don t allow the e hibition to be
ine Arts, Boston ( Boshidun bowuguan cang opened to the publi , although Huang Yong
meiguo minghua yuanzuo zhan is held in ing do uments its ontents and pro eedings
Bei ing and Shanghai, the rst large-s ale later in The Trend of Art Thought ( Meishu
Ameri an painting e hibition in China sin e sichao 1985: .
the resumption of China- .S. relations. September: Experimental Painting
November: The esear h Institute of xhibition: The Stage 1983 ( Basannian jieduan:
Traditional Chinese ainting Zhongguohua Huihua shiyan zhanlan later alled the Ten
yanjiuyuan is founded in Bei ing. Artists Exhibition ( Shi ren huazhan is held
at udan ni ersity in Shanghai, but is
1982 banned in four days.
January: Art starts to publish in serial Paintings by Zao Wou-ki ( Zhao Wuji
form oseph-Emile Muller and rank Elgar s huazhan is held at the National Art allery.
A Century of Modern Painting. October: The Second Plenary Session
February: Oil Paintings from Sichuan Fine of the 12th Central Committee of the CCP is
Arts Institute ( Sichuan meiyuan youhua zuopin held in Beijing, launching the campaign to
zhan opens at the National Art allery, “Cleanse Spiritual Pollution.”
an important e hibition for the Si huan Paintings by dvard Munch ( Nuowei
painting school. Mengke huihua zhanlan is held at the
The State Council issues Regulations National Art allery and later tra els to
Regarding the Prohibition of the Import, Chengdu, Si huan, and unming, Yunnan.
Duplication, Sale, or Broadcast of Reactionary
Pornographic Audio or isual Material 1984
(Guanyu yanjin jinkou, fuzhi, xiaoshou, bofang January: Deng Xiaoping inspects the
fandong huangse xialiu luyin luxiang zhipin Special Economic Zones of Shenzhen
de guiding ), a prelude to the Anti-Spiritual and Zhuhai.
Pollution campaign. March: The Secretariat of the Central
March: The Hammer Collection from the Committee and the State Council decide to
.S.: 500 Years of Important Works (Meiguo open up fourteen coastal cities to foreign
Hanmo canghua: wubainian mingzuo zhanlan) investment: Beihai, Dalian, Fuzhou,
is shown at the National Art allery. Guangzhou, Lianyungang, antong, ingbo,
April: Expressionist Paintings from Germany Qingdao, Qinhuangdao, Shanghai, Tianjin,
( Deyizhi liangang gongheguo biaoxian zhuyi Wenzhou, Yantai, and Zhanjiang.
huihua zhanlan is held at the National The series Marching Toward the Future
Cultural Palace in Beijing. ( Zouxiang weilai begins publi ation by
June: The National Symposium on Art Si huan eople s ublishing House and
Theory uanguo meishu lilun taolunhui , in ludes translated works and original
sponsored by the ournal Art, is held in writings. By 1988, it has published 74 writings.
Shennong ia, Hubei. July: udolf Arnheim s book Art and
The Leishi ainting So iety Leishi huahui ) isual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative
is founded in Hunan. The First Exhibition Eye is published by Chinese So ial S ien e
of the Leishi Painting Society ( Leishi huahui Publishing Press.
shouzhan held at the Children s ala e in The Wild rass ainting So iety Yecao
Changsha during the same year is one of the huahui of iangtan, Hunan, is founded.
rst modern art e hibitions in China. Its rst e hibition is held in ebruary during
September: The 12th ational Congress the following year.
of the CCP is held in Beijing, stating its aim “to July to September: The Northern
build socialism with Chinese characteristics.” Literature and Art Information E hange
Center ( Beifang wenxue yishu xinxi jiaoliu
1983 zhongxin later renamed the Northern
January: Art 181:1, 1983 triggers debates Art roup Beifang yishu qunti is formally
by publishing arti les about abstra t paintings established in Heilong iang pro in e.
and dis ussions on abstra t art. Meanwhile, the Northern Way Art Allian e
May: Original Paintings by Picasso ( Bijiasuo ( Beifang daolu yishu lianmeng is founded
huihua yuanzuo zhanlan is held at the in Chang hun, ilin pro in e.
National Art allery. November: A new translation of
ive Artists xhibition ( Wuren xiandai Freud’s Psychoanalysis is published by
huazhan is held in iamen, u ian parti i- Commercial Press.
Works by Canadian Painter Alex Colville The art group New Wildness ainting
412
( ianada huajia Yalikesi eerweier zuopin School ( Xin yexing huapai is founded in
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zhan is held at the Bei ing E hibition Center. Nan ing, iangsu.
December: The painting e hibition The British ro k band Wham performs
xploration, Discovery, xpression ( Tansuo, in China.
faxian, biaoxian is held in Lan hou, ansu. May: The Progressive Young Chinese Artists
China and Britain sign a joint declaration Exhibition ( ianjin zhong de Zhongguo
for Hong Kong to be handed over in 1997. qingnian meizhan is held at the National
The Sixth National Fine Arts Exhibition Art allery some unorthodo works in
( Di liu jie quanguo meishu zuopin zhanlan ) is the e hibition pro oke intense rea tions.
held at the National Art allery. June: Art 210: , 1985 publishes a olumn
to introdu e the 41st eni e Biennale.
1985 Fine Arts in China (Zhongguo meishu bao ,
January: The Trend of Art Thought (Meishu sponsored by the esear h Institute of ine
sichao begins publi ation in Wuhan, Hubei. Arts at the Chinese National A ademy of Arts,
Initially a monthly ournal, it hanges to a holds an opening eremony and starts weekly
bimonthly in 198 . The editor-in- hief is eng publi ation on uly . hang iang is the
e. i ao ian, Yan Shan hun, Lu Hong, hairman, and Liu iao hun is editor-in- hief.
Huang huan, Li ianting, and others The rst New igurative xhibition (Xin
parti ipate in the editorial work. This ournal juxiang huazhan is held in the Cultural Hall
eases publi ation in 1987, after 22 issues. of ing an istri t, Shanghai parti ipating
The journal Art goes through editorial artists in lude Mao uhui and hang
hanges. Shao a hen be omes editor-in- Xiaogang. xhibition of Works by Young Artists
hief the editorial staff in ludes ao Minglu, from Fujian and Shanghai (Minhu qingnian
Wang iao ian, and others. meizhan is held at the Yushan gallery in
The journal Jiangsu Pictorial ( Jiangsu u ian pro in e parti ipating artists in lude
huakan hanges from a bimonthly to monthly members of the u ian M Modern Art
publi ation and begins to pay lose attention esear h Asso iation Fujian M xiandai yishu
to Chinese ontemporary art. yanjiuhui su h as Cai uo- iang and Huang
The First Exhibition of the Northern Way Yong ing from u ian, and Shanghai artists
( Shoujie beifang daolu zhan is held at hang ian un, Chen hen, and others.
Chang hun Art Middle S hool. arti ipants July: Jiangsu Pictorial 55:7, 1985 publishes
in lude ing efu, u Yue hun, ao Li iaoshan s arti le My pinion on
Yang, uan awo, Hai Bo, Han iao, Han Contemporary Chinese ainting angdai
uan hong, Lu Ming, Wang Changbai, Yu hongguohua hi wo ian , whi h argues
ianyou, Yu Mingde, hang i hong, hu that Chinese painting has rea hed a dead
ang, and uo Ying ue. end. It is reprinted in Fine Arts in China
March to April: rofessor oman 1985:14 on tober 2 and sparks e tensi e
erostko from Minneapolis College of Art debates in art ir les.
and esign is in ited to gi e a si -week The epartment of Art History at the
series of talks on the history of modern art Central A ademy of ine Arts elebrates
in Western so iety at the he iang A ademy the graduation of the lass of 1985, whose
of ine Arts, Hang hou. undergraduates in lude Hou Hanru, Wen
April: The Symposium on il ainting ulin, and ei awei. raduate students
Youhua yishu taolunhui usually alled hu ingsheng and Yi Ying play important
the Huangshan Symposium Huangshan roles in the 85 Art New Wa e mo ement.
huiyi is held in ing ian, Anhui, near The Graduate xhibition of the Zhejiang
Mount Huang. The symposium is organi ed Academy of Fine Arts ( Zhejiang meiyuan
by the esear h Institute of ine Arts at biyesheng zuopin zhan is held. Works by
the Chinese National A ademy of Arts, eng ianyi and other artists re ei e a great
Bei ing, the Anhui bran h of the Chinese deal of attention.
Artists Asso iation, the Central A ademy September: The Trend of Art Thought
of ine Arts, the Bei ing ine Art A ademy, holds the rst awards eremony for art
and the editorial board of Art History and theory sin e the founding of the eople s
Theory ( Meishu shilun . More than 0 epubli . Young painters and theorists su h
young oil painters and theorists from a ross as Chen an ing, Chen Yungang, Cheng
the ountry parti ipate in the symposium iaoyu, eng ing iang, Wenda u, Li
and engage in dis ussions about renewing iaoshan, Lu Meng, Tan Li iang, Wang Lin,
artisti on epts and de elopmental Yin Shuang i, hang hiyang, and hu
trends in Chinese oil painting. ingsheng re ei e honors.
413
The Northern Art roup holds an at the Central A ademy of Arts and Crafts.
a ademi symposium titled etrospe t The e hibition tra els to Lhasa, Tibet.
December: The ’85 New Space e hibition
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and rospe ts for the Northern Art Style
Beifang yishu fengge de huigu yu han- ( 85 Xin kongjian is held at the e hibition
wang at the Heilong iang Art Museum. hall at the he iang A ademy of ine Arts
French Impressionism and Early-Twentieth- parti ipating artists in lude hang eili, eng
Century Art ( aguo yinxiangpai ji 20 shiji ianyi, and Bao ianfei.
chu zuopin zhan is held in Bei ing. The National Working Conferen e on
September to October: The rst Art Theory uanguo meishu lilun gong uo
Shenzhen Art estival ( Shenzhen meishujie ) huiyi , sponsored by the Chinese Artists
is held in Shen hen, uangdong pro in e, Asso iation, is held in Bei ing.
and arries out dis ussions on Western The group e hibition of the ero art
modernism, abstra t art, and more. group in Hunan Hunan 0 yishu jituan zuopin
October: The First National Art Exhibition zhan opens at u iangyiyuan at the Martyr s
of the No-Name Painting Society (Zhongguo ark in Changsha, after whi h some members
wumingshi huahui shouci quanguo meizhan ) of the group start their performance art
is held at the e hibition hall in Nan uan ark, a ti ity of mar hing toward Lhasa.
Chong ing. Untitled Painting Exhibition ( Wuti
Half Generation Painting Exhibition (Banjiezi huazhan is held at the e hibition hall of
huazhan is held at the National Art allery. the Art epartment at the Central ni ersity
arti ipating artists are mostly a generation for Nationalities, Bei ing the e hibition
of young professors from art institutions. utili es many material ob e ts.
The founding eremony for four Chinese The First Exhibition of Three Steps Studio
Artists Asso iation ommittees oil ( Sanbu huashi di yi ci zhanlan is held at
paintings, murals, prints, and illustrations the Working eople s Cultural ala e in
is held in Bei ing. Taiyuan, Shan i.
iangsu Youth Art Week’s Modern Art
Exhibition ( Jiangsu qingnian yishu zhou — 1986
daxing xiandai yishuzhan is held at the iangsu January: Artists allery Yishujia hualang )
Art Museum in Nan ing. Afterward, primary opens at the new Bei ing Musi Hall. It is
parti ipating artists, su h as ing ang, found the rst professional gallery in Bei ing dealing
the art group ed Brigade Hongse lü ). ontemporary painting sin e the Cultural
The art reation and study group Spa e e olution.
Art Base Taikong meishu jidi is founded Last xhibition ’86 No. 1 (86 nian zuihou
in Lianyungang, iangsu. huazhan No.1 opens at the he iang E hibition
November: Invitational xhibition on New Hall, Hang hou. The e hibition is initiated by
Works of Chinese Painting uohua xinzuo young tea hers at the he iang A ademy of
yaoqing zhan is held in Wuhan parti ipat- ine Arts: Sun Baoguo, Wenda u, and others.
ing artists in lude Wenda u, Liu uosong, It is ordered to lose in three hours.
and Wu uan hong. Zero xhibition ( Lingzhan , initiated and
The journal Painter ( Huajia ) starts organi ed by Wang Chuan and others, is
publi ation in Changsha, Hunan, and held on the busy streets of Shen hen.
be omes an important ournal in the 85 New Works of the Miyang Painting Society
Art Mo ement. The artists group based ( Miyang huajia xinzuo zhan is held in
around this ournal is alled the Painter Shi ia huang, Hebei.
roup Huajia qunti ). February: Works by rench Painters Henri
The Shandong Southwestern roup Cueco and Ernest Pignon ( Faguo huajia Cueco
(Lu xinan qunti is founded in He e, Shandong. he Pignon zuopin zhan is held at the National
It disbands after une 198 . In uly 1987, Art allery. The two artists also gi e le tures
ong Chao and other artists regroup as and engage in dis ussions at the uang hou
Bla k Allian e Heise lianmeng ). A ademy of ine Arts, in uangdong, and
November Painting xhibition ( Shiyiyue Bei ing s Central A ademy of ine Arts.
huazhan is held at the ala e Museum The irst Group xhibition of Works by the
in Beijing. Nanjing Oil Painting Art Group ( Nanjingren
November to December: youhua yishu qunti shouzhan youhua zhan )
Rauschenberg verseas Culture Interchange is held at the Cultural Hall in the ulou
( ROCI ) e hibition is held at the National Art istri t of Nan ing.
allery, and has a signi ant impa t among The group ed Humor Hongse youmo )
Chinese ontemporary artists. uring his stay is founded, onsisting of 1983 graduates
in Bei ing, aus henberg is in ited to le ture from the Edu ation epartment at he iang
A ademy of ine Arts, in luding Wu of major participants from the ’85 New Space
414
Shan huan, Ni Haifeng, and others. e hibition, in luding Wang iang, Bao
April: The il ainting Art Committee of
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ianfei, Song Ling, hang eili, eng ianyi,

the Chinese Artists Asso iation holds its uan Yin, and others. It holds four onse u-
rst National Symposium on il ainting tive art events.
uanguo youhua yishu taolunhui The ed Humor group s pri ate e hibition
near Mount Huang in Anhui, where three 70 Red 25 Black 5 White ( Hong 70 hei
a ademi talks are gi en: ao Minglu s 25 bai 5 is held at the he iang A ademy
85 Art Mo ement 85 meishu yundong , of ine Arts.
hu ingsheng s Contemporary aintings The Horizon Painting Exhibition (Haipingxian
of the West iewed from this Side of the huazhan is held in Shanghai, during whi h
ean angdai ifang huatan ge an guan , the Shanghai ainting Symposium
and Shui Tian hong s Chinese il ainting Shanghai huihua huang uo yantaohui
under the Impa t of Western Art Ideology also takes place.
ifang meishu si hao hong i ia de The Central A ademy of ine Arts formally
hongguo youhua . The symposium also opens an art gallery it e hibits many a ant-
studies the artwork of young artists groups garde artists works o er the years.
sin e 1985, some modern and ontemporary June: Young fa tory workers Wan unyan
works from the West, and slides of works and hu Changyan hold the Non- igurative
by Chinese artists e ploring modern art. Some Exhibition (Fei juxiang zhanlan) in Shanghai.
parti ipants of the symposium make plans Red, Yellow, and Blue: Modern Paintings
to organi e a national slide show. by Young Sichuan Artists (Sichuan qingnian
The rst Grand Exhibition of Shanghai “honghuanglan” xiandai huihua zhan is held
Young Artists’ Works ( Shanghai qingnian in Chengdu. Later in No ember, some
meishu zuopin dazhan is held at the Shanghai parti ipating artists found the ed, Yellow,
Art Museum. and Blue ainting So iety Honghuanglan
Ether Painting Exhibition (Yitai huazhan) huahui ).
is held at the uly irst pen Theater at The A ademi Symposium on Issues
Chaoyang S uare in Nanning, uang i. Later, egarding Tradition in Chinese ainting
another young artists group e hibition alled hongguohua huantong wenti ueshu
Beginning xhibition ( aishi huazhan is held at taolunhui is held in i an, during whi h
the e hibition hall at eople s ark in Nanning. Wenda u s rst solo e hibition Wenda
Xuzhou Modern Art Exhibition ( Xuzhou Gu’s New Ink Painting ( Gu Wenda guohua
xiandai yishu zhan opens at the u hou, xinzuo zhan is also held. u s e hibition
iangsu, E hibition Hall. arti ipating artists is di ided into two parts, one part is publi
are mostly members of the Sunday ainting while the other is restri ted.
So iety Xingqitian huahui in iangsu and New Wildness Painting Exhibition ( Xin
young graduates from art institutions. yexing zhuyi huihua zuopin zhan is held in
April to May: In houshan, he iang, the Nan ing s ulou ark.
artist Wu Shan huan works on Some Passages July: The National Art Theory Conferen e
from the Second Chapter of the Novel Scarlet uanguo meishu lilun huiyi , sponsored
Letter” ( Changpian xiaoshuo Chi Zi di er zhang by the Chinese Artists Asso iation, eople s
ruogan ziranduan , the rst group of artworks ine Arts ublishing House, and the
from the ed Humor series Hongse youmo). Shandong bran h of the Chinese Artists
May: The First Exhibition of Young Artists Asso iation, is held in Yantai, Shandong, to
in Zhengzhou ( Zhengzhou shi shoujie qingnian dis uss Chinese Art under the Impa t of
meizhan is held at the Henan Agri ultural Western Culture.
E hibition Hall. The e hibition Avant-Garde Chinese Art:
A Contemporary Chinese Painting Exhibition Beijing New York opens at the City allery,
is held at Hong ong City Hall. New York, then goes to assar College Art
The Southern Artists Salon Nanfang yishujia allery, oughkeepsie, NY parti ipating
shalong , organi ed by Wang u and Lin Yilin, artists in lude Ai Weiwei and other members
is founded in uang hou other members of the Stars.
in lude Liang uhui and Chen Shao iong. August: rand Slideshow and Symposium
The irst xhibition of Works by Members on the Art Trends of 85 85 ingnian
of Beijing Young Artists’ Painting Society meishu si hao da ing huandeng han i ueshu
(Beijing qingnian huahui shoujie huiyuan zuopin taolunhui is held in huhai, uangdong,
zhan is held at the National Art allery. often known as the huhai Symposium.
The ond So iety Chi she is founded in epresentati es of art groups from a ross
Hang hou, he iang. This art group onsists the ountry introdu e their perspe ti es,
415
ob e ti es, and works-in-progress, while as a nale to the festi al, the premier
also studying sele ted works. uring the e hibition of the group Tribe Tribe Buluo
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symposium, ao Minglu and hu ingsheng buluo is held at the Hubei Institute of ine
gi e le tures at the Changsha Artists Arts, Wuhan. The group onsists of young
Asso iation. Meanwhile, ao, hu, hou fa ulty members at the a ademy.
Yan, Li Luming, Wang iao ian, and Shu un Modern Art Exhibition ( Xiandai yishu zhan )
start to make preparations for the Symposium is held at the Working eople s Cultural
on Modern Art iandai yishu yan iuhui . ala e in Taiyuan, Shan i, during whi h Song
Art publishes ao Minglu s About Yongping and Song Yonghong present their
ational ainting uanyu li ing huihua , performance art.
whi h summari es the main trends in the ’86 Concave-Convex xhibition ( 86 ao tu
85 Art Mo ement. zhan is held in the Cultural Hall of u iahui
Southwest Art esear h roup Xi’nan istri t in Shanghai parti ipating artists
yishu yanjiu qunti , omposed of parti ipants in lude Li Shan, Yu Youhan, ing Yi, Wang
in the New igurative xhibition, is founded iwei, and others.
in unming. Its members in lude Mao Group Exhibition of Young Hunan Artists
uhui, hang iaogang, Ye Yong ing, and ( Hunan qingnian meishujia jiqunzhan ,
others. This group eases a ti ity in 198 after sponsored by Fine Arts in China, Chinese
the ourth xhibition of the New igurative Artists Asso iation, and Hunan Young Artists
Society ( Xin juxiang di si jie zhan ). Asso iation, is held at the National Art
The Salon of Chinese Contemporary allery. arti ipating art groups in lude the
Ar hite tural Culture Zhongguo dangdai Leishi ainting So iety, Painter roup, ero
jianzhu wenhua shalong is laun hed in Art roup, Wild rass ainting So iety,
Bei ing. It is organi ed by u Meng hao erpass ainting So iety Lijiaoqiao huahui ,
and Wang Ming ian. and Huaihua roup Huaihua qunti ).
September: The First Experimental December: History of Chinese Modern
Exhibition of the Southern Artists Salon Painting ( Zhongguo xiandai huihua shi , o-
( Nanfang yishujia shalong di yi hui shiyan authored by Li iaoshan and hang Shao ia,
zhan is held at Sun Yat-sen ni ersity in is published.
uang hou pl. 13 parti ipating artists The event Concept 21, Performance Display
in lude Wang u, Lin Yilin, Chen Shao iong, ( Guannian 21, xingwei zhanxian is held at
and others. eking ni ersity.
The large-scale art event Basking in the M Art Group Performance Art Exhibition
Sun ( Shai taiyang is held in the o ered ( M yishu qunti xingwei yishu zhan is held at
orridor and lawn at uanwuhu ark the No. 2 Working eople s Cultural ala e
in Nan ing, iangsu. The e ent is repeated in Hongkou istri t, Shanghai.
on e, in tober.
Fine Arts in China starts the column “Notes 1987
on New Trends Xinchao ziliao jianbian , January: The Central Committee of the
introdu ing e hibitions and a ti ities of CCP issues a otice Regarding Issues of the
young artists groups from a ross the nation. Current Opposition to Bourgeois Liberalism
September to October: ( Guanyu dangqian fandui zichanjieji ziyouhua
Xiamen Dada — Exhibition of Modern Art ruogan wenti de tongzhi ).
(Xiamen dada — xiandai yishuzhan is held at The art group The hino eros ainting
iamen Art Museum afterward, in No ember, So iety Xiniu huahui in u hou, iangsu,
parti ipating artists set re to a pile of some holds the Xuzhou ’87 Art xhibition ( Xuzhou
of their works in the s uare see p. 95 . 87 yishuzhan ).
October: hang uoliang, ing Yi, and February: The Northern Art roup holds
in Yifeng from the ine Arts College of its rst biennial at ilin Art A ademy in
Shanghai ni ersity arry out their perfor- Chang hun, as well as a symposium on the
mance Cloth Sculpture ( Bu diao ) on the topi ational ainting Lixing huihua ).
Wusongkou do k in Shanghai. March: The preparatory onferen e for
November: The Hubei Young Artists the rst nationwide modern art e hibition is
estival ( Hubei qingnian meishujie is held held in Bei ing. In early April, the Ministry
in nine ities simultaneously, in luding of ropaganda issues an order prohibiting
Wuhan, Huangshi, Shashi, Shiyan, iangfan, national a ademi e ents as a result, the
and Yi hang. ifty organi ations and groups e hibition originally intended to open on
parti ipate and e hibit about 2,000 works uly 1 is an eled.
at 28 e hibition sites. Meanwhile le tures and Contemporary Oil Paintings from the
slide shows are also offered. In e ember, People’s Republic of China opens at Harkness
House in New York. Some of the works from de shengming i ing , pro oking re e tions
416
the e hibition are also shown in the Ninth and debates about the great spirit.
October: The preparatory ommittee for
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International Art E po in New York.

April: A State of Transition: Contemporary the China Avant-Garde e hibition Zhongguo
Paintings from Shanghai is held at the Hong xiandai yishuzhan is founded in Bei ing,
ong Arts Centre. headed by ao Minglu. Meanwhile, the rst
May: The First Posthouse Painting Exhibition announ ement regarding its uratorial
( Di yi yi huazhan is held at the Nan ing Arts preparation ( Chouzhan tonggao di yi hao )
Institute, featuring work by the members is released.
of the ed Brigade. A symposium titled Trends in the
June: The book series Culture: China and e elopment of Contemporary Art angdai
the World ( Wenhua: Zhongguo yu shijie , meishu fa han ushi is held in Nan ing.
edited by an Yang, starts publi ation by Nan ing s ed Brigade oordinates with the
S oint ublishing, Bei ing. symposium to hold The Second Posthouse
Wenda u and Shi Hui parti ipate in Painting Exhibition ( Di er yi huazhan ) in the
the 13th International Biennial of Tapestry e hibition hall of the iangsu ublishing
organi ed by the Cantonal Museum of ine building.
Arts in Lausanne, Swit erland. Two e hibitions, Prints by Xu Bing (Xu Bing
October: Toward the Future ( Zouxiang banhua yishu zhan and Paper-Cut Art by Lü
weilai huazhan is held at the National Art Shengzhong ( Lü Shengzhong jianzhi yishu zhan )
allery. see p. 131 , are held at the National Art
December: The First Chinese Oil Painting allery. or the rst time, u Bing shows his
Exhibition ( Shoujie Zhongguo youhua zhan , installation work A Mirror to Analyze the
osponsored by the il ainting Committee World — in de Si cle Book ( Xi shi jian —
of the Chinese Artists Asso iation and shijimo juan , later known as Book from the
the Shanghai Af liation of the Chinese Sky Tianshu see pl. 14 .
Artists Asso iation, opens at the Shanghai Beijing International Ink Painting xhibition
E hibition Center. ( Beijing guoji shuimohua zhan , sponsored
The Chinese nited erseas Artists by the Chinese Artists Asso iation and the
Asso iation, omprising e patriate artists in esear h Institute of Traditional Chinese
Europe and Ameri a, is founded in New York ainting, is held in Bei ing.
City by Yuan Yunsheng, Wang eping, November: North Star Exhibition
Ai Weiwei, and others. ( Beidouxing huazhan ) opens in Nanjing.
The First Exhibition of the New Academic
1988 School ( Xin xueyuanpai di yi hui zuopin
April: Shanghai Art Museum holds its rst zhanlan opens at the e hibition hall of
Art Today Exhibition ( Jinri yishu zhan , mostly the he iang A ademy of ine Arts.
consisting of abstract works. The 88 Symposium on the Creation of
June: Contemporary Chinese Ar hite ture Chinese Modern Art 88 hongguo iandai
Heading Toward the World: Cultural S holars yishu huang uo yantaohui , osponsored
A ademi Symposium ou iang shi ie de by the esear h Institute of ine Arts at
dangdai hongguo ian hu: wenhua ue he the Chinese National A ademy of Arts and
ueshu yantaohui , sponsored by the Salon the Hefei ainting and Calligraphy Institute
of Chinese Contemporary Ar hite tural (Hefei shuhuayuan , is held at Tun i, at the
Culture and the editorial board of the ournal foot of Huangshan Mount Huang , Anhui
Reading ( Dushu , is held in Bei ing. province. The main objectives are to present
September: The TV series Great and share information about a ti ities
arthquake ( Da dizhen sponsored by 21st surrounding e ploratory artwork sin e 1985,
Century A ademy, written and dire ted by and to e amine the de elopmental trends
Wen ulin and produ ed by ing Bin in modern Chinese art by integrating issues of
starts produ tion. A ti ities lmed in lude ultural de elopment, ontemporary artists
ro k musi performan es, modern drama thoughts and on epts, the opening up of
performan es, spee hes, and performan e an art market, and so on.
art. or arious reasons, the postprodu tion December: The Last Supper — the Second
of the series is ne er nished and the staff Concave-Convex xhibition ( Zuihou de
is dismissed in une 1989. wancan — di er jie ao tu zhan is held at
Fine Arts in China 1988:37 publishes the Shanghai Art Museum.
Li ianting s under the pen name Hu Cun The Grand Exhibition of Figure Painting
arti le The Era Awaits the reat Spirit s ( Youhua renti yishu dazhan is held at the
assion for Life Shidai idai he da linghun National Art allery and attended by more
417
than 200,000 isitors. A igure ainting yi hui zhan , osponsored by the esear h
Symposium enti wenhua yantaohui is Institute of Traditional Chinese ainting and
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also held. the esear h Institute of ine Arts at the
In this year, iangsu ine Arts ublishing Chinese National A ademy of Arts, is held at
House releases a olle tion of Lang Shao un s the National Art allery, during whi h the
writings, On Chinese Modern Art ( Lun Chinese New Literati ainting Symposium
Zhongguo xiandai meishu . By 2000, its series hongguo in wenrenhua yantaohui is
Chinese Contemporary Art Studies (Zhongguo also held.
dangdai meishu yanjiu in ludes olle tions Hu Yaobang, member of the CCP Central
of writings by these riti s: eng e s Visual Committee Political Bureau, dies in Beijing.
Revolution ( Shijue geming , Liu iao hun s The public organizes spontaneous large-scale
Disintegration and Reconstruction (Jieti yu memorials.
chongjian , eng ing iang s On the Third May: The T do umentary Chinese Modern
Generation Painters ( Lun di san dai huajia , Artists ( Zhongguo xiandai yishujia ) starts
Wang Lin s The State of Fine Art in shooting the nal produ tion is alled
Contemporary China (Dangdai Zhongguo de Modern Artists in Southwest China (Zhongguo
meishu zhuangtai , Tao Yongbai s The Painting xinan xiandai yishujia . It is written and
Circle: A emale Critic’s Reflections (Huatan: dire ted by L eng and Yi an.
Yiwei n pinglunzhe de sikao , ia ang hou s On May 4, college and university students
Diversity and Choice (Duoyuan yu xuanze , organize demonstrations in Beijing in
i ao ian s The Condition of the Fine Arts in commemoration of the 70th anniversary
Contemporary China (Dangdai Zhongguo de of the May Fourth Movement, an anti-
meishu zhuangtai , ao Minglu s Chinese imperialist movement in 1919 that called
Avant-Garde Art ( Zhongguo qianwei yishu , for reform through the adoption of modern
and Li ianting s The Significance Is Not the ideals such as science and democracy.
Art (Zhongyao de bushi yishu). Huang Yong ing, u e in, and Yang
ie hang go to aris to parti ipate in the
1989 e hibition Magiciens de la terre at the Centre
January: The Stars: Ten Years ( Xingxing eorges ompidou, urated by ean-Hubert
shi nian , the third e hibition of the Stars, Martin. ei awei is a onsultant for the
is held at Hanart T allery in Hong ong. Chinese portion of the e hibition.
Salon 49 Shalong 49 is founded in Fine Arts Research 1989:2 publishes
Wuhan, Hubei its members ome from Lang Shao un s arti le ebuilding Elite Art:
numerous dis iplines su h as philosophy, e onsidering Changes in the Stru ture of
art, literature, and ar hite ture. Twentieth-Century Chinese Art Chong ian
February: China Avant-Garde Zhongguo hongguo de ingying yishu: ui 20 shi i
xiandai yishuzhan , an e hibition omprising hongguo meishu ge u bian ian de airen-
293 works by 18 artists, opens on ebruary 5 shi . The arti le in ites igorous debates.
at the National Art allery pl. 1 . It is the rst Dawn of June 3 – June 4: Martial law
large-s ale national modern art e hibition enforcement troops enter Beijing to suppress
and is sponsored, funded, and organi ed by student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square.
non-of ial a ademi groups. It is also the rst The violent crackdown on protestors continues
large-s ale art e hibition urated by riti s. through June 4, ending in bloodshed.
n the opening day, the gunshot in ident August: The Chinese Artists Asso iation s
o urs, resulting in the rst losing of the leading CC group announ es reforms to
e hibition. n ebruary 10, the e hibition the editorial board of the ournal Art and
resumes. n ebruary 11, the forum My iew dismisses Shao a hen from the post of
of Art Wo de yishu guan is held at the editor-in- hief.
Central A ademy of ine Arts. n ebruary 13, December: Fine Arts in China ceases
the “China Avant-Garde Symposium publication.
hongguo iandai yishu taolunhui is held In this year, the Wu uoren International
at the National Art allery, on the se ond oundation of ine Arts is founded in
oor. n ebruary 14, the Beijing Daily (Beijing Bei ing the rst art foundation in China
ribao , the Bei ing ubli Se urity Bureau, and and issues the rst Young Artist Award.
the National Art allery all re ei e anonymous
hoa letters laiming bombs are set in the 1990
museum, and the e hibition is losed again. January: The State Council lifts martial
n ebruary 17, it reopens. law on January 11.
April: The First Exhibition of Chinese New April: Salon de la jeune peinture is held at
Literati Painting ( Zhongguo xin wenrenhua di aleries Nationales du rand alais, aris,
during whi h eng ianyi, uan Wei, He do ens of artists li e there, su h as ing ang,
418
ianguo, Mao Li i, Shen Chen, Wang uangyi, ang Li un, Wang Ying, Yi Ling, and Tian Bin.
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Wang Luyan, Ye Yong ing, and hang eili s These artists organi e group e hibitions,
works are e hibited. whi h are noti ed by the media, art dealers
May: The e hibition Liu Xiaodong’s Paintings from o erseas, and the ultural ir le.
( Liu Xiaodong huazhan is held at the Central
A ademy of ine Arts gallery. 1991
Xu Bing carries out his project Ghosts January: “I Don’t Want to Play Cards with
Pounding the Wall ( Gui da qiang ) at the C zanne and ther Works: Selections from
inshanling portion of the reat Wall in Hebei. the Chinese New Wave and Avant-Garde
World of Female Artists ( Nü huajia de Art of the Eighties is held at the a i Asia
shijie is held at the e hibition hall at the Museum, asadena, California, urated by
Central A ademy of ine Arts gallery. i hard E. Strassberg. E hibited artists
June: The Journal of Literature and Art in lude eng ianyi, L Sheng hong, Mao
( Wenyi bao publishes Yang Chengyin s arti le uhui, u Bing, Ye Yong ing, Yu Hong, hang
The utline of New Wa e Art in hao eili, hang iaogang, and eng iaofeng,
meishu lungang , a total repudiation of the among others. A series of le tures and
85 Art Mo ement. dis ussions about Chinese ontemporary art
July: The outdoor ontemporary art is held in on un tion with the e hibition.
e hibition Chine demain pour hier opens in Big-Tail lephant Group Art xhibition
ourri res in southern ran e, urated by ei ( Dawei xiang gongzuoshi lianhe yishuzhan ) is
awei. The Chinese e patriate artists in ited held at the uang hou Cultural ala e, and
to e hibit in lude Chen hen ran e , Wenda in ludes works by Lin Yilin, Chen Shao iong,
u .S.A. , Huang Yong ing ran e , Cai and Liang uhui.
uo- iang apan , Yang ie hang ermany February: The State Council holds a
and Yan eiming ran e . uring the conference in Beijing on reforming the
e hibition, the symposium Malentendu national economic system. It states that the
ulturel Cultural misunderstanding is held. general objective for reform in the 1990s is
The Chinese Artists Asso iation, Chinese to lay down the basic framework of a new
Calligraphy Asso iation, and hotographi socialist planned commodity economy and the
So iety of China osponsor a forum on operational mechanism for integrating the
the issues of reati e on epts, dis ussing planned economy with market regulations.
how to further leanse and re tify the effe ts March: Close Up: Wang Huaxiang’s Art
of bourgeois liberalism and orre t the ( Jin juli — Wang Huaxiang yishu zhan is held
orientation of literature and art. at the Central A ademy of ine Arts gallery.
September: Yu Hong’s Oil Paintings April: The esear h Institute of ine Arts
( Yu Hong youhua zhan is held at the Central at the Chinese National A ademy of Arts,
A ademy of ine Arts gallery. Bei ing, holds a symposium on The New
The Group Exhibition of Chinese New Era of Artisti Creation in shi i meishu
Literati Paintings ( Zhongguo xin wenrenhua huang uo yantaohui , often alled the
lianzhan is held at the esear h Institute of ishan Symposium ishan huiyi . The
Traditional Chinese ainting, Bei ing. symposium a knowledges a hie ements
September to October: The 11th in art sin e the opening and reform, and
Asian Games is held in Beijing. fo uses on new art trends in the early 1990s.
October: Chinese ainting Studies June: The Beijing Xisanhuan Art Research
Symposium hongguohua ueshu Documents Exhibition ( Beijing xisanhuan yishu
yantaohui is held in Changping, Bei ing, yanjiu wenxian ziliao zhan is held at the
mainly to dis uss the a hie ements and gallery of the esear h Institute of Traditional
problems of painting in the 1980s. Chinese ainting, urated by Wang Lin. It
The leadership of the Chinese Artists is later renamed the Modern Chinese Art
Asso iation is restru tured. Wang i is added Research Documents Exhibition ( Zhongguo
as the vice chairman of the association. dangdai yishu yanjiu wenxian ziliao zhan and
November: The Shanghai Stock Exchange tra els to Nan ing, Chong ing, unming,
is formally established as the first stock and Shenyang.
exchange in mainland China since the July: The New Generation Art e hibition
founding of the People’s Republic. ( Xin shengdai yishu zhan ) opens at the
Sin e the end of the 1980s, freelan e Museum of Chinese History, Bei ing, spon-
artists ha e gradually gathered around sored by Beijing Youth Daily and urated by
uyuanmen illage near the Yuanmingyuan Wang Youshen. uring the e hibition, a
ala e in Bei ing. Within two to three years, symposium is also held to dis uss issues su h
419
as the urrent state and future trends of an only be a hie ed by being on guard
so- alled New eneration artists, the path against the eld of plasti arts.
June: Encountering the Others is held
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for Chinese ontemporary art to enter the
international art s ene, et . on urrently with o umenta I in assel,
Wu uan hong re ei es f ier de ermany. Chinese artists parti ipating
l rdre des Arts et des Lettres from the in -18 in lude Li Shan, L Sheng hong,
ren h Ministry of Culture. Ni Haifeng, Sun Liang, Cai uo- iang,
August: The e hibition Exceptional Passage iu eshu, and Wang Youshen.
is held indoors at Mitsubishi- isho Artium, Chen hen solo e hibition at Magasin,
Chuo-ku, and outdoors at the former ashii Centre national d art ontemporaine,
railway yard in Higashi-ku, ukuoka, apan, renoble, ran e.
with ei awei a ting as hief urator. September: The Invitational xhibition
arti ipating artists in lude Huang Yong ing, of Young Contemporary Sculptors ( Dangdai
Yang ie hang, Wenda u, Cai uo- iang, qingnian diaosujia yaoqing zhan is held at the
and Wang Luyan. gallery at the he iang A ademy of ine Arts.
September: Yanhuang Art allery opens October: The 14th ational Representative
in Beijing. Conference of the CCP is held in Beijing,
Works by Liu iaodong and Yu Hong during which Jiang Zemin delivers a speech
are in luded in Christie s Hong ong au tion titled “Hasten the Steps of Reform, Opening
of Chinese Contemporary il ainting. This Up, and Modernization, Strive for Even
marks the rst time a group of ontemporary Greater Success in the Cause of Socialism
Chinese oil paintings enters international with Chinese Characteristics” (“Jiakuai gaige
auction market. kaifang he xiandaihua jianshe bufa, duoqu you
November: The First Annual Exhibition Zhongguo tese shehuizhuyi shiye de gengda
of Chinese Oil Painting ( Zhongguo youhua shengli”), clearly stating the objective of
nianzhan is held at the Museum of Chinese Chinese economic system reform is to build
History and Bei ing riental il ainting a socialist market economy mechanism.
Art allery. The Second Modern Chinese Art Research
Three Installations by Xu Bing is held Documents Exhibition ( Zhongguo dangdai
at the El eh em Museum of Art in Madison, yishu yanjiu wenxian ziliao di er hui zhan )
Wis onsin, urated by Britta Eri kson. It opens at the uang hou A ademy of ine
presents Book from the Sky A Mirror to Arts, uangdong.
Analyze the World — in de Si cle Book , Ghosts The irst 1990s Biennial Art air il
Pounding the Wall, and the print-work ive Painting Section ) ( Shoujie 90 niandai yishu
Series of Repetitions. shuangnian zhan [youhua bufen] ) opens
Garage Art Exhibition ( Cheku yishuzhan ) at the e hibition enter at the Central
is held in Shanghai. uang hou Hotel, sponsored and funded
December: The journal Painter ( Huajia ) by the Western Si huan Art Company.
ceases publication. The sponsors hampion the e hibition with
In this year, Australian Brian Walla e the slogan China s rst art fair. The hief
establishes the ed ate allery Hongmen urator is L eng, and the ury is omposed
hualang , the rst foreign-funded ommer ial of art riti s. uring the e hibition, the
gallery in Bei ing. New History roup Xin lishi xiaozu ) from
Wuhan arries out a performan e art pie e,
1992 Disinfecting, in the e hibition hall.
January: Deng Xiaoping inspects Wuchang, December: In ited by the 1990s So iety
Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and Shanghai and issues (Jiushi niandai she of eking ni ersity, a
his Southern Tour Speeches (Nanxun jianghua), group of Yuanmingyuan illage artists holds
which plays a key role in propelling economic an open-air modern art e hibition on ampus.
reform and social progress in the 1990s. The Se ond National Symposium on
April: Liu Wei and Fang Lijun’s Paintings il ainting i er i uanguo youhua yishu
( Liu Wei, Fang Lijun huazhan ) opens at the taolunhui is held at hongyuan Hotel
Bei ing Art Museum. in Beijing.
May: To ommemorate the 50th anni er- More than 30 art riti s on ene in
sary of Mao s Yan an Talks, the ournal Art Bei ing and rea h a onsensus on prote ting
publishes Cai uohong s arti le There Is No intelle tual property rights and institute
End to the Combat handou heng wei an agreement learly stating that any
you iong i , whi h argues that bourgeois soli ited writing should be paid with a rate
liberalism has in i ted disasters among art ranging from 300 to 800 yuan per thousand
ir les and notes that a pea eful e olution hara ters. This agreement is published
in Jiangsu Pictorial 148:4, 1993 , and is met March: Contemporary Oil Paintings from
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with ontro ersy in art ir les. the Northeast ( Dongbei dangdai youhua zhan )
A History of Chinese Modern Art: is held at the Liaoning Museum, Shenyang,
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1979 –1989 ( Zhongguo xiandai yishu shi: urated by u hen ing and Yang Li. At the
1979 – 1989 by L eng and Yi an and same time, the symposium E perien es
Chinese Contemporary Art Documents of il ainting in the Northeast ongbei
’90 – ’91 ( Zhongguo dangdai yishu wenxian dangdai youhua ingyan is on ened.
90 – 91 are published by Hunan ine Arts The lm nfinished Documentary ( Wei
ublishing House. wancheng jilupian do umenting the li es
As at the artists illage near Yuanmingyuan, of Yuanmingyuan artists is ompleted.
a group of artists gathers around April: The Hubei New History roup s
ashan huang and Silu u on the eastern e hibition Big Consumer Products ( Da
outskirts of Bei ing. They are often referred xiaofei yishuzhan is held at M onald s
to as East illage artists, the best-known in Wangfu ing in Bei ing. It is suspended
being hang Huan and Ma Liuming. partway through.
May: China uardian Au tions Co., Ltd.,
1993 is founded, the rst omprehensi e au tion
January: The group Lan hou Art Legion house spe iali ing in Chinese ultural ob e ts
( Lanzhou yishu juntuan ) carries out perfor- and artworks. It holds its rst spe ial au tion
man e art in Lan hou, performing funeral for oil painting and s ulpture in 1994.
a ti ities for a tional hara ter alled hong June: The 45th eni e Biennale opens,
iandai. urated by A hille Bonito li a. In the
The Countryside Project 1993 ( Xiangcun e hibition Passaggio a Oriente, the uratorial
jihua 1993 , organi ed by Shan i artists, onsultants for whi h in lude Li ianting
begins its rst a ti ities. These in lude and ran es a al Lago, 13 Chinese artists
in estigating the banks of the Yellow i er in hang eili, Yu Youhan, Yu Hong, u Bing,
the L liang region of the pro in e, ompleting Wang iwei, Wang uangyi, Sun Liang, Song
a group of paintings and photographi works Haidong, Liu Wei, Li Shan, eng ianyi, eng
in the ountryside, making T series, musi Mengbo, and ang Li un parti ipate. Wang
ideos, and olle tions of do umentary Youshen and Wu Shan huan parti ipate
literature, all under the title Countryside in Aperto 93, whi h ong Chang an helps
Project 1993. In August, they hold the to curate.
e hibition Countryside Project 1993 at the A smaller ersion of China’s New Art,
National Art allery and the gallery of Post-1989 is e hibited as Mao Goes Pop at the
China Daily simultaneously. Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney.
The e hibition China Avant-Garde: Counter- The Annual Art Critics Nomination
Currents in Art and Culture opens at the Haus xhibition 1993, Ink (Meishu pipingjia niandu
der ulturen der Welt, Berlin, later tra eling timing zhan 1993, shuimo ) opens at the
to the unsthal otterdam, the Netherlands National Art allery. The hairperson for the
Museum of Modern Art in ford, and e hibition is Lang Shao un. A symposium
unsthallen Brandts laedefabrik, dense, a ompanies the e hibition.
enmark. Si teen Chinese artists parti ipate July: Fragmented Memory: The Chinese
in the e hibition, in luding Huang Yong ing, Avant-Garde in xile is held at the We ner
Wenda u, ang Li un, u e in, eng ianyi, Center for the Arts, The hio State
Ni Haifeng, and hang eili. ni ersity, Columbus, urated by ulia .
China’s New Art, Post-1989, organi ed by Andrews and ao Minglu the artists
Hanart T allery, Hong ong, and urated in luded are Wenda u, Huang Yong ing,
by Chang Tsong- ung and Li ianting, is Wu Shan huan, and u Bing.
held at the Hong ong Arts Centre and Hong The irst Chinese il Painting Biennial
ong City Hall. It in ludes 54 artists from (Shoujie Zhongguo youhua shuangnian zhan) is
the mainland in an e hibition of more than held at the National Art allery, a partially non-
200 works. That year a smaller ersion 29 go ernmentally organi ed national e hibition.
artists tra els to Sydney and Melbourne, September: The irst Asia Pacific Triennial
Australia, and then from 1995 to 1997 a form of Contemporary Art is held at ueensland
of it tra els to the an ou er Art allery, BC, Art allery, Brisbane, Australia. A symposium
Canada, and e enues in the nited States. titled Tradition and Change: Contemporary
A large-format book with genre-de ning Art of Asia and the a i is held. The
te ts by Chang Tsong- ung, Li ianting, and Chinese artists in luded are ing Yi, Li Lei,
others is published in on un tion with Shen Haopeng, Shi Hui, Sun Liang, u iang,
the e hibition. Yu Youhan, and hou Chang iang.
May: The journal Avant-Garde Today
421
Gilbert & George China Exhibition ( Yingguo
yishujia Jierbote yu Qiaozhi zuopinzhan ) is ( Jinri xianfeng begins publi ation by S
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held at the National Art allery and later oint ublishing.
travels to Shanghai. The Third Modern Chinese Art Research
October: eng e, Li Mei, and Yang Documents Exhibition ( Zhongguo dangdai
iaoyan reate the weekly pi torial Focus yishu yanjiu wenxian ziliao di san hui zhan )
( Jiaodian in Shen hen. is held at East China Normal ni ersity
The October Art Experimental Exhibition in Shanghai. The theme is Installation,
( Shiyue yishu shiyanzhan is held at the nvironment, Performance ( Zhuangzhi,
underground e hibition hall at Shanghai huanjing, xingwei and e plores the issue
Huashang Art S hool. of shifts in media in a ant-garde art.
November: The First Chinese Art July: The a ant-garde Black Cover Book
Exposition (Di yi jie Zhongguo yishu bolanhui , ( Heipishu is pri ately published and
organi ed by the Ministry of Culture, is ir ulated underground, edited by eng
held at the China E port Commodities Trade iao un, Ai Weiwei, and u Bing, with
air Building in uang hou. igong eng Boyi as te t editor. eng
December: Art riti ao Ling organi es iao un and Ai Weiwei subse uently
the forum Contemporary Art Salon edit and pri ately publish the White Cover
angdai meishu shalong with the Book ( Baipishu and Gray Cover Book
ob e ti e to study, e plore, and e hange ( Huipishu in 1995 and 1997, respe ti ely.
information on the ultural alue and reati e Wang insong and Liu Anping s reen
state of urrent Chinese a ant-garde art. their ideo work MW — Good Morning
Contemporary Chinese Art is held at Beijing ( MW — Beijing ninzao at ahua
allery in the SoHo distri t in New York. Cinema in Bei ing. uring the s reening,
Andrew Solomon’s article “Their Irony, hao Shaoruo and Liu Anping splash
Humor ( and Art ) Can Save China” is ink onto the audien es, later referred to
published as the cover story of a New York as the ink-splashing in ident.
Times Magazine. August: Experiments in Tension —’94
The e hibition Red Star ver China: Tenuous xpressive Ink Painting xhibition ( Zhang li
Peace is held at the een allery, New York. de shiyan — 94 biaoxianxing shuimo zhan )
Chinese ine Arts in the 1990s: xperiences is held at the National Art allery. It is
in Fine Arts in China ( 90 niandai de Zhongguo urated by Chen Tie un with Liu iao hun
meishu, Zhongguo jingyanzhan is held at as the e hibition s a ademi hairperson.
Si huan Art allery, Chengdu. September: Liu Haisu Art allery in
Chang hou, iangsu, opens.
1994 October: The Annual Art Critics’
January: u Bing s e perimental Nomination xhibition 1994, il Painting
e hibition Cultural Animal (Wenhua dongwu) (Meishu pipingjia niandu timingzhan 1994,
is held at Bei ing s Hanmo Art allery. It youhua] is held at the National Art allery.
is u Bing s rst e hibition in China sin e It is sponsored by the Metropolitan Art
he left for the nited States in 1990. Center ( Beijing daduhui meishu zhongxin )
French Abstract Painter Pierre Soulages and Chong ing Huaren angdai Art
( Faguo chouxiang huajia Sulare ) is shown at Company. Shui Tian hong ser es as the
the National Art allery. hairperson of the e hibition. uring
March: Italian Trans-Avant-Garde Painter the e hibition, a symposium is also held
Mimmo Paladino ( Yidali chaoqianwei huajia at the State Coun il Hostel.
Baladinuo is held at the National Art allery. ang Li un, Li Shan, Liu Wei, Wang uangyi,
April: Fine Arts Literature ( Meishu Yu Youhan, and hang iaogang parti ipate
wenxian , a periodi al ompiled by eng in the 22nd Bienal de S o aulo, Bra il.
e, begins publi ation by Hubei ine November: The Symposium on Theories
Arts ublishing House. of Chinese Art Creation in the 1990s iushi
Wu uan hong sues Shanghai uo niandai hongguo meishu huang uo lilun
Yun uan and Hong ong Yong Cheng yantaohui , sponsored by the ournal Art
Anti ues Au tion Company for au tioning and ommissioned by the CC group, the
a forged Bombarding the Headquarters ( Pao Chinese Artists Asso iation, is held in
da silingbu ). The case comes to trial at a Longshan, uang hou.
mid-le el eople s Court. It is the rst lawsuit December: The Eighth National Exhibition
in China of a domesti painter suing an of utstanding Artwork (Di ba jie quanguo
au tion ompany, and Wu e entually wins meizhan youxiu zuopinzhan is held at the
the case. National Art allery.
Jiangsu Pictorial 1 8:12, 1994 publishes urated by ia ang hou and eng ing iang.
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Yi Ying s arti le The Meaning of Work Should The 39 parti ipating female artists ome
be Clear Li iu ming ue de yiyi , whi h from mainland China, Hong ong, Ma ao,
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pro okes e tensi e dis ussions on the issue and o erseas. Lin Tianmiao and iang ie s
of meaning. installation works fail to pass the censors
and therefore are remo ed.
1995 The Three Men Studio Sanren lianhe
February: oeraendering tveckling gongzuoshi Sui ianguo, han Wang, and
( Change is organi ed at onsthallen, Yu an arries out a ti ities on the ruins
taplatsen, teborg, Sweden, and assisted of the original site of the Central A ademy
by the Cultural Emissary of the Swedish of ine Arts. Later, they organi e an e hibition
Embassy in China. alled Women. Site ( Nüren xianchang is held
March: The Liu Haisu Art Museum, at the ontemporary gallery of the Central
Shanghai, opens. A ademy of ine Arts High S hool. It is
The group performances To Add One spe i ally dire ted at the nited Nation s
Meter to an nknown Mountain ( Wei Women s Congress audien e.
wumingshan zenggao yimi and Nine Holes The United ation’s Fourth International
( Jiugedong are performed on Bei ing s Women’s Congress is held in Beijing.
Miaofeng Mountain, by performan e artists Der Abschied von der Idiologie opens
mostly from the East illage. at ampnagel Halle, 3, Hamburg, ermany,
June: Configura 2 — Dialog der ulturen sponsored by the Cultural Bureau of Hamburg,
is held in Erfurt, ermany. The Chinese and urated by Shan an and Li ianting.
se tion is urated by Hans an i k from New September: The irst wang u Biennale
Amsterdam Art Consultant Company and opens in wang u, orea, with the theme
uliane Noth, a long-time resident in China. Beyond the Borders. Participating Chinese
arti ipating Chinese artists in lude the artists in lude ang Li un, eng Mengbo, L
New Measurement roup Xin kedu xiaozu Sheng hong, Song ong, and Wang ianwei.
formerly the Analysis roup, Jiexi xiaozu , October: The most famous oil painting
Ai Weiwei, iang ie, and Liu Anping. during the Cultural e olution, Chairman
Des del pa s del centre: Avantguardes Mao Goes to Anyuan ( Mao zhuxi qu Anyuan ,
artistíques xineses is held at Centre d Arte is sold for 5.5 million yuan S 59,844
Santa M ni a in Bar elona, Spain, as part at the 1995 China uardian autumn au tion.
of the e hibition Aperto 95, funded and November: Tension and Expression —
sponsored by the Bar elona go ernment s Ink Painting xhibition ( Zhangli yu biaoxian —
ultural organi ations. Huang u parti ipates shuimo zhan is held at the National Art
in the curatorial work. allery, urated by Chen Tie un with Liu
The 4 th eni e Biennale opens. Chinese iao hun as the e hibition s a ademi
artists in lude Liu Wei, hang iaogang, chairperson. The participating artists are
and Yan eiming. ne of the e hibitions, mostly young painters engaged in modern
Asiana: Contemporary Art from the Far East, ink painting. This e hibition is a follow
urated by A hille Bonito li a and ino up to the gallery s 1994 ink e hibition.
di Maggio, omprises artists from China, Open Your Mouth and Close Your Eyes —
apan, and orea, and parti ipating Chinese Beijing-Berlin Art Communication xhibition
artists in lude u e in, Huang Yong ing, ( Zhangkai zui, bishang yan, Beijing-Bolin
Cai uo- iang, and Yang un. yishu jiaoliu zhan is held at the Art Museum
July: The rst international en ironmental of Capital Normal ni ersity, Bei ing. The
art e hibition titled eepers of the Waters e hibition is o urated by Huang u and
is held in Chengdu, Si huan. It is initiated and Angelika Stepken.
organi ed by Ameri an artist Betsy amon. December: The Annual Art Critics’
This art e ent is organi ed three more times, Nomination xhibition 1995, Sculpture and
in 199 , 1997, and 2000. Installation) (Meishu pipingjia niandu timing
The Central A ademy of ine Arts mo es zhan 1995, diaosu yu zhuangzhi holds only
out of the Wangfu ing distri t of Bei ing. a nomination e ent, haired by Liu iao hun,
August: The emale Art and Cultural So iety as insuf ient funds are raised. The results
(Nüxing wenhua yishu xueshe , af liated with are published in Jiangsu Pictorial 183:3, 199 .
the China Arts esear h A ademy, is founded.
Tao Yongbai is appointed dire tor. 1996
The Invitational xhibition of Chinese March: In the Name of Art — Chinese
Women Painters (Zhonghua n huajia yaoqing- Contemporary Art Exchange Exhibition ( Yi
zhan is held at the National Art allery, yishu de mingyi — Zhongguo dangdai yishu
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jiaoliuzhan is held at Liu Haisu Art Museum Consciousness ( Yishu yu lishiyishi ) — are
in Shanghai, urated by hu i. pri ately published in on un tion with the
The First Shanghai Biennale ( Shanghai e hibition and distributed during its run.
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meishu shuangnian zhan is held at the The Second Asia Pacific Triennial of
Shanghai Art Museum with the theme Open Contemporary Art is held at ueensland
Space ( aifang de kongjian . The e hibition Art allery, Brisbane. arti ipating Chinese
is osponsored by the Shanghai Cultural artists are Cai uo- iang, Chen Yanyin,
Bureau and the Shanghai Art Museum. Wang uangyi, Wang ianwei, Wang Luyan,
A symposium on the de elopment and and hang iaogang.
possibilities of foreign artisti styles in China October: The Sixth Plenary Session of
is also held. the 14th Central Committee of the CCP
April: An International A ademi is held in Beijing, and passes The CCP’S
Symposium on the Rent Collection Courtyard Resolution on Several Issues Regarding
S ulpture Nisu Shouzuyuan guo i ueshu the Strengthening of the Development of
yantaohui is held at the Si huan ine a Socialist Spiritual Civilization.
Arts Institute, Chong ing. December: Reality: Present and Future —
May: The maga ine New Photo ( Xin 1996 Chinese Contemporary Art xhibition
sheying , self-funded by artists Liu heng ( Xianshi: jintian yu mingtian — 1996 Zhongguo
and ong ong, starts publi ation and dangdai yishuzhan is held at the Bei ing
ir ulation. By 1998, four issues ha e been International Art ala e gallery in the Holiday
produ ed by hand and photo opied, and Inn Crowne la a Hotel. Leng Lin a ts as the
ir ulated pri ately. hief urator. The e hibition is sponsored
June: The Chinese Contemporary Ink by the Sungari International Au tion Co.,
Art Heading Toward the 21st Century Ltd., and is followed by an au tion.
symposium ou iang 21 shi i de hongguo The multimedia First Exhibition of the
dangdai shuimo yishu yantaohui and Cartoon Generation ’96 ( atong yi dai 96 di
e hibition are held at Huanan Normal yi huizhan is held at the e hibition hall
ni ersity in uang hou, with i ao ian of the Art epartment at Huanan Normal
as the e hibition s a ademi hairperson. ni ersity in uang hou.
The entral topi s for the symposium are: The First Academic Exhibition of Chinese
the trend of de onstru ting easel painting Contemporary Art 96 – 97 ( 96, 97 shoujie
and ontemporary ink art, ultural ollisions dangdai yishu xueshu yaoqingzhan , originally
in ontemporary ink art, and the ontempo- intended to open at the National Art allery
raneity and internationalness of ink art in on No ember 31, 199 , is an eled the day
the 1990s. arti ipants demonstrate di erse before. It is sponsored by Hong ong s China
opinions on how to position ontemporary il ainting allery and the ournal Gallery
ink and sort out rele ant theoreti al issues. ( Hualang from uangdong. The hief
July: The Current State of Contemporary a ademi urator is Huang huan. The
Chinese Ink Painting ( Dangdai Zhongguo painting and s ulpture se tion is held at the
shuimo xianzhuang zhan is held at the ao Siu Loong allery at the Hong ong
National Art allery. Arts Centre.
September: The ideo art e hibition Returning to the Visual — igurative
Image and Phenomena ( Xianxiang, yingxiang ) Paintings by ive Artists from China National
is held at the gallery of the China National Academy of Fine Arts ( Huidao shijue — Zhong-
A ademy of ine Arts formerly alled the guo meishu xueyuan juxiang biaoxian huihua
he iang A ademy of ine Arts Hang hou, wuren zhan is held at the e hibition hall
urated by Wu Mei hun and iu hi ie. at the China National A ademy of ine Arts,
arti ipating artists in lude hang eili, hu Hang hou.
ia, Yan Lei, Yang hen hong, Wang ong in,
Tong Biao, iu hi ie, ian Weikang, Li 1997
Yongbin, ao Shi iang, ao Shiming, Chen January: The Annie Wong Art oundation
Shaoping, Chen Shao iong, and others. is founded in an ou er, BC. It is dedi ated
uring the e hibition three symposia are to promoting and e panding international
held: Art in the Age of eprodu tion re ognition and understanding of ontempo-
Ying iang eng hi shidai de yishu , Image rary Chinese art.
and henomena ian iang, ying iang , loating: ’97 uzhou Contemporary Art
and The ossibilities for ideo Art Exhibition ( Piaoyi: 97 fuzhou dangdai yishu
Lu iang yishu de keneng ing . Two lianzhan is held at the u hou ine Arts
te ts Documents of Video Art ( Luxiang A ademy, u ian.
yishu wenxian and Art and Historical February: Deng Xiaoping dies.
Paintings by Chen Yifei, a Chinese Artist Cai uo- iang s rst solo e hibition in
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Living in the .S. ( Lümei huajia Chen Yifei the nited States, Cultural Melting Bath:
huazhan is held at the National Art allery. Projects for the 20th Century, is held at the
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March: Cai uo- iang s rst solo ueens Museum of Art in New York.
e hibition in Europe, Flying Dragon in the September: The preview of New Image:
Heavens, opens at the Louisiana Museum Art Exhibition of Conceptual Photography
of Modern Art in Humlebaek, enmark. ( Xin yingxiang: guannian shiying yishuzhan )
April: The e hibition Red and Grey — Eight and Symposium on Theories of Con eptual
Avant-Garde Chinese Artists is held at SooBin hotography uannian sheying lilun
allery in Singapore. It in ludes Liu Wei, yantaohui are held at the main hall of the
Mao uhui, Wang uangyi, Wei uang ing, Bei ing Theatre. Both are sponsored by
Ye Yong ing, Yue Min un, hang iaogang, the journal Modern Photography ( Xiandai
and hou Chunya. sheying bao and the Bei ing isual Art
The He iangning Art Museum in Center, and urated by ao i.
Shen hen opens. Zeitgenossische otokunst Aus der R
May: The Spiritual Civilization Steering China is held in ermany at Neuer Berliner
Committee ( Zhongyang jingshen wenming unst erein, in luding 1 e perimental
jianshe zhidao weiyuanhui ) is founded photographers’ work. It is an important show
in Beijing. for Chinese e perimental photography.
June: The 47th eni e Biennale opens. Stir-Fry: A Video Curator’s Dispatches from
Cai uo- iang e hibits in the Future, Past, China, a Web site by Barbara London, a
Present e hibition in the Arsenale. urator at MoMA New York, hroni les her
o umenta opens in assel, ermany tra els and en ounters with media art and
eng Mengbo and Wang ianwei parti ipate. artists in Bei ing, Shanghai, Hang hou,
July: The British handover ceremony of and uang hou.
Hong Kong to China takes place. Hong Kong October: A Chinese Dream: ’97 Chinese
is established as a Special Administrative Contemporary Art ( Zhongguo zhi meng:
Region of the People’s Republic. 97 Zhongguo dangdai yishu is held at the
The Ministry of Culture sponsors the Yanhuang Art allery in Bei ing, urated
Grand Exhibition of Chinese Art ( Zhongguo by Leng Lin, and after whi h an au tion
yishu dazhan , multiple e hibitions throughout takes place.
China to elebrate the return of Hong ong. December: Bloodline: Big amily — Zhang
Liu iao hun and eng ing iang assume Xiaogang’s Oil Painting Exhibition (Xueyuan:
the positions of se retary general and deputy da jiating — Zhang Xiaogang youhua zhan ) is
general, respe ti ely, of the preparatory held at the ontemporary art gallery at the
ommittee. i ao ian ser es as the hairper- Central A ademy of ine Arts High S hool.
son of the Chinese painting se tion in Shanghai, Photography and Video Art from China
while ia ang hou hairs the Chinese e hibition at Ma rotet h allery in New
ontemporary oil painting se tion in Shanghai. York in ludes work by si artists, Wang
The ourth Biennale d Art Contemporain insong, hang eili, huang Hui, Ma Liuming,
de Lyon opens in Lyon, ran e, urated Yang hen hong, Li Yongbin.
by Harald S eemann. The Chinese artists
in luded are An Hong, Chen hen, eng 1998
Mengbo, u ie, Wang ingwei, u Yihui, January: Trace of Existence — A Private
Yan ei Ming, and hang eili. Showing of Contemporary Chinese Art ’98
August: Thirteen art publishing rms and ( Shengcun henji — 98 Zhongguo dangdai yishu
Xinhua Bookstore sign on to collaborate on neibu guanmozhan , urated by eng Boyi
the publi ation of the 48- olume Collected and Cai ing, is held at Art Now Studio
Works of Chinese Modern Art ( Zhongguo in Yao ia huang, Bei ing. Artists reate
xiandai meishu quanji , as part of the larger works on-site.
collection Classification of Chinese ine Arts March: The art e hibition Century, Women
( Zhongguo meishu fenlei quanji ). ( Shiji nüxing is held in Bei ing at the National
Demonstration of ideo Art ’97 China Art allery, the Museum of Contemporary
( 97 luxiang yishu guanmozhan ) opens at the Art, and the Bei ing International Art ala e
art gallery of the Central A ademy of ine gallery lo ated inside the Holiday Inn
Arts, urated by Wu Mei hun, and in luding Crowne la a Hotel simultaneously. The
works by more than 30 Chinese artists. e hibition is urated by ia ang hou and
iu hi ie s solo e hibition Logic: ive ideo sponsored by the Center for Comparati e
Installations ( Luoji: Wuge luxiang zhuangzhi ) Studies at China National A ademy of ine
takes place there at the same time. Arts. The a ompanying symposium is alled
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ender erspe ti e: Women s Art and East Third ing oad, Bei ing. An a ant-garde
Artisti eminism in Cultural Transformation underground e hibition, it is losed down
ingbie shi iao: wenhua bian ian hong by authorities the ne t day.
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de n ing yishu yu yishu n ing . The e hibition Inside Out: New Chinese
Mondrian in China — A Documentary Art opens at Asia So iety alleries and
Exhibition with Chinese Originals ( Mengde .S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York.
li’an zai Zhongguo — Mengde li’an wenxian rgani ed by the Asia So iety and the
yu Zhongguo yishujia zuopin , sponsored San ran is o Museum of Modern Art and
by China E hibition E hange Centre and urated by ao Minglu, it in ludes 58 artists
the Netherlands Embassy in China, is held from mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong
at the Bei ing International Art ala e. ong and e patriates li ing o erseas. A
Jiangnan: Modern and Contemporary three-day symposium, ushing Boundaries:
Chinese Art Exhibitions and International New ire tions in Chinese Art, is held.
Symposium is held in arious enues in The e hibition goes to S M MA and the
an ou er, BC, organi ed by Hank Bull, Asian Art Museum, San ran is o and then
heng Shengtian, a id Chan, and ia Wei. tra els to Monterrey, Me i o Seattle and
Stru tured around the iangnan region Ta oma, Washington Hong ong and
south of the Yang i i er and the ultural Canberra, Australia. The atalogue, edited
ba kground of the parti ipating artists, the by ao Minglu, gi es an o er iew of the
pro e t s e hibitions in lude: two-person sub e t sin e 1984 and is opublished with
shows of u Bing and Huang Yong ing, ni ersity of California ress.
hou Tiehai and eng ianyi, Chen hen October: The ’98 Asia-Pacific Contemporary
and en Lum, Wenda u and hang eili, Art Invitational xhibition ( 98 yatai dangdai
ohnson Su-sing Chow and Chen eng-T e, yishu yaoqingzhan takes pla e at the u hou
solo e hibitions or performan es by ine Arts A ademy and Yushan Hotel, u ian,
u iong, Hu ieming, Chen Yanyin, Yang urated by an i an. The in ited artists
hen hong, Shi Yong, aul Wong, a group are from Canada, .S., apan, and China.
e hibition of ing Yi, Shen an, Chen Haiyan, A Symposium on the Current State and
Shi Hui, and Liang Shao i and the e hibitions Trends in 1990s Chinese Art 90 niandai
Three Generations of Modernism: Qiu Ti, hongguo meishu ian huang yu ushi
Pang Tao, and Lin Yan, and late works by yantaohui is held in the Museum of
an Tianshou 1897 1971 . A related Chinese Art at the Wang family ourtyard
symposium on Chinese art is held at Emily in Lingshi County, Shan i pro in e. The
Carr Institute of Art and esign. symposium is sponsored by the Central
April: Internal do uments from the A ademy of ine Arts and its ournal Fine
e perimental art e ent Wildlife: Starting Arts Research. an i an and Yi Ying ser e
from ingzhe Day, 1997 ( Yesheng — 1997 as a ademi hairs.
nian Jingzhe shi are published. Wildlife is The rst Chinese Contemporary Art
sponsored by Bei ing Contemporary Art Award CCAA is awarded to hou Tiehai
Center and urated by Song ong and uo S 3,000 , Yang Mian, and ie Nan ing.
Shirui. Starting on Mar h 5, it lasts one This award is funded by the Chinese
year and 27 artists from a ross the nation Contemporary Art Asso iation in Swit erland
participate. to re ogni e artists under the age of 35.
Video and Computer Art Exhibition (Luxiang, The ury this year in ludes Yi Ying, Ai Weiwei,
diannao yishu zhan is held at ilin ro in ial olle tor li Sigg, and urator Harald
S hool of Industrial esign in Chang hun. S eemann.
June: Die Hälfte des Himmels — Chinesische The Se ond Shanghai Biennale takes pla e
nstlerinnen der Gegenwart Half of the at the Shanghai Art Museum and Liu Haisu
Sky: Contemporary Chinese Women Artists Art Museum with the theme Inheritance
opens at the rauenmuseum Bonn, urated and Exploration ( Ronghui yu tuozhan . A
by Chris Werner and iu ing. symposium on Ink Art in the Contemporary
The Fourth Taipei Biennale Site of Desire Cultural En ironment angdai wenhua
( Yuwang changyu is held at the Taipei huan ing hong de shuimo yishu is also
ine Arts Museum, Taiwan, urated by Nan o held during the e hibition.
umio. Cai uo- iang, Chen hen, u e in, November: Reflecting on Their wn
Lin Yilin, u Bing, u Tan, Wang ingsong, Tradition: An Exhibition of Chinese
heng uogu, and others parti ipate. Contemporary Art ( Chuantong Fansi —
August: Persistent Deviation Corruptionist Zhongguo dangdai yishu zhan is held at
( Pianzhi , urated by u uotao and u Yihui, the erman Embassy in Bei ing and urated
is held in the basement of Building 3, no. 10, by E khard . S hneider.
It’s Me! ( Shi wo! , urated by Leng Lin, ompleted, transforming an old warehouse in
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is slated to open at the Main itual Hall Longguashu illage in the southern outskirts
in the former Imperial An estral Temple in of Bei ing into an art spa e, where they hold
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Bei ing, only to be an elled by authorities the e hibition Innovations Part I (Chuangxin).
the day before the opening. The reason ited: April: Street Theater, urated by Hou Hanru
failure in ompleting the re uired pro edure and E elyne ouanno, takes pla e at ape art,
for appro al. New York.
The First Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin
Sculpture ( Di yi jie dangdai diaosu yishu 1950s – 1980s, organi ed by the ueens
nianduzhan opens at the outdoor spa e Museum of Art, opens in New York and begins
at He iangning Art Museum in Shen hen. a national tour. ao Minglu is one of the
The duration of the e hibition is one year. eight curators.
Counter-Perspective: The nvironment The e hibition Supermarket ( Chaoshi zhan ,
and Us ( Fan shi: zishen yu huanjing ) takes urated by u hen, Yang hen hong, and
pla e at Constru tion ni ersity in Tong ian, Ale ander Brandt, takes pla e on the fourth
Bei ing, with ia ang hou as art hair and oor at Haoshanghai la a, 138 Huaihai oad,
urated by Lin Lin, hou Yibin, and others. Shanghai. It is an e perimental e hibition
December: The First International Ink that rethinks the entire e hibitionary format.
ainting Biennial of Shen hen Di yi jie artway through, it is shut down by the
Shenzhen guoji shuimohua shuangnianzhan , authorities.
sponsored by the Shen hen muni ipal The e hibition Departing from China ( Cong
go ernment, is held at the uan Shanyue Zhongguo chufa is intended to open at the
Art Museum. Talks on the e hibition are esign Museum in Bei ing, urated by hang
also held. haohui, but is banned before its opening.
The rst He iangning Art Museum May: e eloping a New Network of Asian
A ademi orum Contemporary Art and Art: An International Conferen e on Asian
Humanities Shou ie He iangning Art Curatorship a ian Ya hou yishu in
meishuguan ueshu luntan dangdai yishu hang ian: Ya hou meishu e hanren huiyi
yu renwen ke ue is held at the museum is held in Taipei parti ipants in lude Chang
in Shen hen, with Huang huan as a ademi Tsong- ung, ei awei, and Hou Hanru.
urator. uring the forum, an e hibition of the ongyu Art Museum in Shenyang is
priver Gallery Collection (Shanghe meishuguan founded with Wang Yigang as dire tor.
shoucang zhan ) also takes place. It holds the e hibition Open Channels: First
Exhibition of the Dongyu Art Museum
1999 Collection aiqi tongdao: dongyu meishuguan
January: Post-Sense Sensibility: Distorted shoujie shoucangzhan , with Li ianting as
Bodies and Delusion ( Hou ganxing: yixing the a ademi hair.
yu wangxiang , urated by Wu Mei hun uh La La itsch ( ua shiji caihong zhan )
and iu hi ie, is held in the basement of opens at the Teda Contemporary Art
Building No. 202 in the Shaoyao u neighbor- Museum in Tian in, urated by Liao Wen
hood in Beisihuan, Bei ing. The e hibition and Li ianting.
in ludes some works made from human June: Extraordinary Space — Experimental
body parts. Works by Young Chinese Architects ( Feichang
February: Transience: Experimental kongjian — Zhongguo qingnian jianzhushi
Chinese Art at the End of the Twentieth shiyan zuopin zhan ) takes place at the
Century, is organi ed by the a id and Alfred e hibition hall of the Bei ing International
Smart Museum of Art, ni ersity of Chi ago, Con ention Center, urated by Wang
Illinois, urated by Wu Hung. The 21 artists Ming ian.
in the e hibition in lude Wenda u, Sui At the 48th eni e Biennale, Huang
ianguo, Cai in, Wang in, ing anwen, Yong ing is one of two artists representing
u Bing, Yin iu hen, han Wang, and hu ran e in its pa ilion. Cai uo- iang shows
adong. n April 17, a symposium on lobal Venice’s Rent Collection Courtyard p. 3 9
erspe ti es on Contemporary Chinese Art and re ei es a olden Lion Award. More
takes pla e. It tra els to the ni ersity of than 20 Chinese artists e hibit at d’APERTutto
regon Museum of Art, Eugene, and the urated by Harald S eemann, in luding
Hood Museum of Art, artmouth College, Lu Hao, Ma Liuming, and Yue Min un.
Hano er, New Hampshire. August: The e hibition Life and Culture
China Art Ar hi es Warehouse Yishu (Shenghuo yu yishu , urated by Li henhua,
wenjian cangku , reated by Ai Weiwei, Hans in the basement of the Asso iation of Chinese
an i k, and olle tor rank ytterhaegen, is Literature building in Bei ing is banned.
September: The Third Asia Pacific Triennial
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The e hibition Images Telling Stories —
of Contemporary Art is held at ueensland Chinese New Conceptual Photography
Art allery, Brisbane, with the theme Beyond ( Yingxiang zhiyi — Zhongguo xin gainian
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the Future. Chinese parti ipants, in luding sheying yishu zhan tra els to Shanghai,
e patriate artists listed under Crossing Bei ing, Nan ing, Chang hun, Shen hen,
Borders, in lude Ah ian, Chen hen, uan and Hong ong.
Wei, Li Yongbin, Sang Ye, Shi Yong, Cai uo-
iang, u Bing, u Tan, Yin iu hen, and 2000
Zhang Peili. January: 2000 China: Internet, ideo,
October: Visions of Pluralism: Contemporary and Photo Art Exhibition ( 2000 nian Zhongguo
Art in Taiwan 1988 – 1999 ( Fushuyuan de shiye: wangluo sheying yingxiang yishu zhan ) is
Taiwan dangdai meishu 1998 – 1999 is held at held at the e hibition hall at ilin ro in ial
the National Art allery, urated by i toria A ademy of ine Arts in Chang hun, urated
Lu ong hi . uring the e hibition, there by Huang Yan, Hai Bo, and iao Ying i.
is a symposium titled egional Art and eaturing mediums su h as the Internet,
lobali ation A ialogue on a New Century multimedia, digital imagery, and photogra-
of rospe ts for Contemporary Cross-Straits phy, it is the rst a ant-garde art e hibition to
Art iyu yishu yu uan iuhua liang an use the term Internet in its title 48 artists
dangdai yishu hanwang in shi i de duitan . from a ross the ountry parti ipate.
The Second Annual Exhibition of February: Mingling under the Spring
Contemporary Sculpture ( Di er jie dangdai Moon — A Sino-German Painting Exhibition
diaosu yishu nianzhan) takes place at Overseas ( Jiaorong zai chunyue xia — zhongde huihua
Chinese Town in Shen hen urated by jiaoliu zhan takes pla e at the erman Embassy
Huang huan, its theme is Balanced xistence: in Bei ing, urated by E khard . S hneider.
Future Plans for the Eco-City. The e hibition Back- orth and Right-Left
November: Xu Bing creates a banner ( Qinhouzuoyou , urated by Wang Mai,
for The Museum of Modern Art, New York, is held at He hang arden in Ma u iao,
with his original New English Calligraphy Tong hou, Bei ing.
as part of Projects 70. March: The Third wang u Biennale opens
Food for Thought: Chinese Contemporary Art with the theme Man + Space. Participating
takes pla e at e Witte ame in Eindho en, Chinese artists in lude Ma Liuming, hang
as part of the Chinese arakters esti al in iaogang, Wang ingsong, Yan eiming,
the Netherlands. Wenda u, and uan Wei.
December: Chinese Artists in the World — The Shanghai Art Museum mo es to
Installation and Documentary is held at a new site on 325 Nan ing i oad.
Art Commune, Hong ong, urated by April: Sponsored by ShanghA T allery
Ma in hong. and Bank of China, the artist hao Bandi
Gate of the New Century: 1979 – 1999 presents Zhao Bandi and the Little Panda
Chinese Art Invitational xhibition ( Shiji zhi ( Zhao Bandi he xiongmao , large-s ale
men — 1979 – 1999 Zhongguo yishu yaoqing on eptual art light-bo es in the form of
zhan is held at the Chengdu Contemporary publi ser i e announ ements, at the new
Art Museum at the Chengdu International Shanghai udong International Airport.
Con ention Center, sponsored by the This is the rst e ent integrating art and
Muni ipal o ernment of Chengdu. It is ad ertisement in Shanghai.
urated by Lang Shao un Chinese painting , An international delegation of urators,
Shui Tian hong oil painting , Liu iao hun in luding heng Shengtian, Yao Shouyi,
s ulpture and installation , and iu Leung it Wah, Sarat Mahara , en Lum,
hen hong alligraphy . Sebasti n L pe , Susanne he , kwui
China resumes sovereignty over Macao. Enwe or, Chris er on, Lynne Cooke, and
This year, Collections of Critical Essays essi a Bradley, ondu t a 15-day tour of
on Chinese Contemporary Art Phenomena Hang hou, Shanghai, Bei ing, uang hou,
( Zhongguo dangdai meishu xianxiang piping Taipei, and Hong ong, where they intera t
wencong , edited by hang iaoling, is with Chinese artists, riti s, and urators.
published by ilin ine Arts ublishing House. The e hibition Home?: Contemporary
It omprises 10 olumes, e.g., Abstract Art, Art Proposals ( Jia?: xiandai yishu ti an ,
Pop Art, Feminism, New Art, Neo-Classical Art, urated by Wu Mei hun and iu hi ie, takes
New Literati Art, and so on. Contributors pla e at the Star-Moon Home urnishing
in lude more than 10 historians and riti s, Center in Shanghai.
su h as hang iaoling, Yu ing, Sun in, The e hibition Infatuated with Injury
L intian, Liao Wen, and Hang ian. ( Dui shanghai de milian ) takes place at the
esear h Institute of S ulpture at the Central from Huadong Attorney irm in Shanghai,
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A ademy of ine Arts, urated by Li ianting. ei awei, hu ingsheng, and ao Ling

Some works in the e hibition use orpses pro ide written spee hes in absentia.
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and animals as material and thus pro oke The 31st Art Basel opens Shanghai s
heated debate. ShanghA T allery is in ited to attend.
Man and Animals ( Ren yu dongwu , a The ifth Biennale d Art Contemporain
series of performan e e ents urated by u de Lyon takes pla e, urated by ean-Hubert
hen ing, takes pla e o er a period of e Martin, with the theme Partage d’exotismes.
months in different lo ations in Bei ing, arti ipating Chinese artists in lude Wenda
Chengdu, uilin, Nan ing, Chang hun, u, Liang Shao i, Lu Hao, eng Yu, in a,
and uiyang. Cai uo- iang, Sun Yuan, Sui ianguo, iao
A omprehensi e Chinese Web site on Yu, Yan eiming, hang Han i, hang Huan,
art, Tom. om, laun hes in Bei ing, reated hu Yu, and huang Hui.
by eng Boyi, i Li, and Hua Tian ue. August: Documentation of Chinese Avant-
a ing the New Century: The pening Garde Art in the 1990s is held at the ukuoka
Ceremony of the ingdao S ulpture Art Asian Art Museum, urated by eng Boyi
Museum and A ademi E ents on S ulpture and Hua Tian ue. A symposium on Chinese
Mian iang inshi i: ingdao diaosu A ant- arde Current State and rospe ts
yishuguan luo heng ingdian i diaosu ueshu for the 21st Century is also held.
ilie huodong takes pla e in ingdao, September: The 18th World Image
Shandong. esti al is held in Amsterdam. Chinese artists
May: Curated by ia ang hou and others, Wang ong in, Wang ianwei, and Song
the Opening Exhibition of Shangyuan Artists’ ong are in ited.
Studios ( Shangyuan yishujia gongzuoshi etrospe t and rospe t Symposium
kaifang zhan takes pla e in Shangyuan on the Historiography of Chinese Art in the
illage in ingshou, Changping istri t, Twentieth Century Huigu yu hanwang
Bei ing. Artists residing here hold open hongguo ershi shi i meishu shi ue ueshu
studios for the publi to isit. uring the yantaohui takes pla e at intai Hotel
e hibition, a riti s tea party is held in Beijing.
to dis uss the phenomenon of Chinese The Second Invitational xhibition of Young
artists relo ating from the ity to the Contemporary Sculptors ( Di er jie dangdai
ountryside. qingnian diaosujia yaoqing zhan , sponsored
The 12th Biennale of Sydney takes pla e by the epartment of S ulpture at China
Cai uo- iang and u Bing parti ipate National A ademy of ine Arts and the
in the e hibition. Shen hen Institute of S ulpture, is held at
June: The Se enth eni e Ar hite ture West Lake Art Museum in Hang hou, the
Biennale opens with the theme Less Museum of S ulpture Art in ingdao, and
Aesthetics: More Ethics. Yung Ho Chang the e hibition hall at Shen hen Institute
is the only Chinese ar hite t in ited. of Sculpture.
Luo hongli, president of the Si huan October: The Third Sex — Internet Art.
ine Arts Institute, sues Harald S eemann, China (Di san xing — wangluo yishu. Zhongguo)
urator of the 48th eni e Biennale, and takes pla e in Bei ing, urated by Huang Yan,
Chinese e patriate artist Cai uo- iang Cang in, and Wang uofeng.
for opyright iolation, harging that Cai s November: The Third Shanghai Biennale
work at the 48th eni e Biennale plagiari es opens at the Shanghai Art Museum with
the group of lay s ulptures Rent Collection the theme Shanghai Spirit ( Haishang,
Courtyard ( Shouzuyuan ). This unleashes Shanghai , urated by Hou Hanru, Toshio
ontro ersy in China on the boundaries Shimi u, hang ing, Li u, and ang
between opyright infringement and now- eng ian. It is the rst time for an of ial
ommon ontemporary art methods su h Chinese museum e hibition to adopt an
as reprodu tion and appropriation. n international uratorial system. In addition
une 20, the ournal Avant-Garde Today holds to traditional art forms, it in ludes installa-
a Symposium on Rent Collection Courtyard tion, ideo, lm, media, photography,
and Contemporary Art Shouzuyuan yu ar hite ture, and Con eptual art.
dangdai yishu uotanhui dis ussing a series The e hibition uck ff Buhezuo fangshi,
of important problems in Chinese art history urated by Ai Weiwei and eng Boyi in
and new issues regarding ontemporary de an e of the Third Shanghai Biennale,
art and opyright. Wu Hung, Li ianting, takes pla e in onglang allery in Shanghai
Liu iao hun, and Sui ianguo parti ipate p. 355 , pro oking a grand dis ussion o er
in the symposium, and attorney Ma ian un performan e art.
429
Canceled: Exhibiting Experimental Art in heretofore alled the National Art allery
China is held at the a id and Alfred Smart urated by Tao Yongbai.
Museum of Art at the ni ersity of Chi ago, June: The journal New Wave ( Xinchao )
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urated by Wu Hung. begins publi ation, well-known artists and
December: The Third Annual Exhibition urators su h as Li ianting, Wu Wenguang,
of Contemporary Sculpture ( Di san jie dangdai and iu hi ie take part in editing. eng
diaosu yishu niandu zhan is held at the He ubo is the editor-in- hief.
iangning Art Museum in Shen hen, urated July: The Second Northern China
by Yi Ying and Yin Shuang i. Contemporary Art Invitational xhibition
Chen hen, e patriate artist, dies in aris. ( Di er jie beifang dangdai yishu yaoqingzhan )
The e hibition Contemporary Chinese is held at ongyu Art Museum in Shenyang,
Painting takes pla e at the illa Breda Museum urated by Wang Yigang.
in adua, Italy. Beijing succeeds in its bid to host the
In this year, Selected Works of ine Arts 2008 Summer Olympic Games.
of the 20th Century (20 shiji Zhongguo meishu UP-ricing, a tra eling e hibition, begins
wenxuan , edited by Shui Tian hong and Lang ir ulation to se en Asian ities: Hong ong,
Shao un, is published by Shanghai ine Arts Ma au, Singapore, uala Lumpur, Taipei,
ublishers, a work of 1,280,000 hara ters, Chiayi Taiwan , and Bei ing. The hief urator
olle ting more than 190 arti les on modern is Andrew Lam of the Museum of Site, Hong
Chinese art from the early twentieth entury ong, while hu i parti ipates
to the 1990s. in curating the Beijing stop.
The Central A ademy of ine Arts and September: Reshuffle: In the Name of
he iang eople s ublishing House ollabora- Ink and Wash ( Chongxin xipai — yi huimo de
ti ely edit and publish a atalogue omprising mingyi is held at the e hibition hall of
olumes, 1979 – 1999 Chinese Contemporary Shen hen Institute of S ulpture, urated
Art (1979 – 1999 Zhongguo dangdai meishu) by Lu Hong and Sun henhua.
with an i an as editor-in- hief. The United States suffers a terrorist
attack, which receives widespread attention
2001 in China.
January: Journal of Literature and Art The rst Pingyao International Photography
( Wenyi bao ) publishes the article “In the estival ( Pingyao guoji sheying jie is held in
Name of Art: The ead End of Chinese A ant- the an ient ity of ingyao, Shan i.
arde Art Yi yishu de mingyi: hongguo The irst Independent ilm ideo estival
ianwei yishu de iongtumolu riti i ing ( Zhongguo shoujie yingxiang jie ) opens at
and triggering dis ussion o er a ant-garde the Bei ing ilm A ademy, urated by ong
art and performan e art. n April 3, the Bingfeng, Yang i, hang Ya uan, and Yang
Ministry of Culture issues a noti e to ease Chao. Its signi an e lies in that it is the rst
all performan es and bloody, brutal displays attempt to resear h and summari e more
of obs enity in the name of art. In April, than 10 years of Chinese independent
the journal Art ondu ts is ussions on ideo-making.
erforman e Art uanyu ingwei yishu de October: The inth Asia-Pacific Economic
taolun . n No ember 22, the Ministry of Cooperation ( APEC ) Economic Leaders’
Culture and the epartment of Laws and Meeting is held in Shanghai.
egulations osponsor a Symposium on Reel China — New Chinese Documentary
Implementing the Central Committee of the estival takes pla e in New York City.
CC s utline for Ci i Morality Luoshi December: China joins the World Trade
honggong hongyang gongmin daode Organization ( WTO ).
ianshe shishi gangyao uotanhui , on e Transplantation in situ — The Fourth
again riti i ing a few people for iolent, ruel, Shenzhen Contemporary Sculpture Art
and pornographi ondu t in the name of Exhibition (Bei yizhi de xianchang — di si jie
art and proposing to ta kle problems with Shenzhen dangdai diaosu yishu zhan is held
performan e art in a omprehensi e way. at the He iangning Art Museum in
March: The e hibition Post-Sensibility: Shen hen, showing publi s ulpture by
Spree ( Hou ganxing: kuanghuan is held at Chinese and ren h artists. Huang huan
the Bei ing ilm A ademy, urated by is the urator for the Chinese side.
iu hi ie. The ontemporary Chinese art e hibition
2001 Beijing New Century International Dialogo — Others takes pla e in Bari, Italy.
Women’s Art Exhibition ( 2001 nian Beijing xin The irst Chengdu Biennial Di yi jie
shiji guoji funü yishu zhan ) opens at the Chengdu shuangnianzhan is organi ed by
National Art Museum of China, Bei ing the Museum of Modern Art in Chengdu,
urated by Liu iao hun, u hen ing, June: The Academic Exchange Exhibition
430
Huang iaorong, and eng Bin, and funded of Contemporary Prints ( Dangdai banhua
by ia hou California Industrial, Ltd. The xueshu jiaoliu zhan and orresponding
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theme is Model, Easel ( Yangban, jiashang ). symposium, urated by Chen iao in, are
The 16th Asian International Art xhibition held at Chengdu A ademy of ainting.
is held at the uangdong Museum of Art, September: Bridge — Changchun
uang hou. Contemporary Art Annual Invitational
Xi’an Contemporary Open Art Exhibition Exhibition (Qiao — Changchun dangdai yishu
( Xi’an dangdai yishu kaifang zhan takes place niandu yaoqing zhan ) takes place in the
at ongyang rimary S hool in i an. Chang hun ar East Art Museum, urated by
nowledge Is Power ( Zhishi jiushi liliang ) Wang ianguo, hao Shulin, and Huang Yan.
is sponsored by and held at the Bei ing Books The First Triennial of Chinese Art ( Shoujie
Building in idan, Bei ing, urated by eng Zhongguo yishu sannianzhan is held at
Boyi and Hua Tian ue. uang hou Art Museum, urated by eng
e and Li iaoshan.
2002 November: Beijing Afloat ( Beijing
January: The Allure of Tradition — fushihui , the opening e hibition of Bei ing
International Art Exhibition of the Tokyo Art ro e ts, urated by eng Boyi,
Contemporary Art Collection at the National is held in the Bei ing 798 ashan i Art
Art Museum of China and Work Donated istri t. Bei ing Tokyo Art ro e ts, sponsored
by Mr. and Mrs. Ludwig ( Chuantong mei- by Tokyo allery, is the rst foreign gallery
li — Zhongguo meishuguan diancang dangdai business to open in the new ashan i
meishu zuopin ji ludeweixi fufu juanzeng Art istri t.
guoji yishupin zhan) opens at the Museum The 16th Congress of the CCP is held in
of Modern Art in Chengdu. Beijing, which issues the important decree
February: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang “Three Represents” ( principles for continued
( Cai Guoqiang de yishu is held at the progress ). The First Plenary Session of the
Shanghai Art Museum a symposium on 15th Central Committee of the CCP elects
the e hibition is also held. Hu Jintao as the General Secretary of the
2002 Shanghai Abstract Art Group Show Central Committee.
( 2002 Shanghai chouxiang yishu quntizhan ) The Fourth Shanghai Biennale opens at
takes pla e at the Liu Haisu Art Museum, the Shanghai Art Museum with the theme
Shanghai. Urban Creation (Dushi yingzao , urated by
Wang Bing s do umentary Tie Xi Qu: u iang, an i an, Alanna Heiss, Wu iang,
West of the Tracks wins the grand pri e at laus Biesenba h, and Yuko Hasegawa.
the Lisbon International o umentary The irst uang hou Contemporary
Film Festival in Portugal. Art Triennial, Reinterpretation: A Decade of
March: The themati art e hibition xperimental Chinese Art 1990 – 2000
Beijing Youth Daily — Media and Art ( Beijing ( Shoujie Guangzhou dangdai yishu sannian-
qingnian bao — chuanmei yu yishu is held zhan —Chongxin jiedu: Zhongguo shiyan yishu
at the China International E hibition Center shinian 1990 – 2000 opens at the uangdong
the e hibition hair is Yang un. Museum of Art, with Wu Hung as the hief
April: A Journey into Fantasy — Interactive urator other urators in lude Wang
xhibition of Salvador Dal ’s Works Huangsheng, Huang huan, and eng Boyi.
( uangxiang de l cheng: dashi Dali huzhu uring the e hibition, a symposium titled
yishu zhan takes pla e at the uangdong la e and Model idian yu moshi
Museum of Art. is held. Reinterpretation: A Decade of
The symposium Chinese il ainting xperimental Chinese Art 1990 – 2000/Chongxin
and the New Century hongguo youhua jiedu: Zhongguo shiyan yishu shinian 1990 –
yu in shi i , sponsored by the Chinese il 2000 is published in both Chinese and English
ainting So iety, is held in Bei ing. ersions, offering a omprehensi e o er iew
May: The symposium etrospe ti e of of Chinese e perimental art in the 1990s.
100 Years of Chinese Ink ainting and Its
e elopment in the New Century is held 2003
in New York, sponsored by the Asso iation January: The e hibition Junction:
of Modern Chinese Art. Architectural Experiments of Chinese
The Chinese ontemporary art symposium Contemporary Art ( iedian: Zhongguo dangdai
New ision, New Media in shi ian in yishu de jianzhu shijian is held at the Lianyang
meiti is held in un un, in hou, Shan i Ar hite ture Art Museum, urated by
pro in e, moderated by an i an and Yi Ying. Ai Weiwei and hang ing.
March: SARS breaks out in China, creating
431
Exhibition of Contemporary Art ( Zuoshou yu
widespread social panic. youshou — Zhong De dangdai yishu lianzhan ,
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Chinese Maximalism ( Zhongguo jiduo urated by eng Boyi, and Tui-Transfiguration:
zhuyi organi ed by the Millennium Art The Image World of Rong Rong and inri
Museum, Bei ing, and ni ersity of Buffalo ( Tui: Rongrong and yingli , urated by Wu
New York Art alleries, S NY Buffalo, Hung pl. 48 .
urated by ao Minglu, opens in Bei ing. The rst adao Li e Art esti al Dadao
Text & Subtext: Contemporary Asian xianchang yishujie is held in the ashan i Art
Women Artists is held at - AY Art Center istri t in Bei ing.
in Bei ing, urated by Binghui Huangfu. Turnaround — the irst Annual Invitational
An e ent titled Transborder Language: Exhibition by the journal Contemporary Artists
Poetry Performance Art ( Yuejie yuyan: shi (Zhuanxiang — 2003 Dangdai yishujia shoujie
xingwei yishu de xianchang ) takes place at niandu yaoqingzhan is held at the Chong ing
the Bei ing Tokyo Art ro e ts. Museum of Art.
Asia Art Ar hi e AAA , dedi ated to September: 2003 Microwave International
do umenting the re ent history of isual art New Media Arts estival opens at Hong ong
from the region in an international onte t, City Hall.
opens in Hong ong. The 2003 Chinese Cartoon Industry orum
June: The 50th eni e Biennale opens. i e and ingdao International Cartoon Art Week
artists were chosen to represent China at the ( 2003 Zhongguo katong chanye luntan ji
rst e er Chinese national pa ilion, howe er, ingdao guoji katong yishuzhou ) takes place
due to SA S, their parti ipation is an eled. in the International Convention Center
Alors, la Chine? opens at Centre eorges in ingdao.
ompidou in aris, the rst large-s ale Chinese November: Double Time: Invitational
ontemporary art e hibition in ran e to be Exhibition of Contemporary Asian Art
prepared in asso iation with the Chinese ( Shuangchong shijian: Yazhou dangdai yishu
go ernment. It is sponsored by the Ministry yaoqingzhan opens at the art gallery of
of Culture and urated by an i an. the China National A ademy of ine Arts.
July: An e hibition to elebrate the Hello, Comrade Mingong — Contemporary
completion of the renovation of the National Art Exhibition ( Mingong tongzhi — dangdai
Art Museum of China and ommemorating yishu zhan is held at Today Art Museum,
the 40th anni ersary of its founding is held. Bei ing, urated by Yang inyi. It in ludes
The e hibition, Experiment and Exploration 14 artists, su h as Song ong, iu hi ie,
( Shiyan, tanxun , in ludes Chinese a ant- Wang in, Yang udong, and hang Nian.
garde art. December: The Fifth Shenzhen
September: The 2003 Shanghai Spring International Contemporary Sculpture
Art Salon ( Art Shanghai ) ( 2003 Shanghai Exhibition ( Di 5 jie Shenzhen guoji dangdai
chunji yishu shalong opens at the uangda diaosu zhan ) takes place at Overseas Chinese
E hibition Center, during whi h Wang Lin Town in Shen hen, urated by Hou Hanru
presides o er the irst National orum and i Li. The theme is The Fifth System —
of Young Art Criti s Shou ie uanguo Public Art in the Age of Post-Planning ( Di wu
ingnian meishu piping ia luntan . Its xitong — hou guihua shidai de gonggong yishu).
pro eedings are published in Critics’ The photography e hibition Humanism
Criticisms and Self-Criticisms ( Pipingjia de in China — A Contemporary Record of
piping yu ziwo piping ). Photography ( Zhongguo renben — jishi zai
The rst Bei ing International Art Biennale dangdai opens at uangdong Museum
( Zhongguo Beijing guoji meishu shuangnian- of Art, urated by An e, Hu Wugong, and
zhan takes pla e at the Millennium Art Wang Huangsheng. A symposium of the
Museum and the National Art Museum of same title also takes place.
China, sponsored by the Chinese ederation The international tra eling e hibition of
of Literary and Art Cir les, the Bei ing the Stedeli k Museum, Amsterdam, olle tion
Muni ipal o ernment, and the Chinese Encounters with Modernism ( Quanshi
Artists Asso iation. The theme is Originality: xiandai opens at the Shanghai Art Museum.
Contemporaneity and Locality ( Chuangxin: Image of Images — 2003 Chinese
dangdaixing yu diyuxing ). Contemporary il Painting Invitational
uring the Bei ing International Art Exhibition ( Tuxiang de tuxiang — 2003
Biennale, a number of a ant-garde satellite Zhongguo dangdai youhua yaoqingzhan )
e hibitions take pla e two share the 798 opens at Shen hen Art Museum.
furna e fa tory transformed into an art spa e: The rst forum of the Shen hen Art
Left Hand, Right Hand — A Sino-German Museum, Symbiosis and Intera tion
Contemporary Art Criti ism and meizhan is held in 10 sites: Hang hou
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Contemporary Art ongsheng yu Chinese painting , uang hou oil painting ,

hudong dangdai yishu piping yu dangdai Chengdu prints , Shantou water olor,
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yishu , is held at the onferen e hall at goua he , Chang hun s ulpture , iamen
Beiling u Hotel in Shen hen. It re e ts s ulpture , uang hou murals , Nan ing
on Chinese ontemporary art riti ism and la uer painting, New Year s painting,
20 years of ontemporary art, and ondu ts propaganda art, illustration, pi ture books,
a comprehensive critical review of the artoons , Shanghai art design , and
a hie ements and problems of 20 years Shen hen spe ial in itational works from
of art criticism. Hong ong and Ma ao .
ollowing on the 2000 e hibition Tobacco
2004 Project: A Series of Installations Created by
February: Zooming into ocus: Xu Bing at uke ni ersity, urham, North
Contemporary Chinese Photography and Carolina, Tobacco Project: Shanghai (Yancao
Video from the Haudenschild Collection (Jujiao jihua: Shanghai opens at Shanghai allery
Zhongguo dangdai sheying he luxiang — of Art, urated by Wu Hung, and with
laizi Haudenschild fufu de shoucang ) opens an a ompanying symposium.
at the Shanghai Art Museum. September: The 2004 Nomination
March: Chinese Digital Art Exposition Exhibition of the Journal “Fine Arts Literature”
( Zhongguo shuma yishu bolanhui is held ( 2004 niandu Meishu wenxian timingzhan )
at Haidian Theatre in Bei ing. is held at the gallery at the Hubei Institute
Xu Bing’s installation Where does the of ine Arts, urated by Liu Ming, with
dust itself collect? ( He chu ruo chen ai ) wins i ao ian, Wang Lin, eng Boyi, and others
the Artes Mundi 1 ri e in Wales. presiding o er the nominating pro ess.
April: The rst China International Gallery uring the e hibition, the Fine Arts
Exposition ( CIGE ) ( Zhongguo guoji hualang Literature orum is on ened and a Fine
bolanhui is held at the Chinese International Arts pri e is awarded.
S ien e and Te hnology Con ention Center The rst Architectural Biennial Beijing
in Beijing. ( Zhongguo guoji jianzhu yishu shuangnianzhan )
The rst Dashanzi International Art estival is held at the National Museum of Art and
( DIAF ) ( Dashanzi guoji yishujie ) takes place other sites.
in Bei ing s ashan i Art istri t, urated Shanghai Duolun Exhibition of Young Artists
by Huang ui. (Shanghai duolun qingnian meishu dazhan)
June: Le Moine et le démon: Art contempo- is held at the uolun Museum of Modern Art
rain chinois is held in Lyon, oprodu ed by in Shanghai, urated by in eng and others.
uangdong Museum of Art, Lyon Museum of The ifth Shanghai Biennale is held at
Contemporary Art, and the uy and Myriam Shanghai Art Museum, urated by u iang
llens oundation, and urated by ei awei. hief urator , heng Shengtian, Sebasti n
This is the last and the biggest Chinese L pe , hang ing, and ao Shiming the
ontemporary art e hibition in the Year theme is Techniques of the Visible ( Yingxiang
of China in ran e. shengcun ).
Between Past and uture — New dyssey s 2004 ( Aodesai , an e hibition
Photography and Video from China, co- of e patriate artists li ing in ran e, is
organi ed by the International Center of held at the Shanghai allery of Art, urated
hotography IC and the a id and Alfred by Martina ppel-Yang parti ipants are
Smart Museum of Art, ni ersity of Chi ago, Chen hen, u hen un, Huang Yong ing,
in ollaboration with the Asia So iety and Lin Minghong, Shen Yuan, Wang u,
the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chi ago, Yan eiming, Yang ie hang, and Adel
and o urated by Wu Hung and Christopher Abdessemed Maimaiti.
hillips, opens in New York at the IC October: The a ademi forum ubli Art
and Asia So iety alleries, then tra els to in China onggong yishu ai hongguo
Chi ago, Seattle, London, and Berlin. is held in Shen hen, urated by Sun henhua
July: The losing eremony for the Year and Lu Hong the pro eedings are published
of China in ran e, China, Imagination: under the same name.
Chinese Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition December: The Fourth International
( Zhongguo, xiangxiang: Zhongguo dangdai Ink ainting Biennial of Shen hen opens at
diaosu zhan is held at ardin des Tuileries in uan Shanyue Museum, Shen hen ine
aris, urated by an i an and Yin Shuang i. Art Institute, and Shen hen Museum of Art,
August: The rst phase of the Tenth urated by ong iaoming, Yan Shan hun,
National Art Exhibition ( Di shi jie quanguo Lu Hong, and ao Minglu.
2005
433
on editing the Contemporary Chinese Art
January: Re - viewing the City — 2005 Yearbook ( Zhongguo dangdai yishu nianjian ).
Guangzhou Photo Biennial ( Chengshi, The Se ond Triennial of Chinese Art,
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Chongshi — 2005 Guangzhou guoji sheying Archeology of the Future ( Weilai kaoguxue , is
shuangnianzhan opens, urated by u held at the Nan ing Museum the urators
heng, Alain ullien, and An e. in lude iu hi ie, uo ing, and hu Tong.
The He iangning Art Museum Ad isory The First China International Animation
Committee on enes in Shen hen for its estival and xposition ( Shoujie Zhongguo
rst annual meeting, presided o er by guoji dongmanjie is held in Hang hou.
Wu Hung, and parti ipants in lude Ai Weiwei, June: At the 51st eni e Biennale, for
an i an, ei awei, eng Boyi, ao the rst time, China has a national pa ilion
Minglu, Huang Yong ing, Huang huan, at a temporary site . The theme is Virgin
Le hengwei, aren Smith, Wang uangyi, Garden: Emersion, urated by Cai uo- iang,
Wang ianwei, u Bing, u iang, Yan and it in ludes e artists.
Shan hun, Yi Ying, Yung Ho Chang, hang ne hundred artists sign the petition
eili, and hu ingsheng. The meeting passes to sa e the Bei ing International Art Camp
the Constitution of the He iangning Art ( Beijing guoji yishu ying in Suo ia illage,
Museum Ad isory Committee, the lan Cuige huang iang, Bei ing.
for the International esiden y rogram Mahjong: Contemporary Chinese Art from
at the CT Contemporary Art Terminal, the Sigg Collection opens simultaneously
and the proposal for the Si th Shen hen at unstmuseum Bern, Swit erland, and the
Contemporary S ulpture E hibition. Holderbank e hibition hall of Hol im A ,
Wu Hung heads the CT Contemporary near Zurich.
Art Terminal Ad isory Committee. The irst Biennale internationale d art
The CT Contemporary Art Terminal of ontemporain hinois opens in Montpelier,
the He iangning Art Museum CAT opens ran e, urated by os r hes. The
in Shen hen with the e hibition Taking ff: opening eremony is held simultaneously
An Exhibition of the Contemporary Art in Montpelier and Chengdu.
Collection in the He Xiangning Art Museum Time magazine features Chinese contem-
and Contemporary Art Terminal ( Qifei: He porary artworks on the cover and publishes
Xiangning meishuguan ji OCAT dangdai yishu more than 20 pages of related articles on
diancang zhan . CAT also holds The irst the topic of “China’s ew Revolution.”
oi e: orum of Chinese Contemporary The 3 th annual ongress of the Bund
Artists i yi hong shengyin: hongguo reis haffender oto- esigner erman
dangdai yishu ia luntan the pro eedings Asso iation of reelan e hotographers
are published under the same name. dis usses the topi China – otografie, unst
March: Body Temperature — Commemorating & Werbung heute ( China — Photography, Art
the 200th Anniversary of the Birthday of Hans Advertising Today in Hamburg, ermany.
Christian Andersen: Invitational xhibition July: The Se ond Chengdu Biennial, on
of Chinese Contemporary Art ( Tiwen — jinian the theme Century and Paradise ( Shiji yu
Antusheng Danchen 200 zhounian Zhongguo tiantang , is sponsored and held at the
dangdai yishu yaoqingzhan is held at the Chengdu Century City New International
Millennium Art Museum. an i an is the Con ention E position Centers, urated
chair of the art committee. by an i an, Yin Shuang i, eng Boyi, Huang
The e hibition About Beauty and its iaorong, and eng Bin.
a ompanying symposium open at the Haus The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese
der ulturen der Welt in Berlin, urated Art ( iang: Zhongguo dangdai yishu ershinian
by Wu Hung. arti ipating Chinese artists de lishi chonggou , organi ed by the Albright-
in lude Wang ong in, Lin Tianmiao, no Art allery, Buffalo, and the ni ersity at
in Yufen, hu inshi, Liu heng, Liu an, Buffalo Art alleries, urated by ao Minglu,
ong ong, Shi Chong, and huang Hui. opens at the Millennium Art Museum, Bei ing,
To regulate the business of the Chinese and then is seen in Buffalo at the Albright-
art market, the China Commer ial Allian e no and the ni ersity alleries.
Art Market ederation Zhongguo shangye Hans Hartung in China opens at the
lianhehui yishu shichang lianmeng is founded National Art Museum of China, urated by
in Beijing. Andr neib, hu ingsheng, and ean-
May: Chinese Modern Art Ar hi es at Charles Agboton- urmau. The e hibition
eking ni ersity, CAT in Shen hen, and travels to the Nanjing Museum.
the Center for the Art of East Asia at the September: The large-scale public
ni ersity of Chi ago agree to ollaborate welfare a ti ity ourney of the Big River —
co China 2005, Ten Thousand Miles on the The Se ond uang hou Triennial ( Di er jie
434
Yellow River begins. nder the dire tion of Guangzhou dangdai yishu shuangnianzhan )
rofessor hu ingsheng, members of the is held at the uangdong Museum of Art,
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Modern Art Studies so iety and students urated by Hou Hanru, Hans lri h brist,
from the epartment of igital Art at eking and uo iaoyan.
ni ersity present work titled Washing the The So iologi al Turn in Contemporary
Yellow River ( Xi huanghe , parti ipating in this Art Criti s orum and Se ond Shen hen
e perimental art e ent in the form of purely Art Museum orum Shen hen and Ma ao
Internet art. angdai yishu de shehui ue huan ing
The se ond Bei ing International Art hong ingnian piping ia luntan i di er ie
Biennale is held at the National Art Museum Shen hen meishuguan luntan is held at the
of China. Shen hen Art Museum.
The 1 th Congress of the International December: The 2005 Shen hen Biennale
lasti Artists Asso iation Di shiliu jie guoji of rbanism and Ar hite ture, with the theme
zaoxing yishujia xiehui daibiao dahui is held City, Open Door! ( Chengshi, kaimen , is held
in Bei ing and Hefei. at CAT, urated by Yung Ho Chang.
The large-s ale multimedia e hibition Song ong s solo e hibition Waste Not
Plato and His Seven Spirits ( Bailatu he ta de qi ( Wujinqiyong opens at Bei ing Tokyo Art
zhong jingling is held in Bei ing and Shen hen, ro e ts, urated by Wu Hung. In the
urated by Huang huan. e hibition, Song ong ollaborates with
The Century of Chinese Characters — Grand his mother hao ianglan, using ob e ts
Exhibition of the Art of Chinese Characters hao has olle ted o er 50 years.
(“Hanzi shiji” — hanzi yishu dazhan is held at
the Millennium Art Museum, urated by 2006
Luo Li. January: After being shown in Taipei and
November: Cultural Translation — Wenda Bei ing, the e hibition iction Love ( Xuni de
Gu’s Forest of Stone Steles: Retranslation and ai , urated by i toria Lu, is shown at the
Rewriting of Tang Poetry 1993 – 2004 (Wenhua Museum of Contemporary Art and Bund 18
fanyi — Gu Wenda Beilin — Tangshi houzhu Creati e Center, both in Shanghai. It then
1993 – 2004 see pl. 49 is held at CAT tra els to the Singapore Art Museum.
in Shen hen along with an international Contemporary Image — First Contemporary
symposium Translating isuality anyi Chinese Art Almanac Exhibition and Zhong
yu shi ue wenhua , urated and hosted by Hongxin International Auction Company
Wu Hung. Contemporary Chinese Art Auction ( Dangdai
The 2005 China Bei ing International shixiang — shoujie Zhongguo dangdai yishu
Calligraphy Biennial 2005 Zhongguo Beijing nianjian ji Zhonghongxin Zhongguo dangdai
guoji shufa shuangnianzhan is held. yishupin paimaihui is held at the Millennium
Zooming into ocus: Contemporary Chinese Art Museum, urated by an i an.
Photography and Video ( ujiao: Zhongguo The international touring e hibition Asian
dangdai sheying he luxiang is held at the Traffic ( Yazhou jiaotong , urated by Huangfu
National Art Museum of China, the rst Binghui and Huang huan, is shown in
spe ial sur ey e hibition of the sub e t at Shen hen at CAT, the si th stop on its tour
the museum. 2004 .
Sculpture: A Century — the Opening of February: The Thirteen: Chinese Video
Shanghai Sculpture Space & Exhibition Now is held at .S. 1 Contemporary Art
( Diaosu bainian — Shanghai chengshi diaosu Center in New York, o urated by a id
yishu zhongxin kaiguan dazhan is held on Thorp and Sun Ning. In uly, the e hibition
the opening day of the enter, urated by tra els to latform China Contemporary Art
u hongwang. The e hibition is di ided Institute in Beijing.
into three parts: Centennial Classics — March: Documents on Drifting: Exhibition
Masterpieces of Chinese Sculptors ( Shiji of Hu Min’s Photography and Hu Jie’s
jingdian — Zhongguo diaosu mingjia mingzuo Documentary Film of Yuanmingyuan Artists
guanmozhan Opening Up — Invitational ( Piaoliu dang’an: Hu Min Yuanmingyuan
Exhibition of Famous Sculptors in the New Era yishujia qunluo sheying zhan ji Hu Jie
( aifang zhi l — Xin shiqi diaosu mingjia Yuanmingyuan yishujia qunluo jilupian
yaoqingzhan and Heading Toward the zhanying is held at Today Art Museum,
Future — A Group Exhibition of Outstanding Bei ing, and urated by Yang Wei.
Works by Young Sculptors ( Zouxiang weilai — April: Special Exhibition of Early Contemporary
dangdai qingnian diaosujia youxiu zuopin Chinese Art from the Fischer Collection
lianzhan ). ( eishe’er fufu zaoqi Zhongguo dangdai yishupin
435
shoucang tezhan is held at the Bei ing Imperial ( Changzheng jihua — Yan’an ) take place
City Art Museum, in luding 300 works in Yan an, urated by Lu ie.
olle ted by Swiss olle tor rgen Ludwig The 2006 Shanghai Spring Art Salon
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is her between 1990 and 1993. ( Art Shanghai ) ( 2006 Shanghai chunji yishu
The Third China Independent ilm estival shalong is held at ShanghaiMart.
( Di san jie Zhongguo duli yingxiang zhan ) June: The Exhibition of Proposals for the
is held at the CM Art Museum, Nan ing, Beijing lympics: Public Art, nvironmental
urated by Cao ai, uo ing, and hu ikun. Facilities, and City Sculpture ( Beijing Aoyun
The festi al arefully sele ts important gonggong yishu huanjing sheshi ji chengshi
independent works by utting-edge dire tors diaosu fang’an zhan is held at the Bei ing
in China between 2004 and 2005 and in ludes City lanning E hibition Hall.
three types: feature lm, e perimental The Zhengzhou International City of
shorts, and do umentaries. Sculpture & Cultural Year: First International
The opening eremony and press Sculpture Exhibition ( Zhongguo Zhengzhou
onferen e for the Artist ension Trust A T guoji chengshi diaosu yishu nian — shoujie
are held at the Long Mar h Spa e in Bei ing. guoji diaosu jingpin zhan ) opens at the
A T Bei ing is reated by Mutual Art, a rm heng hou International Con ention and
dealing in new monetary ser i es in the art E hibition Centre, in Henan.
domain, whose head uarters are in New York. The 2008 lympic Landscape Sculpture
The interdis iplinary symposium International Exhibition ( Aoyun jingguan
Modernity and the Transformation of diaosu fang’an zhengji dasai ) starts to tour
Twentieth-Century Chinese Art and the the ountry.
e hibition The Road of Chinese Modern Art: A Symposium on erforman e Art
An Exhibition of Historical Literature ingwei yishu yantaohui is held in Bei ing,
(Xiandaixing yu 20 shiji Zhongguo meishu hosted by hu ingsheng.
zhuanxing qua xueke xueshu yantaohui ji July: Code: Blue — Confluence of Currents
Zhongguo xiandai meishu zhi lu wenxianzhan) (Daima: lanse — chaoliu huiji , the Third Beijing
take pla e at City ni ersity of Hong ong, International New Media Art Exhibition, and
urated by an ongkai. its a ompanying symposium take pla e at the
Adopting the theme Beijing Background Millennium Art Museum and Bei ing Cubi Art
( Beijing Beijing , the 200 Dashanzi Center, urated by hang a and Timothy
International Art estival takes place in the ru krey.
ashan i Art istri t, urated by Huang ui The e hibition One Time Consumption —
and Li ing. CAT in Renovation ( Yicixing xiaofei —
Stay Put ( Liushou , the opening e hibition zhuangxiu OCAT , urated by Huang Liaoyuan,
of the Suo ia illage International Art Camp, is held at CAT, one of the sites for the
Bei ing, is held. 200 China Shen hen erseas Chinese
May: The Symposium on Humanisti Town Tourism Carni al and the rst Chinese
lympi s and ubli Art enwen aoyun yu Contemporary Art esti al 2006 Zhongguo
gonggong yishu iaoliu uotanhui , ospon- ( Shenzhen Huaqiaocheng l you kuanghuanjie
sored by the National City S ulpture ji shoujie Zhongguo dangdai yishujie ).
Constru tion Ad isory Committee and Bei ing August: From Polar Region to Tiexi
City S ulpture Constru tion and Management District —Contemporary Art in Northeastern
f e, pro ides a platform to e hange iews China 1985 – 2006 ( Cong jidi dao tiexiqu —
on the meaning of publi art, to ondu t dongbei dangdai yishu zhan 1985 – 2006 )
omparati e studies between publi art and is held at the uangdong Museum of Art,
ity s ulpture, and to dis uss the e e ution of the rst in the e hibition series Phenomena
publi art and ity s ulpture for the promotion of Art Since 1985 ( ’85 yilai xianxiang yu
of i i irtue and humanist alues. E perts zhuangtai xilie dazhyan organi ed by the
on publi art from other ountries introdu e museum.
their managerial systems and e perien es The irst Asian Art Museum ire tors
with publi art in de eloped nations. orum: ASEAN 3 is held at the National
Revival: New Ink Art Shanghai 2006 Art Museum of China.
( Shuimo zaisheng: 2006 nian Shanghai xin September: The Twelve: Chinese
shuimo yishu dazhan is held at the hu Contemporary Art Awards Exhibition (Shier:
i han Art Museum and uolun Museum CCAA dangdai yishu jiang is held at the endai
of Modern Art, both in Shanghai, urated Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai, urated
by u hen ing. by i Li it is the rst CCAA award e hibition.
The reation, e hibition, and symposium The Si th Shanghai Biennale, Hyper Design
events of the Long March Project — Yan’an ( Chao sheji , is held. The urators in lude
hang ing, Huang u, Lin Shumin, Wonil Arts. The three topi s under dis ussion
436
hee, onathan Watkins, and ianfran o are riti ism and e hibition, riti ism and
Maraniello. media, and art riti ism.
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The Si th wang u Biennale opens, November: ITAL 06: International

with the theme ever ariations. Wu Hung Chinese Live Art estival is held at the Chinese
is the hief urator of the irst Chapter. Arts Centre in Man hester, , sponsored
arti ipating Chinese artists in lude Hong by the Li e Art e elopment Agen y.
Hao, iu hi ie, Song ong, u Bing, hang arti ipating artists in lude He Chengyao,
ali, hang Huan, and others. He Yun hang, ai uangyu, and others from
Entry Gate: Chinese Aesthetics of China and the diaspora.
Heterogeneity ( Rujing: Zhongguo meixue ) Coming from Daily Life: First Documentary
is held at the Museum of Contemporary Art Exhibition of Academic Experimental Art
in Shanghai, the rst in a series of biannual (Yuanyu shenghuo: shoujie xueyuan shiyan yishu
En isage e hibitions at the museum. wenxianzhan) is held at the Central A ademy
Curators in lude Ye Yong ing, li Sigg, of ine Arts hu Lou art spa e, urated by
Sunhee im, and i toria Lu. Wu ian an. This is the rst large-s ale
A Yellow Box in ingpu: Art and a ademi e hibition with the theme of
Architecture in a Chinese Space ( Huang hezi, e perimental art at CA A s S hool of ine Arts.
ingpu, Zhongguo kongjian li de dangdai yishu December: 2006 Annual Lianzhou
zhan is held at iao imen, ingpu istri t, International Photo estival ( 2006 Lianzhou
Shanghai, urated by ao Shiming, Chang guoji sheying nianzhan ) takes place at the
Tsong- ung, and Hu iang heng. Cultural la a in Lian hou, urated by uan
The 10th eni e Ar hite ture Biennale Yuting. The a ademi theme is Origin:
takes pla e, and for the rst time China Between the bserver and the bserved
parti ipates in its national pa ilion, at whi h ( Yuandian, guancha yu beiguancha ).
an i an is urator. The Fifth International Ink Painting
Size Decides Attitude: irst 5x7 Pingyao Biennial of Shen hen, Design and Ink Painting
Picture-Taking Biennale Project ( Huafu jueding ( Sheji shuimo , is held at uan Shanyue
taidu: shoujie 5x7 Pingyao zhaoxiang Art Museum, Shen hen, urated by ong
shuangnian zhan) is held in ingyao, Shan i, iaoming and Wang u.
urated by Wu Hong. Documenta Mobil, a retrospe ti e
The se ond Architectural Biennial Beijing e hibition in elebration of the 50th
takes pla e at the National Museum of China, anni ersary of o umenta in assel, ermany,
Bei ing lanning E hibition Hall, and China tra els to the Chong ing Art Museum and
Millennium Monument. the gallery at Si huan ine Arts Institute.
Shu: Reinventing Books in Contemporary Aftershock: Contemporary British Art
Chinese Art, organi ed by the China Institute 1990 – 2006 takes pla e at the uangdong
in New York, urated by Wu Hung, opens. Museum of Art and the Capital Museum in
It tra els to the Seattle Art Museum and the Bei ing, urated by i Li, Colin Chinnery,
Honolulu A ademy of Arts. uo iaoyan, and Li ie Carey, and organi ed
October: The Blossoming of Realism — by the British Coun il and the two museums.
The il Painting in Mainland China Since 1978 2006 China Contemporary Art Document
( Zhankai de xianshizhuyi — 1978 nian yilai de Exhibition ( 2006 Zhongguo dangdai yishu
Zhongguo dalu youhua is held at the Taipei wenxianzhan is held at the Millennium Art
ine Arts Museum, urated by an i an. Museum. ia ang hou is the hief urator.
The Second Songzhuang Culture and Art 2006 Chinese Art Today ( 2006 jinri
estival ( Di er jie Zhongguo Songzhuang Zhongguo meishu dazhan is held at the
wenhua yishujie ) opens at the Xiaopu National Art Museum of China, urated by
Commer ial la a in Song huang, Bei ing, uo iao huan.
urated by Yang Wei. Its a ademi theme
is opening Song huang.
The Sixth Plenary Session of the 16th
Central Committee of the CCP is held,
passing the Resolution of the CCP Central
Committee on Major Issues Regarding the
Building of a Harmonious Socialist Society.
i an: Symposium on Models for
Contemporary Art Criti ism i an: angdai
meishu piping moshi tantaohui is held
at the gallery at the i an A ademy of ine
Ai Weiwei, ed. Chinese Artists, Texts, and Chinese Art. Buffalo, NY: Albright- no Art
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INDEX
illustrations. freelan e independent artists, 288
funding of, 333 audy, 199 204, 343
’98 Asia-Pacific Contemporary Art Invitational genuine s. prostitution, 87 history
Exhibition, 425 of, 100, 102, 403 , 412 human body used
2000 China: Internet, ideo and Photo Art in, 185, 270 8 , 345 47, 3 1 independent
Exhibition, 427 urators, 288 international, 152, 154,
2000 Shanghai Biennale Shanghai Spirit , 289, 349, 35 intrinsi and e trinsi
32 27, 330, 347 55, 348, 39 , 404, 428 perspe ti es on, 152 Land Earth, 182
as China s rst legitimate modern art Maoist theory on, 1 4 market for,
e hibition, 351 52 and transitions, 398 401 of the mind, 37 Ministry of
347 50 Culture Noti e, 27 77 moral irtue
of, 90 ob e ti e reality as sour e of, 3
abstra t e pressionism, 1 8 performan e, 11 , 117, 119 20, 121 23,
Aburdene, atri ia, 19 121, 154, 178, 179 84, 224, 274 7 , 342
A ademi Symposium on Issues egarding politi i ation of, 5, 102, 152 as pro ess,
Tradition in Chinese ainting, 414 105 11, 181, 340 propaganda, 5, 8
aestheti s, 1 , 17 18, 53 purifying language of, 101 3 readymades,
Against Capitalist Liberali ation ampaign, 1 8, 372, 377 realism, 410, 43 rethinking,
113 101 sear h for new forms, 11 taboo
Ai Weiwei 艾未未, 211, 401, 404, 425, 42 , 428, materials in, 270 71 tea hing of, 17
430, 433 ialogue with huang Hui, traditional, 101 unof ial groups and
2 9 Fur, 2 7 Han-Dynasty Urn with e hibitions, 7 untitled, 17
Coca-Cola Logo, Pl. 40 Art ( Meishu ) 美术, 14, 4 47, 9, 84, 117, 310,
Ai Weiwei and eng Boyi, on uck ff 312, 408 12, 414, 417, 419, 421
e hibition, 354 55 Art Market 艺术市场, 289, 292, 292, 300, 30 ,
Albright- no Art allery, 433 311 12
Ale ander the reat, 352 Art as Food, 334
Alors, la Chine? e hibition, 431 Art Asia Pacific, 1
An e pseud. , 安哥, 431, 433 art riti ism, 324 2 feminist, 185, 193 98
Analysis roup 解析, 99, 154, 405 Measuring Art Gallery 画廊, 312, 313 14, 413
Dots, 106 as New Measurement roup Art Garden 美苑, 315
新刻度小组, 422 Art History and Theory 美术史论, 49
Andrea, ohn de, 375 Art in America, 293
Andrews, ulia ., 358, 420 Art Life 艺术界, 314
Anhui ro in ial il ainting esear h art maga ines, 4 48, 310 15
Asso iation, 5 Art Panorama 艺术广角, 312
animals, slaughter of, 270, 274 7 , 278, Art Trends 艺术潮流, 310
345 47, 3 1 Artists 艺术家, 293, 314
Annual Art Critics Nomination Exhibition, 420, Artists Newsletter 美术家通讯, 315
421, 422 artists illages, 288, 400, 418, 419, 420, 422
Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Sculpture, 434
322 ARTnews, 1 7, 293
Anti-Spiritual ollution ampaign, 35, 72, 411 Arts Circle 美术界, 314
antirationalism, 58 Asia Art Ar hi e AAA , 404, 431
April ifth In ident 197 , 5 , 220 21, 408, Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, 420,
409 423, 427
April hotography So iety 四月影会, , Asia So iety, 425, 432
220 21 a ant-garde, 45, 48, 51, 8 , 174, 190
Ar hite tural Biennial Bei ing, 432, 43 China Avant-Garde e hibition, 113 2 and
Armory Show, New York 1913 , 127 modern art, 184 Neo-A ant- arde, 110
art: abstra t, 102, 117 a ademi , 5, 19, 7, and New Wa e, 127, 128, 129, 288 system
9 72, 154 animals used in, 270, 274 7 , to ir le, 307 10 underground, 320
278, 345 47, 3 1 for art s sake, 5, 78, 181 Avant-Garde Chinese Art: Beijing New York,
autonomy of, 118 Cartoon, 319, 343, 347 e hibition, 414
olle ti e a ti ities, 99 Con eptual, 37, Avant-Garde Today 今日先锋, 315, 421, 428
5, 129, 343 44 ontemporary Chinese,
, 5, 152, 184, 288 91, 307 10, 403 Bao ianfei 包剑斐: New Spa e series, 84, 85,
and reati ity, 99, 102 3, 111, 129 death 413 and ond So iety, 88, 414 esponses
e perien ed through, 279 8 owers to the E hibition 85 New Space, 84, 85
Bas uiat, ean-Mi hel, 175 Cao Xuelei 曹学雷, Rejecting Perspective, 84,
440
beha iorism, 0 1 85
Bei ing airport mural, 2, Castelli, Leo, 293
|
Bei ing lympi s, 402 Central A ademy of Arts and Crafts, Bei ing,
Bei ing Spring period 北京之春, 4 408, 413
Bei ing Tokyo Art ro e ts, 430, 431, 434 Central A ademy of ine Arts, Bei ing, 154,
Beijing Youth Daily 北京青年报, 418, 430 15 , 408, 409, 410, 412, 413, 414, 417, 418,
Beuys, oseph, 170, 250 422, 424, 425, 428, 429, 43 High S hool,
Biennale d Art Contemporain de Lyon, 424, 428 422, 424
Biennale internationale d art ontemporain Centre eorges ompidou, 417, 431
hinois, 433 C anne, aul, 1
Biennale of Sydney, 428 Chagall, Mar , White Crucifixion, 374
Bienal de S o aulo, 421 Chai iaogang, 95n3
Big-Tailed Elephant group 大尾象, 22 , 235, Chan, a id, 3 0, 425
345, 418 Chang Tsong- ung, 34 , 347, 359, 3 0, 42 ,
Brandt, Ale ander, 337 38, 42 43 and China’s New Art, Post-1989
Brouwer, Marianne, 358 e hibition, 359, 420 Fast Shots: China,
Bull, Hank, 3 0, 425 Hong ong and Taiwan ideo Art, 237
Bunin, I an Aleksee it h, 57 58 Chardin, ean-Baptiste, 27
Chen an ing 陈丹青, 412 and Bei ing
Cage, ohn, 105, 3 5 airport mural, 2, Entering the City, 2
Cai uo- iang 蔡国强: 412, 418, 419, 422, 423, Men of Gangba, 2 Mother and Son, 25,
425, 42 , 427, 428, 430, 433 The Earth Has 27 28 Pl. 6 My Se en aintings, 25 29
Its Black Hole, Too, 2 1 2 The Oxford Pilgrimage, 27 29 Shepherd, 25 Tibetan
Comet, 2 5 The Unrealized Century at the series, 19, 40, , 410 Pl. 6
Turn of the Millennium, 2 0 1 Air Chen Haiyan 陈海燕, 425 Herd of Sheep, 40
Pyramid pro e t, 2 2 Bringing to enice On the Horizon, 40
What Marco Polo Forgot, 2 3, 353 Pl. 45 Chen iagang 陈家刚, 333
Cultural Melting Bath, 2 , 358, 424 Earth Chen Lingyang 陈羚羊, 272, 273, 345
S TI Base Project, 2 1 etus Movement II, Chen L shou 陈绿寿, 175
2 3, 264 Floating, 2 5 Flying Dragon in the Chen L sheng 陈履生, e e tions on
Heavens, 358, 424 gunpowder drawings, erforman e Art, 274 27
398 Horizon Project, 2 5 Making a Ladder Chen i i, 115
to the Earth, 2 5 belisk of Tolerance, 2 2, Chen Shaoping 陈少平, 237, 423 egarding
2 3 as o erseas artist, 248, 354, 35 , 3 5, Analysis , 10
401 2 Parting of the Seas, 2 5 Peaceful Chen Shao iong 陈劭雄, 179, 198, 22 , 235,
Clouds, 2 2 3 Placid Earth, 2 2, 2 414, 415, 418, 423 The Bride Changes Her
ro e t for E traterrestrials series, 249, 264 Mind When the Television Channel Is
Project to xtend the Great Wall by 10,000 Changed, 235 Street — Haizhu Square, 218
Meters, 2 2, 2 3 Rebuilding the Berlin Why o I hotograph the Streets of
Wall, 2 2 Shifting Continents, 2 5 Sinking uang hou , 217 19
and Rising, 2 2 Time Space Reversion Chen Shu ia 陈淑霞, 155, 15 , 195
Project, 2 2 Trap, 2 True Collection, 2 3 Chen Wenbo 陈文波, 175, 273, 34
Venice’s Rent Collection Courtyard, 35 , Chen Xi 陈曦, 19
3 9, 369, 371 72, 374, 377 78, 402 42 , Chen iao in 陈孝信, 430 Sele tion
428 Wild lights of an y, 2 1 ro ess, 299 302
Cai in 蔡锦, 42 Banana series, 19 Pl. 26 Chen iaoyi, 299, 412
Cai ing 蔡青, 343, 344, 345, 424 Plow and Chen Yanyin 陈妍音, 423, 425
Sow, 340 Chen Yiming 程宜明, Liu Yulian, Li Bin:
alligraphy, 185, 188, 254 57 Maple, 19 21, 47, 409 Pl. 3 Scar, 20, 408
Camus, Albert, 51, 158 Chen Zhen 陈箴, 248, 249 50, 251, 358, 3 5,
Cang Xin 苍鑫, 224, 428 412, 418, 424, 425, 427, 429, 432 Jue Chang,
Cao Biao, 119 ifty Strokes to ach, 353 Pl. 38 solo
Cao Fei 曹斐 China Tra y, RMB City: A e hibition, renoble, 419
Second Life City Planning, 397 Pl. 47 Chen ui, 42 43
Cao Li 曹力, 58 Cheng Conglin 程丛林: A Summer Night in
Cao Liwei 曹力伟, White Ox, 40 1979, 32 Snow on X Day X Month, 1968,
Cao iaodong 曹晓冬, 95n3 22 23, 410 Pl. 4
Cao Xiao’ou 曹小鸥, on China Avant-Garde, Cheng Yanan 程亚楠, 59
121 2 Cheng Yan iu, 1
441
Chengdu Biennial, 429, 433 Cui ian, 158, 1 0
Chengdu Contemporary Art Museum, 332, Cultural e olution: art politi i ed in, 5, 157,
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427 170, 25 beginning of, 5, 118 bourgeois
INDEX
Chia, Sandro, 128 intelle tuals in, 18 oming of age in, 11, 12,
China Art and Ar hi es Warehouse, 42 32 33 end of, 5, 159, 198, 219 modern
China: 5,000 Years e hibition, 2 3 trends afterward, 77 78 most famous oil
China: Internet, Video, and Photo Art, 331 painting of, 422 post- re olutionary art,
China Avant-Garde e hibition, 113 2 , 3 3, 158 1, 1 2 re y led images from, 154,
417 ba kground material on, 114 15 brief 17 77, 185, 39 and S ar Art, 19, 22, 23,
a ount of, 121 2 urator onfessions, 408 as Ten-Year Calamity, 29 Western art
11 20 and end of New Wa e, 157 58 forbidden in, 35
gun re, 119 20, 121, 122, 12 idea for, 49, Current of Life mo ement 生活流, 53, 55, 2,
113, 127 No -Turn sign, 119, 121 118
ob e ti e of, 115, 117 opening day, 114, 119, Cyni al ealism 玩世现实主义, 154, 157, 158,
417 Pl. 16 and op art, 172 73 and role of 1 1 2, 1 4, 1 7, 198, 311, 321, 343, 3 3,
riti s, 301, 312 prepatory ommittee for, 3 4, 3 8
41 so ial impa t of, 113, 180, 31 , 39
suspension of, 120, 121 22, 12 , 173, 417 ada 达达, 49, 51, 89, 132, 1 8
symposium on, 4 , 48, 124 25 al Lago, ran es a, 3 1, 420
China National A ademy of ine Arts al , Sal ador, 39, 59, 127 Premonition of Civil
formerly he iang A ademy , 232, 423, War, 374
424, 238, 431 Damaged by Affluence e hibition, 200
China’s New Art: Post-1989, 1 7, 318, 320, 347, ao i 岛子, 424 and New History roup,
35 , 359, 3 0, 360 180 eprodu tion of Rent Collection
Chinese Artists Asso iation, 4 , 9, 75, Courtyard and ostmodernism, 371 7
85 8 , 348 49, 409, 410, 412, 413, 415, ashan i Art istri t, Be ing, 430, 431, 432,
41 , 417, 418, 421, 431 435
Chinese Contemporary Art Award CCAA , a id and Alfred Smart Museum of Art,
425, 435 ni ersity of Chi ago, 42 , 429, 432
Chinese Dream, A e hibition , 331 de onstru tionism, 1 8, 1 9, 170, 173, 185,
Chinese Experience e hibition, 190 340
Chinese identity, sear h for, 11 ela roi , Eug ne, Massacre at Chios, 1
Chinese Modern Art Ar hi es, 433 elusion, 271 73
Christie s Hong ong, 398 99, 419 demo ra y mo ement, , 7, 10
Christo, 183 demo rati entrism, 409
Classic of Mountain and Seas, 353 eng u ing, 210
Clemente, ran es o, 128 eng Hong 邓鸿, 332
Close p artists 近距离, 154, 155 57 eng ing iang 邓平祥, 124, 408, 409, 410,
Cocart International Art Invitational, 1 7 411, 412, 417, 422, 423 Man s ational
Cohen, oan Lebold, 357 Meditation, 22 23
Col ille, Ale , 33, 412 eng iaoping, 5, 221, 289, 319, 408, 409, 410,
Communist arty CC , 5 , 35, 99, 113, 411, 419, 423
408, 409, 410, 411, 415, 417, 419, 421, 423, errida, a ues, 171
429, 430, 43 i Nai huang 邸乃壮, Walk Red, 183 84
Compilation of Translations in Art 美术译丛, ing ang 丁方, 118, 413, 418 City, Pl. 12 ed
48, 312, 408 Brigade re ept, 94 95
Comte, Auguste, 59 ing in 丁品, 58
on eptual inno ation, 49 ing Yi 丁乙, 415, 420, 425
on eptual-realism, 15 o umenta, 419, 424, 43
contemplative painting 思索画, 29 33 ong i hang, 203
Contemporary Art 当代艺术, 310, 311, 319 ong iuyu, 124
Contemporary Chinese Art, 1985 – 1986, 114 reissen, Chris, 3 0
Contemporary Oil Paintings from the People’s u hamp, Mar el, 99, 105, 110 11 Fountain,
Republic of China, e hibition 415 41 117, 372, 377 L.H.O.O.Q., 377
Counter-Perspective e hibition, 345, 42 un hen 敦桢, Yearning, 41
Countryside Project 1993 performan e , 179,
180, 181, 420 Edwards, olke, 359
Courbet, usta e, 27, 100, 375 85 Art Mo ement 85美术运动, 51 3, 413,
Critics’ Nomination Exhibition, 193 415, 418 age of parti ipants, 55 and art
Cu hi, En o, 128, 250 maga ines, 47, 48 beha iorism, 0 1
auses of, 54 ’85 New Space e hibition, Fine Arts Research 美术研究, 314 15, 409, 417.
442
54 55, 83 87, 413 e aluations of, 3 425

intuitionism, 57 59 origins, 52 54 reworks, 402
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parti ipants of, 78 79 phenomena, 54, irst 1990s Biennial Art air, 193, 298 307,
114 promotion of a rational spirit, 54 57 318 and Art Market, 289, 300, 311 12
rethinking, 100 101 see also New Wa e atalogue prefa e, 298 99 do uments
Einstein, Albert, 102 produ ed for, 300 301 e onomi system
Ele enth arty Congress, 5, of, 289 90, 298, 331 and performan e art,
Eliot, T. S., 51 178, 180 and op art, 1 7, 174, 175, 300
Elliott, a id, 2 5, 358 re e tions and uestions raised, 303 7
Eri kson, Britta, 419 The e eption in the sele tion pro ess, 299 302
West of E perimental Mainland Chinese Flash Art, 1 7, 35
Art of the 1990s, 357 2 lu us, 188
e perimental art e hibitions, 32 3 , 415, formal beauty, debate, 14 18
421, 424, 42 , 429 biennials and triennials, Founding of the Nation, The, 21, 1 4
39 98, 400, 404 in ommer ial galleries, our lds, 5
399 400 reating ersatile spa es for, reud, Sigmund, 51, 54, 59, 108, 158, 3 , 411
334 3 funding for, 344 45 in publi Fu Zhongwang 傅中望, 180, 434
galleries, 328 31 in semipubli and pri ate uck ff e hibition, 354 55, 355, 428
galleries, 331 34, 398 irtual Internet , u ian Art Museum, 9
335 3 , 353 in the West, 357 2
Experimental Painting Exhibition: The Stage an Yang 甘阳, 115
1983, 35, 411 ang of our, n1, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22,
89, 219, 408
actory No. 2 e hibition, 332 ao Brothers 高氏兄弟 ( 高兟, 高强 :
an i an 范迪安, 115, 12 , 397, 425, 429, 430, Inflatable Installation or Midnight Mass,
431, 432, 433, 43 121, 122 Prophecy, 330
an ing hong 范景中, 4 ao Ling 高岭, 115 428 Contemporary
an Weimin, 119 Art Salon, 421 Sur ey of
ang Li un 方力钧, 158, 159, 1 1, 185, 317, 418, Contemporary Chinese erforman e Art,
419, 420, 421, 422 Series 2, No. 2, 15 , 1 0, 179 84
192 Pl. 20 ao Minglu 高名潞, 45, 4 , 47, 49, 412, 415,
Fang Shaohua 方少华, 175 Wind from Eight 417, 420, 431, 432, 433 and China Avant
Sides, 178 Garde e hibition and symposium, 115, 11 ,
au ism, 89 117, 124, 41 ed. An Anthology of Historical
ei awei 费大为, 44, 4 , 115, 358, 377, 40 , Sources, 404 5 ed. A History of
412, 417, 418, 419, 42 , 428, 432, 433 Contemporary Chinese Art, 403 5, 40
Challenging Modernism, 10 11 oes and Fragmented Memory e hibition, 358
a Culture in E ile Ne essarily Wither , and Global Conceptualism e hibition, 42
252 54 ed. Archives of the 85 New Wave, and Inside Out e hibition, 3 0 1, 425
405 The 85 Art Mo ement, 52 3, 4, 404,
feminist and women s art, 185, 193 98, 31 , 414, 415
341, 359, 422, 424 25, 429, 431 ao Shiming 高世名, 272, 273, 343, 423, 432,
Feng Bin 冯斌, 430, 433 43
eng Boyi 冯博一, 320, 354 55, 404, 424, 428, ao Shi iang 高世强, 272, 423
430, 431, 432, 433 on Trace of Existence, ao Tianmin, 322
338 42, 343 Garage Art Exhibition, 1 5, 233
eng i ai, 115, 121 Gate of the New Century e hibition, 332, 427
Feng Mengbo 冯梦波, 175, 178, 237, 420, 422, Gaudy Life e hibition, 200
424 e Weimo, 115
eng ianyu 冯倩钰, 273 e Yan, 43
eng iaoying 冯晓颖, 272, 345 eng ianyi 耿建翌, 8 , 88, 99, 123, 1 5, 329,
eng Yidai, 121 405, 412, 413, 414, 418, 420, 425 Group
Feng Zhengjie 俸正杰, 175, 201 2 Happiness, Portrait, 1 4 Haircut No. 3: Another Shaved
201 Romantic Trip, 201, 202 Head of Summer 1985, 84, 84 Haircut No.
illiou, obert, 3 5 4, 55 Hair ut series, 85 Integrated World,
Fine Arts in China 中国美术报, 35, 42, 45, 47, 237 Marriage Law, 183
49, 79, 84, 88, 100, 114, 118, 127, 310, 412, 415, erman Embassy, Bei ing, 425, 427
41 , 417, 420 lu kman, i hard, 399
Fine Arts Literature, 314, 421, 432 ombri h, Ernst, 171
ong iawei 龚嘉伟, 175, 178 Happy Moment,
443
He Yong, 1 0
17 Invitation Song, 17 Hegel, eorg Wilhelm riedri h, 93
ou Hongbing, A ialogue on Dialogue, Heidegger, Martin, 55, 83
|
INDEX
212 13 Heller, oseph, 187
reat Leap orward, 228 Henri, Adrian, Total Art, 37
Great Wall Performance Art, 181 82 Higashiyama, ai, 1
u, Wenda 谷文达, 54 55, 251, 412, 413, 41 , Hirst, amien, 34 , 347, 399
418, 419, 20, 425, 42 , 427, 428 434 and Home? e hibition, 334, 427
Archives, 405 Dangerous Chessboard Leaves Hong Hao 洪浩, 43 Selected Scriptures, Page
the Ground, 358 Forest of Stone Steles — A 331, The Strategic Defense rder, 35 Pl. 46
Retranslation and Rewriting of Tang Poetry, Hong ong Arts Centre, 41 , 420, 423
99, 402 3 Pl. 49 inter iew with, 10 11 Hong ong City Hall, 414, 420, 431
Wenda Gu’s New Ink Painting, 414 nited Hong Lei 洪磊, After Liang ai’s Song-
Nations series, 248, 257 0, 258, 403 and Dynasty Masterpiece Shakyamuni Coming
Western art, 35 , 3 5 Wisdom Comes from out of the Mountains”, 224 Pl. 34
Tranquility, 10 Pl. 15 Hong Lumei, 23
u Chengfeng 顾丞峰, 299 Tenden ies in Hong ai in, 84
Chinese op, 171 79 Horse Trampling a Hun Warrior ( stone
u e in 顾德新, 340, 357, 405, 417, 420, 422, s ulpture , 1
425 ctober 31, 224 Pl. 35 Hou engke 侯登科, 223
u ai hi, 17 Hou Hanru 侯翰如, 4 , 115, 358, 3 1, 412, 42 ,
u Meng hao, 127, 415 428, 431, 434 Entropy, Chinese Artists,
u Shangfei, 43 Western Art Institutions, 249 52, 3 3 5
u heng, 223, 433 Hou Wenyi 侯文怡, 90
uan Ce 管策, 95n3 Hsieh, Teh hing, 275
uan Shanyue Art Museum, Shen hen, 42 , Hu intao, 430
432, 43 Hu Wei 胡伟, Li Daozhao, Qu Qiubai, Xiao
uan Wei 关伟, 418, 427 Hong, 39
uang un 广军, 59 Hu iangdong, Dream Plants, 201
uangdong Museum of Art, 24 , 430, 431, Hu Yaobang, 410, 417
432, 434, 435, 43 Hua uofeng, 408
uang hou Triennial, irst 2002 , Hua Tian ue, 428, 430
Reinterpretation: A Decade of Experimental Huang Binhong, 17 18, 53
Chinese Art, 397, 404, 405, 430 Huang u 黄笃, 43 , 422 My iew of Art
uo Shirui 郭世锐, 328 and Criti ism, 325 2
uo iaoyan 郭晓彦, 434, 43 Huang ui 黄锐, 7 8, 11, 432, 435 Last Will
and Testament, 13 New Life, 13 Space, 13
Hagens, unther on, Body Worlds, 274, 27 Huang iaorong 黄效融, 430, 433
Hai Bo 海波, 427 They No. 6, 231 32, 231 Huang Yan 黄岩, 182, 198, 427, 428, 430
Half Generation Painting Exhibition, 54, 59, 0431 — China’s ideo Art, 237 Changchun,
413 China, 58, 205 , 205 Collection
Hälfte des Himmels, ie, e hibition, 425 Series — Demolished Buildings, 183
Hamilton, i hard, 177 Huang Yong ing 黄永砯, 51, 99, 123, 250 52,
Han ynasty, 102, 173, 179 353, 411, 412. 417, 418, 419. 420, 422, 425,
Han Lei 韩磊, 223 42 , 432, 433 and Archives, 405 Bat
Hanart T allery, 35 , 3 0, 417, 420 Project, 249 The History of Chinese Painting
Hang ian 杭间, 427, on China Avant-Garde, and A Concise History of Modern Western
121 2 Painting Washed in the Washing Machine
Hanson, uane, 375 for Two Minutes, 99 House of Oracles
Haring, eith, 175 retrospe ti e, 402 An Indigestible Object,
Haus der ulturen der Welt, 420, 433 251 Magiciens de la terre, 417
He Changlin, 300 Introdu tion to The vents xhibition, 9
He uoling 何多苓, 19 Ancient Wall, 30, 31, Non-E pressi e aintings, 103 5 as
32 Spring Breeze is Awake, 31, 31, 32 o erseas artist, 248, 35 , 357, 358, 3 5, 401
He ong 何工, The Story of Flower-Planters, Roulette Wheel, 103 Statement on
39 40 Burning, 95 9 Theater of the World
He ong 何溶, 4 Bridge, 250 Pl. 39
He iangning Art Museum, 424, 42 , 429, Huang hou 黄胄, 331, 412
433 CT Contemporary Art Terminal of, Huang huan 黄专, 4 , 154, 299, 320, 322,
see CAT 40 , 412, 423, 42 , 427, 429, 431, 433, 434
n Cultural Idealism, 318 The Misread oons, eff, 399
444
Great Criticism, 1 7 71 Who Is oing to ppel-Yang, Martina, 432 Nationwide

Sponsor the History , 291 98 orum and Model, 45 50
|
Huangshan Symposium, 49 ounellis, annis, 250

humanism, 19, 49, 51, 123, 1 4, 1 9 ur , tto, and Ernst ris, Legend, Myth, and
Huo ubin, 1 Magic in the Image of the Artist, 293
wang u wang u Biennale, 422, 42 , 43
“I Don’t Want to Play Cards with Cézanne”
e hibition, 418 Lang Shao un 郎绍君, 4 , 115, 124, 417, 420,
Idealism, 154, 159 427, 429 ebuilding Elite Art:
Impressionists, 27, 129 e onsidering Changes in the Stru ture of
Infatuated with Injury e hibition, 277 78, 427 Twentieth-Century Chinese Art, 124
Inside Out: New Chinese Art, e hibition, Lan hou Art Legion, 179, 420
3 0 1, 425 atalogue, 361, 425 Lei eng, 342
International Center of hotography, 432 Lei Shuang 雷双, 19
International Ink Painting Biennial of Leishi ainting So iety, 411, 415
Shen hen, 422, 42 , 432 Leng Lin 冷林, 331, 334 35, 423, 424 It s
International Year of Youth, 54, 5 Me , 192, 42
International Young Artists Exhibition, 5 Leonardo da in i, Mona Lisa, 27
Internet, irtual e hibitions on, 335 3 , 353 Li Bangyao 李邦耀, 175 Product Trust, 177
intuitionism, 57 59, 5 , 81, 102 3 Li Bin 李斌, 19 21, 47, 409
Invitational xhibition on New Works of Li Chen 李辰, 155
Chinese Painting, 108, 413 Li i 李迪, Doves, 39
Invitational xhibition of Sculptures by Young Li ongming, 322
Artists, 322 Li Hong 李虹, 195
It’s Me! e hibition, 192, 34 47, 42 Li Honggang, 20
Li ianli, 328
ia ang hou 贾方舟, 417, 422, 42 , 428, 43 Li iatun pseud. , The Signi an e Is not the
eturning to Art Itself, 100 101 Art, 2 3
ia uanli 贾鹃丽, 195 Li in 李津, Impressions of Tibet, 57
ian Shi, 4 Li u huan 李巨川, Living with ika, 233
iang eng, 409, 410 Li eran, 107
iang ing, 5, 410 Li Luming 李路明, Chinese Hand Gestures, 203
iang Tao, eport on hang ali s Dialogue, Li Mei and Yang iaoyan, Trends and Stages
209 12 in hotography s e elopment, 219 23
iang ueying 姜雪鹰, 155 Li Shan 李山, 5 , 415, 419, 420, 421 ouge
iang emin, 419 series, 17
iang hi 蒋志, 272, 273, 343 Li Song, 124
Jiangnan: Modern and Contemporary Chinese Li Tianyuan 李天元, 155, 15
Art Exhibitions and International Li Tuo, 124, 127
Symposium, 425 Li Weimin 李为民, House series, 121
Jiangsu Pictorial 江苏画刊, 35, 4 , 48, 114, 117, Li ianting 栗宪庭, 4 , 115, 1 7, 252, 317, 318,
30 , 310, 312 13, 314, 412, 420, 422 347, 410, 411, 420, 422, 42 , 428, 429
iangsu Youth Art Week, 54, 55, 95n3, 413 About the Stars Art Exhibition, 11 13,
in Shangyi 靳尚谊, 115 410 Apathy and e onstru tion in ost-
inyuan Road no. 310 xhibition, 337 89 Art, 154, 157 and China Avant-
iro, Takamatsu, Blue Dream, 41 Garde e hibition, 11 20 and China’s New
ung, Carl, 51 Art, Post-1989 e hibition, 359, 420 and
Fine Arts in China, 50n22, 41 The
ang Mu 康木, performan e art, 117 Signi an e is Not in the Art, 2, 5, 417
ant, Immanuel, 55, 93 and The Trend of Art Thought, 412 and
aret ky, atri ia Ei henbaum, 3 0 eni e Biennale, 3
iefer, Anselm, 250 Li iaoliang, 300
ieslowski, r ys tof, Toward the Austere Li iaoshan 李小山, 430 My pinion on
Theater, 87 Contemporary Chinese ainting, 4 , 47,
its h, 199 204 48, 412 History of Chinese Modern Painting,
ollwit , the, 11, 12 415
ong Chang an 孔长安, 115, 420 Li Yan 李燕, 195
ong Yong ian 孔永谦, ulture T-shirt, Li Yongbin 李永斌, 423, 424, 427 ace No. 1,
158, 1 2 234, 237
Li ehou 李泽厚, 115 Liu Yi 刘意, Who Am I?, 235
445
Li hengtian, 124, 125 Liu Yulian 刘宇廉, 19 21, 47
Liang iang, 44 Liu heng 刘峥, Copying a Calendar, 203
|
INDEX
Liang iu ing, The Far Away Sail, 41 Fashion Girl, 203 Love of Lushan, 203
Liang uhui 梁钜辉, 414, 418 One Hour Game, Liu heng 刘铮, 423, 433
208, 208 Liu henggang, 101
Liang Shao i 梁绍基, 425, 428 Liu henyun, 158
Liang i hao, 101 Lonely Old Man, 32
Liang iao huan 梁小川, erami artillery Long March Project, 435
shell pro e t, 181 L pe , Sebasti n, 427, 432
Liao Wen 廖雯, 42 , 427 Criti al Irony of Lu anfeng, 20
audy Art, 199 204 Lu Hao 卢昊, 42 , 428 lower Bird Insect
Li htenstein, oy, 175, 293 Fish, 202 Pl. 30
Lin Biao, 20, 21, 410 Lu Hong 鲁虹, 412, 429, 432
Lin engmian, 1 , 53 Lu Lei 陆磊, 272
Lin Hu ia, 9 L Nan 吕楠, 223
Lin Shiming, 23 L eng 吕澎, 317 18, 417, 420 Art Needs
Lin Tianmiao 林天苗, 185, 224, 225, 234, 341, to be rodu ed to Sell, 30 and First
401, 422, 433 Bound nbound, 197 Pl. 27 1990s Biennial Art air, 298 99, 300,
Wrapping and Se ering, 197 301, 303 7, 419 Heading Toward the
Lin Wei 林微: Angel, 41 Market, 290 91 pening p the
Lin Yilin 林一林, 414, 415, 418, 425 1990s, 298 99
Lin Yonghui 林永惠, 223 L eng and Yi an: A History of Modern
Lin Yutang, 1 n2 Chinese Art: 1979 – 1989, 404, 420
Ling Huitao 凌徽涛, 115 L intian, 44, 427
Liu, Hung, 249 Resident Alien, 2 9 70, 270 L Sheng hong 吕胜中, 123, 405, 419, 422
Liu Anping 刘安平, 224, 422 Paper-Cut Installation, 130 31, 131, 41 , 418
Liu Bo hun, 115 Lu, i toria ong hi , 427, 434, 43
Liu Chun 刘淳, 179 Lu un, 253, 374
Liu ahong 刘大鸿: Model Opera, 17 Sweet Lu Yuanmin 陆元敏, 223
Day, 17 Lu ie-Smith, Edward, 178 79
Liu ong 刘东, 115 Lum, en, 425, 427
Liu enghua, 342 Luo Brothers 罗氏兄弟, Welcome World-
Liu Haisu, 53 Art allery, 421 Art Museum, amous Brands, 202 3
422, 423, 425, 430 Luo iaoyun 罗小韵, Mainstay, 220
Liu ianhua 刘建华, n ainted S ulptures, Luo hongli 罗中立, 32, 377, 428 Father, 19,
21 17 23 25, 31 32, , 410 Pl. 5
Liu ai u 刘开渠, 115, 408
Liu Liguo 刘力国, Classics, 203 Ma esheng 马德升, 11 Rest, 12 13
Liu Liping 刘丽萍, 155, 19 Ma Liuming 马六明, 185, 224, 420, 424, 42 ,
Liu Min 刘敏, 115 427 Fen-Ma Liuming’s Lunch II, 187 our
Liu ian 刘谦, Alley, 40 Notes, 187 88
Liu inghe, 155, 15 Ma Lu 马路, 58
Liu Shaohui 刘绍荟, Emotion, Indi iduality, Ma in, 344
ormal Aestheti s, 17 18 Ma it hie, Lynn, re arious aths on the
Liu Shao i, 25 , 331 Mainland, 3 4
Liu Ting, 331 Magiciens de la terre e hibition, 417
Liu Wei 刘炜, 158, 272, 273, 343, 345, 419, 420, Mannerism, 53
421, 422, 424 Spring Dream in a Garden: Mao Xuhui 毛旭輝, 57, 412, 415, 419, 424
Dad in Front of the TV, 15 , 1 1 Pl. 21 New igurati e, 89 93 Shepherdess and
Liu Wen ai, 3 8, 3 9 White Goat, Pl. 11
Liu iao hun 刘骁纯, 43, 4 , 47, 124, 417, 421, Mao edong, 5, 20, 127, 1 4, 172, 173, 17 77,
422, 424, 427, 428, 430 and Fine Arts in 219, 254, 3 3, 3 , 3 7, 373, 408
China, 412 uoting oes Not E ual Maomao, 212
lagiarism, 377 78, 412 Martin, ean-Hubert, 357, 3 1, 417, 428
Liu iaodong 刘小东, 158, 1 0, 1 1 2, 31 , Martíne , osa, 2 4 5
398, 401, 418, 419 Hotbed No. 1, 399 oke, Mar , arl, 55, 1 5
155, 15 , 158 Pl. 19 Pastoral, 1 0 May ourth New Culture Mo ement, 52, 53,
Liu un, 331, 409 118, 157, 417
Liu Ye 刘野, 398, 401 May Se enth Art ni ersity, n2
Mayako sky, ladimir, A Slap in the Face of New Literati painting 新文人画, 118 19, 1 3,
446
Public Taste, 58 173, 174, 417, 418, 427

Meng Luding 孟禄丁, 35, 3 38, 44, 123 New Photo maga ine, 225, 423
|
Mepham, Lydie, 358 New ealism, 55, 89, 173, 174, 300
Mi helangelo Buonarotti, 17, 292, 372 David, 27 New Wa e 85 Art New Wa e 85新潮 , 47,
Middle Ages, 80 48, 49, 252, 308 anti New Wa e trend,
Mierlo, Heidi an, 3 0 118, 1 3 China Avant-Garde e hibition,
Millennium Art Museum, 431, 433, 434, 435, 113 2 in 85 Art Mo ement, 51 52, 3,
43 85, 8 , 99, 11 , 128, 129, 132, 159, 1 2 4,
Millet, ean- ran ois, 27, 39 175, 288, 317, 3 0, 404 end of, 127 28,
Minford, ohn, 1 n2 129 30, 154, 155, 157 58 ree amination
Ming ynasty, 12 of, 155, 157 58
Ministry of Culture, 408, 419, 421, 424, 429, New York Times Magazine, The, 35
431 Noti e, 27 77 Ni Haifeng 倪海峰, 414, 419, 420
Miyang Painting Society Exhibition, 1 Ni Weihua 倪卫华, 182 Continuously Diffusing
modern art, 97, 101 3, 129 30, 152, 184, 31 the State of Affairs, No. 2 — ’93 Placard, 183
Modern Chinese Art Exhibition, 49 Niet s he, riedri h, 51, 82, 107, 158
Modern Chinese Art Research Documents Ning ang ian 宁方倩, 155
Exhibitions, 174, 178, 418, 419, 421 No-Name ainting So iety 无名画会, 5, ,
Modern hotography Salon, 221 22 409, 413
Modern Sculptures e hibition, 322 Northern Art roup 北方艺术群体, 51, 54, 55,
modernism, 51, 52, 99, 108 9, 111, 1 8 79 82, 1 8, 411, 413, 415
Montaigne, Mi hel de, 100 Northern Way Art Allian e, 411, 412
Moore, Henry, 91 November Painting xhibition, 57, 58, 413
Morimura, Yasumasa, 225
Muni ipal Committee, 8 10 brist, Hans- lri h, 3 1, 434
Museum of Chinese History, 418, 419 CAT, 433, 434, 435
Museum of Modern Art, Chengdu, 429, 430 li a, A hille Bonito, 3 1, 3 8, 374, 420,
Museum of Modern Art, New York, 424, 427 422
My Interpretation of the Judgment of Paris, pen oor poli y, 35, 4 , 89, 128, 152, 157
124 o erseas Chinese artists, 248 70, 401 3
Naisbitt, ohn, 19 , 295 aik, Nam une, 237

Nan o, umio, 425 Seascape, 2 3 4 Painter 画家, 48, 413, 419
Narrative of Skin e hibition, 200 Painter roup, 413, 415
National Art allery, 328 30, 359, 408 17, an ehai 潘德海, 91
420 24, 427, 429 and see National Art an Tianshou, 1 , 53
Museum ang Lei 庞磊, 155
National Art Museum, 397, 402, 411, 429 31, Passaggio a Oriente e hibition, 420
433 3 eking ni ersity, 415, 419, 433, 434
National ine Arts E hibition, 409, 410, 412 eng e 彭德, 4 , 124, 299, 300, 417, 430 on
Nati e Soil Art, 19, , 83 84, 158 the end of New Wa e, 127 28 and Fine
Nature, Society, and Man e hibition, , 7, 7, Arts Literature, 421 and The Trend of Art
220 21, 221, 409, 410 Thought, 412
Neo-E pressionism, 128 Peng Zhenge 彭振戈, 223 see also An e
New A ademi S hool 新学院派, 118, 173, 41 photography, 219 32 April hotography
New Art mo ement, 322 So iety, , 220 21 China Special Exhibition,
New Classi al Mo ement, 173, 174 222 do umentary, 220, 222 23 Journey of
New Culture Movement 新文化运动, 132 Hardship ompetition, 222 National
New esign, Hunan, 300 Photography Exhibition, 223 Nature,
New Figurative 新具像, 89 93 Society, and Man, , 7, 7, 220 21, 221 New
New igurative xhibition, 57, 58, 89, 93, 412, So ial o umentation, 222 23 upture
415 roup, 222 ideo art, 232 48
New eneration 新生代, 154, 155 57, 194, photorealism, 19, 24, 39, 15 , 375
198, 317, 318 19, 347, 419 New Generation i ao ian 皮道坚, 124, 299, 300, 417, 423, 424,
Art e hibition, 155, 158, 317, 418 432 and The Trend of Art Thought, 412
New History 1993 Big Consumer Products i ao ian and i Li, Contemporary Chinese
performan e , 178, 179, 181 Art Media in the 1990s, 310 15
New History roup 新历史小组, 180 81, 419, i Li 皮力, Ba k to So iety, 321, 428, 431,
420 435, 43
447
i asso, ablo, 11, 12, 100 101, 411 Guernica, 38, rationalism, 54 57, 58, 132, 1 4
101, 374 Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 100, 101 aus henberg, obert, 35, 42 45, 1, 3, 5,
Picture Stories 连环画报, 19, 21, 408 1 8, 293, 413
|
INDEX
issarro, Camille, 1 realism 现实主义, 27, 317, 318 in Chinese
it enar, Marianne, 359 artisti tradition, 2 on eptual, 15
lato, 93 riti al, 19, 53 Cyni al, see Cyni al ealism
pluralism, 45, 49 debate on realism, 410 e pressionist, 15
Political Pop 政治波普, 157, 158, 1 4 5, 1 7, ink paintings, 118 19 in literature, 158
170, 224, 233, 318, 319, 343, 347, 3 3, 3 4, model of, 1 1 2 and New eneration,
3 8 15 New ealist S hool, 55 photorealism,
olla k, Barbara, 399 19, 24, 39, 15 , 375 re olutionary, 157, 1 2
ollo k, a kson, 0 s ienti , 53 So ialist, 19, 154, 3 3 Super-
ond So iety 池社, 51, 83 89, 414 manifesto ealism, 375
of, 87 88 Work No. 1: Yang-Style Taichi Reality: Present and Future, 331, 332
Series, 88 Work No. 2: Walker in Green ed Brigade 红色旅, 51, 94 95, 413, 41
Space, 83, 88 89 ed ate allery, 419
Pop art 波普, 83, 85, 11 , 119 allegori al ed uard mo ement, 19 20, 155, 17
nature of, 178 Ameri an, 3 3 ed Humor 红色幽默, 413, 414
onsumerist, 1 2 Cultural op, 154, 198 egionalism 地域主义, 15
de elopment of, 172 75 emergen e of, relati ism, 88
171 72 u Chengfeng on, 171 79 Hubei Remaking 798, 400-401, 401 Pl. 48
op Wa e, 173, 174, 175, 300 imagery and embrandt an i n, 100 Night Watch, 27
spirit of, 17 79 oliti al, see oliti al op en ian 任戬, 55, 180 Archives, 1 5 New
regional traits and age groups, 175 History 1993 Big Consumer Products [with
Popular Model e hibition, 200 others , 178 Primordial Transformation, 173
ost-Impressionism, 129 Siphon ff series, 1 4, 1 5 Stamp
Post Sense-Sensibility: Alien Bodies and Colle ting series, 1 5, 173, 177, 181
Delusion e hibition 后感性 ), 271 73, 279, enaissan e, 78
343 47 Rent Collection Courtyard: Cai uo- iang s
postmodernism 后现代主义, 190, 319, 321 Venice ersion of, 35 , 3 9, 369, 371 72,
Progressive Young Chinese Artists xhibition, 374, 377 78, 402, 42 , 428 original ersion
35, 38 42, 5 , 412 of, 3 8 71, 423 uoting s. plagiarism,
u is de Cha annes, ierre, 1 377 78, 428 reprodu tion of, 371 7
uy, Imma, 359 Si huan ine Arts Institute press release
on, 370 71
i Baishi, 17, 53 epubli an era, 2, 102
ian Weikang 钱喂康, 235, 423 esear h Institute of ine Arts, 412, 41 , 417,
Breath Breath, 23 418
in a 琴嘎, 271, 344, 428 esear h Institute of Traditional Chinese
in Ming 秦明, A Procession Praying for Rain, ainting, 411, 41 , 417, 418
39 oberts, Claire, 359
in Wenna, 115 odin, Auguste, 372 The Burghers of Calais, 1
in Yufen 秦玉芬, 433 In Between, 248 Pl. 37 olling Stones, 177
ing ynasty, 12, 102, 293 ong ong 荣荣, 224, 423, 433 ragments
iu ing, 359, 425 series, 230 31, 230 1997 No. 1 1 Beijing,
iu hi ie 邱志杰, 154, 175, 232, 237, 238, 423, 224 Pl. 32
424, 427, 431, 433, 43 Assignment No. 1: ong ong and inri, Tui — Transfiguration
Copying the rchid Pavilion Preface a e hibition, 400 Pl. 48
Thousand Times, 185, 188 89, 189, 234 vil onte, ieter, 359
Heart, 273 Hands of Escher, 23 Logic, 237 oot-seeking artists 寻根, 158
ost-Sense Sensibility, 343 47, 42 Post- osen uist, ames, 175
Sensibility Spree e hibition, 429 Present u in, 115
Progress, 237 Things, 343 Washroom, 23 uan udong 阮旭东, Contemplati e
Yaojiayuan Archaeology Pit No. 1, 341 aintings, 30 33
iu hi ie and Wu Mei hun, istorted
Bodies and elusion, 270, 271 73, 34 San ran is o Museum of Modern Art, 425
u Leilei 曲磊磊, 11 Train of Thought, 13 We Sartre, ean- aul, 51, 55, 83, 158
Don’t Want Laws Like This, 13 410 S ar Art 伤痕美术, 19 23, 47, 53, 2, 118, 158,
ueens Museum of Art, 424, 42 409
ueensland Art allery, 420, 423, 427 S hneider, E khard, 3 0, 425, 427
S hopenhauer, Arthur, 51, 108 Song Ling 宋陵, 85 8 , 88, 414 Human Tube,
448
S ienti e olution, 2 84 White Tube, 84

Second Young Artists Exhibition, 5 Song Yonghong 宋永红, 155, 158, 1 0, 1 1
|
self-identity, 185 92, 195 97 Tranquil nvironment, 1 0

se ual ontent, restri tions on, 11 Song Yongping 宋永平, 57, 179, 180, 415
ShanghA T allery, 427, 428 Sotheby s, New York, 399
Shanghai Art Museum, 330, 414, 41 , 423, Southern Artists Salon 南方艺术家沙龙, 51,
425, 427, 428, 430, 431 414 First Experimental Exhibition, 97 Pl. 13
Shanghai Biennale: ifth, 432 irst 199 , Southwest Art esear h roup 西南艺术研究
423 ourth, 430 Se ond, 425 Third, see 群体, 51, 415
2000 Shanghai Biennale Si th, 435 3 Spring Tide e hibition, 47
Shanxi Modern Art Exhibition, 57, 58, 0, 1 Stars Art Exhibitions, , 7 10, 9, 11 13, 47, 120,
Shao a hen 邵大箴, 4 , 115, 124, 409, 412, 409, 410, 414
417 Stars Art So iety 星星, 7, 19, 11 , 129, 410,
Shao Hong, 299 414, 417
Shao Zhenpeng 邵振鹏, Made in China, 203 Stella, rank, 293
Shen Changwen, 115 Street ideo roup, 232
Shen ian hong, 223 Su Li un, 127
Shen, uiyi, 3 0 Su Shi, 293
Shen Ling 申玲, 155, 15 , 195 Sui ianguo 隋建国, 422, 42 , 428 Earthly
Shen in 沈勤, 95n3 Force, 154 Pl. 18
Shen iaotong, 158 Sun in, 127
Sheng Tianhong 盛天泓, 343 Sun Liang 孙良, 419, 420
Sheng Tianye 盛天晔, 343 Sun Ping 孙平, 179 Issuing Shares, 178 Miss
Sherman, Cindy, 225 Avant-Garde Art, 203 Miss Fashion, 203
Shi Benming 施本铭, 58 Miss Service, 203
Shi Chong 石冲, 313, 433 Sun inmian, 320 21
Shi Hui 施慧, 41 , 420, 425 Sun Yuan 孙原, 344 45, 34 , 428 Honey, 271,
Shi iu 石久, n New Space and the ond 272
So iety, 83 89 Sun Zhenhua 孙振华, 322, 429, 432
Shi Lei 石磊, 175 Prenatal Education — Suo ei, 124
Pavarotti Who orgot the Song Lyrics, 178 Supermarket e hibition, 279, 334, 337 38,
Shi ing 石青, 272, 345 4 345, 42
Shi Yasong, 299 300 Suriko , asily, Boyarynya Morozova, 22
Shi Yong 施勇, 235, 425, 427 Surrealism, 39, 57, 3, 5, 85
Shu un 舒群, 405 - -: 0 series, 1 4 Symposium on Implementing the Central
Absolute Principle No. 1, 80 Complete Committee of the CCP’s ‘Outline for Civic
Colle tion of World Art series, 173 Cui Morality , 429
Jian, 173 E planation of the Northern Art S eemann, Harald, 35 , 3 1, 3 9, 370, 371,
roup, 79 82 374 75, 377, 424, 425, 42 , 428
Shui Tian hong 水天中, 42, 4 , 414, 421, 429
Si huan ine Arts Institute, 411, 423, 428, 43 Tang Cheng, 342
Sigg, li, 425, 435, 43 Tang a heng, 121
Silent Energy e hibition, 3 5 Tang yansty, 102
Sisyphus, myth of, 95n2, 132 Tang emei, 115
Si Announ ements, 8 Tang ingnian 唐庆年, 115
Sixth National Fine Arts Exhibition, 35, 47, 48, Tang Song 唐宋, and performan e art, 119,
53 54, 85, 412 121, 12
Smerling, Walter, 359 Tao Yongbai 陶咏白, 417, 422, 429 Toward a
Smith, aren, 3 0, 433 ero to In nity, emale Initiati e, 194 97
224 2 Theater of the Absurd, 12
So ial o umentation, 222 23 Third lenary Session, 21, 72 73, 409
So iety of Young Artists, 55, 8 Three Men Studio, 198
Solomon, Andrew, 421 Tiananmen S uare, 113, 220, 3 3, 417
Song ong 宋冬, 182, 237, 340, 422, 425, 428, Tilson, oe, Is This Che Guevara , 177
431, 434, 43 Look, 237 One More Lesson, Today Art Museum, 398, 431, 434
Do You Want to Play With Me?, 183 Shut Tom. om, 428
Up and Listen to Me, 235 SONGDONG Art Tomonobu, Imami hi, 100
Travel Agency, 337 Stamping Water, 224 Pl. Tong Biao 佟飚, 423 The Afternoon of August
33 ncovering, 235 30th, 237 Watched Sleep, 233
449
Tong ian, The Lands ape of China s 1 8 71 and Visual Polity, 40 We
Modern Art Mo ement, 78 arti ipants of the 85 Art Mo ement,
Trace of Existence e hibition, 338 42, 78 79 and Zhuhai Symposium, 49
|
INDEX
343 44, 424 Wang Hao 王浩, 155, 15
Trend of Art Thought 美术思潮, The, 35, 48, Wang Hu 王虎, 155
114, 310, 411, 412 Wang Huangsheng 王璜生, 404, 430, 431
Turner, Caroline, 358 Wang Hua iang 王华祥, 155, 15
Twenty-First Century e hibition, 1 n2 Wang ianwei 汪建伟, 182 83, 237, 422, 423,
Two Hundreds, 45 424, 428, 433 Circulation — Sowing and
Harvesting, 182 83, 244 45, 244, 341
ni ersity of Buffalo Art alleries, 431, 433 Import <-> Export, 243 Incident — Process,
pri er Art allery, 333 34, 42 State, 243 Membrane, 340 41 Model, 245
urban destru tion and onstru tion, 205 13 Production, 245 4 Reproduction, 242 43
Si ideo Works, 242 4
an i k, Hans, 422, 42 Wang in 王晋, 198, 421, 424, 42 , 431 Ice 96
an ogh, in ent, 291, 292, 30 Central Plains, 215 1 , 215 Red Dust,
ela ue , iego odrigue , Aesop, 27 224 25 Red Train Tracks, 224 To Marry a
eni e Biennale, 1 7, 234, 2 3, 347, 349, 3 1, Mule, 225, 335
3 8, 371, 374, 397, 402, 412, 420, 422, Wang insong 王劲松, 155, 15 , 158, 1 1, 1 2,
42 , 428, 431, 433 198, 421, 424 Big Chorus, 1 1 Big igong,
Venice’s Rent Collection Courtyard, 35 , 3 9, 1 1 Standard Family, 217, 217, 224
369, 371 72, 374, 377 78, 42 Wang iong, 119
erostko, oman, 412 Wang iping 王纪平, 57
ideo art, 232 48, 340, 341, 343, 345 Wang eping 王克平, 11, 12, 41 The Backbone
aestheti alue of, 233 Art and Historical of Society, 12 Long, Long Life, 12 Silence, 12
Consciousness, 237 Demonstration of Video Pl. 1
Art 97 China, 237 Documents of Video Art, Wang Lan 王兰: General Store, 40
237 funding, 23 Image and Phenomena Wang Lin 王林, 4 , 124, 343, 412, 417, 431, 433
e hibition, 235, 23 37 international li a Is Not the Sa ior of Chinese Art,
festi als, 237 38 postprodu tion, 237 3 8
standards for, 237 Wang Luyan 王鲁炎, 3 5, 418, 419, 423
ideo game images, 178 Wang Meng, Living in Seclusion in the
iola, Bill, Buried Secrets, 234 Qingbian Mountains, 107
Wang Ming ian 王明贤, 115, 415, 42
Wang Birong, 115 Wang Nanming 王南溟, 321 on art markets,
Wang Chuan 王川, 19, 413 E pe ting Her to 353 54
Walk on the Main oad, 29 30 Farewell, Wang i, 299, 300, 301
Narrow Trail, 29, 31 Hanging Coffins, 58 Wang iang 王强, 85, 88, 414 Adagio of
Wang alun, 209 12 Symphony No. 5, Second Movement, 84,
Wang eren 王德仁, 117, 121, 123 85 Amateur Painter, 84
Wang u 王度, 51, 248, 414, 415, 432 Toward Wang ingsong 王庆松, 425, 427 The Thinker,
a hysi al State of Contemporary Art 202 Thousand Hand Buddha, 202
Itself, 97 Wang uiting, 127
Wang ong in 王功新, 224, 341, 401, 423, 428, Wang Shuo, 1 0, 1 1
433 Baby Talk, 237 Myth Powder No. 1, 237 Wang Wei 王卫, 272 1 30th of a Second
Shepherd, 339 Sky of Brooklyn, 234, Pl. 36 Underwater, 343 Pl. 41
Wang uangyi 王广义, 51, 125, 154, 297, 418, Wang iangming 王向明 and ing Lili, Longing
420, 421, 423, 424, 433 and Archives, 405 for Peace, 38, 5
Black Rationality, 1 9 Death of Marat, 12 Wang iaohong, 211
Great Criticism — odak, 1 4, 1 7 71, 173, Wang iao ian 王小箭, 4 , 412, 415
177 Pl. 22 Mao Zedong, 158, 1 4, 1 7, 1 9, Wang Ya hong 王亚中, 179
170, 172, 17 Mass- rodu ed Holy Child Wang Youshen 王友身, 155, 418, 419, 420
series, 173 Masterpie es Co ered by Wang Yigang 王易罡, 42 , 429
Industrial ui k- rying aint series, 173 Wang Yubei 王玉北, 180
Post-Classical — Return of the Great Sorrow, Wang Yun, 182 83
78 Pl. 9 ost-Classi al series, 1 8 on Wang Yuping 王玉平, 155, 15
purging humanist enthusiasm ( 清理人文热 Wang hen 王振, 115
情 ), 123, 1 4, 1 9 Red Rationality, 1 9 and Wang hiping, 7
Rent Collection Courtyard, 3 8 Solidi ed Wang iwei 王子卫, 177, 415, 421 Mao
Ar ti egion series, 1 8 as utopian, edong series, 172
Warhol, Andy, 1 5, 1 8, 170, 175, 2 8 9, Wu Mei hun and iu hi ie, The ise and
450
293, 3 e elopment of ideo Art and the

Wei uang ing 魏光庆, 424 ed Wall series, Maturity of New Media Art, 232 38
|
173, 174, 178 Sui ide series, 173 Thumb Wu Shan huan 吴山专, 99, 121, 248, 251, 405,
series, 173 414, 420 Big Business, 11 performan e art,
Wei ong 韦蓉, 155, 15 122 23 Red Humor — Red Characters,
Weiss, E elyn, 359 11 17, 172 Pl. 17
Wen ulin 温普林, 412, 41 Wu iao hang 吴小昌, 59
Weng en 翁奋, 273 Wu iao un 吴小军, 335
Weng en and Yan Yinhong, A Talk Between a Wu iaolin, 115
Man and a Woman, 235 Wu Ying 吴颖, 88
Werner, Chris, 359, 425 Wu uoren 吴作人, 115 foundation, 417
Wesselman, Tom, 175 Wyeth, Andrew, 19, 30 33, 39, 15 A
Western art: forbidden in Cultural e olution, Faraway Place, 31, 32 Barn Swing, 31
35 imitation of, 1 3, 31 , 347 modernist, Christina’s World, 30 31, 32
158, 1 2 op in China ompared to, 171 72,
175, 17 , 180 i ian un, 3 5
Western art theory, 48, 158, 318 ia Wei, 3 0, 425
Western Con eptual art, 154 Xia Xiaowan 夏小万, 58
Western in uen e, 1 , 19, 35, 5, 7, 99, iamen Art Museum, 95, 415
102, 118, 127, 128 30, 159, 1 3, 170, 319 20, iamen ada 厦门达达, 51, 123, 405 Burning
322, 333, 338 39 Works, 95 Haul Away the Museum, 117
Western propaganda, 3 4 5 iang Nan, 352
Western re eption of Chinese art, 357 5 iao Chen, A Strong o us on eality,
Why, 22, 31 317
Wild rass ainting So iety, 410, 411, 415 iao Lu 肖鲁, 119, 120, 12
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 55, 83 iao uan, 223
Working eople s Cultural ala e, 409, 413, iao Yu 萧昱, 271, 273, 345, 428
415 idan emo ra y Wall, 409
World Art 世界美术, 4 , 312, 314, 315, 409 ie uanghui, 223
World of Female Artists e hibition, 155, 194, in Hai hou 忻海舟, 158
31 , 418 Xinjiang Art Academy Exhibition, 75
Wu Ershan 乌尔善, 272, 273, 343, 345 Xishan Symposium, 48
Wu uangyao, 115 u Beihong, 53, 2 ink paintings, 118
Wu uan hong 吴冠中, 49, 410, 413, 419, Xu Bing 徐冰, 99, 118, 123 24, 125 2 , 131,
421 on the an ient and modern, East 132, 248, 274, 35 , 402, 405, 418, 421, 425,
and West, 1 on a beginner s path, 17 42 , 427, 428, 432, 433, 43 A Book from
on reati e omposition and daily pra ti e, the Sky A Mirror to Analyze the World —
14 15 ormalist Aestheti s in ainting in de Si cle Book , 99, 105, 123, 132,
(形式美 , 14 17, , 409 on personal 172 73, 255, 25 , 25 , 41 Pl. 14 Cultural
feelings and artisti style, 15 1 on spirit Animal, 274, 421 Looking for Something
onsonan e, 1 17 The Ancient ifferent in a uiet la e, 105 New
City of Jiaohe, 14 Pl. 2 on untitled English Calligraphy, 255, 25 , 427 n
works, 17 Words, 254 57 rchid Pavilion Preface,
Wu Hong 吴鸿, 290, 404, 43 rom 255 S uare Word Calligraphy series, 249,
System to Cir le , 307 10 255 Three Installations by Xu Bing, 358,
Wu Hung 巫鸿, 3 0, 3 1, 428, 430, 431, 432, 419 Tobacco Project, 249, 403, 432 A
433, 434, 43 E perimental E hibitions Window facing Pudong, 403 l. 50 Word
of the 1990s, 327 3 3 1, 42 , 428, 429, Play: Contemporary Art by Xu Bing, 3 1
432, 433 and Canceled: Exhibiting u Hong 徐虹, 19 Walking out of the
Experimental Art in China, 3 1, 429 and Abyss: My eminist Criti ue, 185, 193 94
Reinterpretation: A Decade of Experimental u ilin, 101
Chinese Art, 397, 430 and Transience: u in 徐进, 85 Dialogue, 84 12:00 a.m., 84
Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the u Lei 徐累, 95n3
Twentieth Century, 3 0, 42 Xu Min 许敏, 19
Wu iafeng, 124 Xu Tan 徐坦, 425, 427 New Order, 328
Wu ialin 吴家林, 223 rostitute series, 22
Wu u ai, 115 u Wenli and Liu ing et al., A Letter to the
Wu Mei hun 吴美纯, 23 , 237, 271, 343, 344, eople, 8 10
345, 34 , 423, 424, 42 , 427 u iaoyan 徐晓燕, 195
u Yihui 徐一晖, 95n3, 424, 425 Art History, 201
451
E perimental Art in the 1990s, 31 23
Xu Zhen 徐震, 337 38, 401, 42 The Difficulty The Modernist ilemma, 128 32
|
with Colors, Pl. 44 Yin inan 尹吉男, 315, 317 New eneration
INDEX
Xu Zhiwei 徐志伟, Yuanmingyuan Village, 288, and Close p Artists, 154, 155 57
288 Yin i 尹齐, 204
ue Yongnian, 124 Yin Shuang i 殷双喜, 211, 299, 301, 323, 412,
429, 432, 433 My utlook on Criti ism,
Yan Lei 颜磊, 423 Absolutely Safe, 237 Beijing 324 25
Haw, 233 Clear Away, 233, 234 Dissolve, Yin iu hen 尹秀珍, 185, 341, 42 , 427 Clothes
233 1500 cm, 233 Invasion, 225 2 , 234 Chest, 198 Pl. 28 Ruined Capital, 329
No. 031007, 234 323 cm , 234 Yin Yan un, 44
Yan eiming 严培明, 401, 418, 422, 427, 428, Yong He, 223
432 Yu Bogong 于伯公: Shit with a Dream, 203
Yan ing 阎萍, 195 Shit with Long Hair, 203
Yan Shan hun 严善錞, 4 , 170, 299, 412, 432, Yu Chen 余陈, 155
433 Yu Hong 喻红, 155, 158, 1 0, 180, 195, 418,
Yan Yinhong 严隐鸿, 235 419, 420
Yan an Conferen e on Literature and Art, 1 4, Yu i 余极, 175
408, 419 Yu iaofu 喻晓夫, Gently, the Children Perform
Yang udong 杨福东, 273, 343, 401, 431 The for Picasso’s Doves, 38
First Intellectual, 198 Pl. 29 Yu Youhan 余友涵, 415, 420, 421 Mao edong
Yang uo hang 杨国章, 175 Mrs. Lida series, 1 4, 173, 17
Prepares Powdered Milk for Her Grandson, Yuan Baolin 袁宝林, 124
178 Reference News, 17 Yuan uang, 327 28
Yang ie hang 杨诘苍, 248, 251, 357, 358, 3 5, Yuan e ia, 121
417, 418, 419, 432 Yuan Yaomin 袁耀敏, 195
Yang un, 422, 430 Yue Min un 岳敏君, 185, 398, 424, 42 Sky,
Yang e in 杨克勤, 195 Pl. 25
Yang Li, 299 Yung Ho Chang 张永和, 341 42
Yang Lihua, 115
Yang Sen 杨森, 343 eng Chaoying, 115
Yang Wei, 434, 43 eng an hi 曾梵志, 158, 185, 401 Mask Series
Yang iaoyan 杨小彦, 219, 299 The Cartoon No. 6, 398 Mask Series No. 8, 192 Pl. 23
eneration, 319 eng Hao 曾浩, 198
Yang u 杨旭 and hou Tiehai, Scribbles on eng iao un, 421
Newspaper, 17 eng hennan, 124, 127
Yang Yingsheng 杨迎生, 95n3 ero art group, 5 , 0, 413, 415
Yang Yong 杨勇, 22 , 272, 273 Zero xhibition, 57, 58, 413
Yang Yongshan, 210 ha Li 查立, 85 8
Yang hen hong 杨振忠, 337 38, 423, 424, Zhai Mo 翟墨, 124
425, 42 ish Tank, 237 han ian un 詹建俊, 115
Yang hilin 杨志麟, 95n3 han Wang 展望, 155, 15 , 198, 345, 34 , 422,
Yanhuang Art allery, 331, 419, 424 42 ebris Sal age S hemes, 20 7
Yasumi hi, Morishita, 293, 295 New Crash Course Art Studio, 340 New
Ye Shuanggui 叶双贵, 180 rand Cerami s Map of Bei ing o kery emolding
series, 181 lan, 207 8 Ruin Cleaning, 207
Ye Tingfang, 124, 127 Zhang Bin 张濒, 175 Model pera series, 17
Ye Yong ing 叶永青, 415, 418, 424, 43 Zhang Bo 张波, 175
Awaken in Spring from Hibernation, 57 hang ai, Exploring the Delicacy of Painting,
Pl. 8 Big Poster, 17 293
Ye Yushan, 49 hang ali 张大力, 198, 335, 401, 43
Year of China in ran e, 432 Dialogue, 209 13, 209 Pl. 31
Yearbook of Chinese Art 1949 – 1989, 48 hang efeng 张德峰, 15 Distance, 341
Yeats, William Butler, 92 Zhang Fan 张帆, 343
Yellow River Cantata, 1 4 Zhang Fuping 张复平, 91
Yi Ching, 250 hang Haier 张海儿, Self-Portrait, 223, 223
Yi an 易丹, 299, 404, 417, 420 hang Han i 张涵子, 272, 428
Yi Ying 易英, 299, 301, 343, 412, 422, 425, 429, hang Huan 张洹, 198, 224, 401, 402, 420, 428,
430, 433 The Meaning of Work Should Be 43 12 Square Meters, 214, 214 65 G,
Clear, 318 Criti ism on Chinese 185 87, 186
hang ian un 张建军, 412 Humanity and Their Zhou Changjiang 周长江, 420 Window, 39
452
Clocks, 5 hou Chunya 周春芽, 424 Black Lines, Red

hang un 张骏, April 5, 1976, 39, 41 Torso, Pl. 43
|
hang angkang, 121 hou Enlai, 5, 408

Zhang Nian 张念, performan e art, 117, 431 hou ing in, 1 n2
Zhang Peili 张培力, 51, 85 8 , 87, 88, 99, 123, hou irong 周吉荣, 155
125, 12 , 154, 235 3 , 238, 413, 414, 418, Zhou Shaoli 周少立, Death Breeds New Life,
420, 423, 424, 425, 427, 433 and Archives, 40
405 Art Project No. 2, 112 13 Assignment Zhou Tiehai 周铁海, 17 , 425 Press
No. 1, 233 Best Before 8 28 1994, 240 Conference, 357
Brown Book No. 1, 112 Children’s Zhou Xiaohu 周啸虎: The Gooey Gentleman,
Playground, 233 Chinese Bodybuilding, 1 4, 248 Beautiful Cloud, 247 Children’s
1 5, 173, 177 Diary, 242 Document on Rhymes, 247 Face-Lifting Arch Veranda, 247
Hygiene, No. 3, 233, 239 Focal Distance, orm and Shadow Aren t Separated series,
23 Midsummer Swimmers, 84 Pl. 10 1989 248 Listening In on Plastic Surgery, 247
Standard Pronunciation, 1 4, 1 5, 173 Plastic Surgery Hallway, 247 Really Not vil
Opposite Space, 240 41 Pause, 84 Please Intentions, 247 The Age of Lies, 24 47
Help Yourself to Some Jazz, 84 Uncertain Travel in Desire, 248 Wax Museum, 248
Pleasure, 23 , 241 Water, 233, 238 39, 238 hou infang, 1
series, 118 Zhou Xiping 周细平, 1 5, 180 rand ortrait
hang eili and eng ianyi, Exhibition of series, 181
Recent Works, 329 hou Yan 周彦, 115 on China Avant-Garde
hang iang 张蔷, 115, 124, 412 e hibition, 114 15
hang ing 张晴, 351, 428, 430, 432 43 The hou Yubing 周玉冰, 299
Shanghai Biennale Amid Transitions, hou uoren, Water Margin, 1 5 n2
347 50 Zhu Bin 祝斌, 299
hang un 张群 and Meng Luding, In the hu adong 朱发东, 198, 224, 335, 42 State
New ra: nlightenment of Adam and ve, of E isten e, 213 14 This Person is for Sale,
35, 3 38, 5 Pl. 7 214 Zhu adong, Missing Person
hang ongfu 张荣富, Childhood Memories, Announcement, 213, 214
39 hu ia 朱加, 155, 423 orever, 234, 23 37
hang San i, 180 Zhu Ming 朱冥, 224
Zhang Xiaogang 张晓刚, 51, 90, 118, 401, 412, Zhu Mo 朱墨, 115
415, 418, 421, 422, 423, 424, 427 Big amily hu i 朱其, 423, 429
series, 185, 190 91, 192, 398 Pl. 24 hu ingsheng 朱青生, 4 , 88, 405, 412, 414,
hang iaoling, 44 45, 427 415, 428, 433, 434, 435 on the 2000
Zhang Xiaping 张夏平, 91 Shanghai Biennale, 351 52
hang Ya ie 张亚杰, Models, 202 Zhu Xikun 祝锡琨, 180
hang Yao un, 115 Zhu Xinjian 朱新建, 1 3, 1 n2
hang Yu, 300 hu Ye, Bei ing Theorists ea tions to the
hang hilin, and China Avant-Garde Art of obert aus henberg, 42 45, 43
e hibition, 119 hu Yu 朱昱, 271, 344, 345 4 , 428 Pocket
hang hiyang, 4 , 412 Theology, 279 Skin Graft, 277 8 Pl. 42
hang uying, 115, 211 hu ude 朱祖德, 101 3
hao Bandi 赵半狄, 155, 15 , 334, 427 huang Hui 庄辉, 2 9, 424, 428, 433 One
hao inghuan, ioneers of Contemporary and Thirty, 228 Shooting a Group Portrait,
Chinese Art, 38 42 227 30, 227
hao in 赵勤 and Liu ian, 203 4 I Love huhai ainting Institute, 114
McDonald’s, 203 Live Broadcast, 203 Zhuhai Symposium, 48, 49, 414
hao Tingyang, 170 ou Yue in, 319, 320
hao Wenliang 赵文量, 5 Zu Zhou 诅咒, 224
he iang A ademy of ine Arts later China uo ing, 433, 435
National A ademy of ine Arts , 55, 5 , 83,
8 , 107, 232, 408, 412, 414, 41 , 419
he iang eople s ublishing House, 429
heng uogu 郑国谷, 344, 345, 425 The Life
of Youth in Yang iang series, 22
heng Lian ie 郑连杰, performan e art series,
182
Zheng Shengtian 郑胜天, 3 0, 425, 427, 432
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TRUSTEES OF THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
a id o kefeller Howard ardner Ex Officio
Honorary Chairman Mauri e . reenberg
artan regorian lenn . Lowry
onald S. Lauder Agnes und Director
Honorary Chairman Mimi Haas
Ale andra A. Her an Agnes und
obert B. Mens hel Marlene Hess Chairman of the Board of
Chairman Emeritus Barbara akobson MoMA P.S.1
Werner H. ramarsky
Agnes und ill raus Mi hael . Bloomberg
President Emerita Marie- os e ra is Mayor of the City of
une Noble Larkin New York
onald B. Marron onald S. Lauder
President Emeritus Thomas H. Lee Christine C. uinn
Mi hael Lynne Speaker of the Council of the
erry I. Speyer onald B. Marron City of New York
Chairman Wynton Marsalis
obert B. Mens hel ohn C. Liu
Marie- os e ra is Har ey S. Shipley Miller Comptroller of the City of
President Philip S. Niarchos New York
ames . Ni en
Sid . Bass Peter Norton Sharon er y o kefeller
Leon . Bla k Maja Oeri President of The International
Mimi Haas i hard E. ldenburg Council
i hard E. Salomon Mi hael S. it
Vice Chairmen i hard . arsons ranny Heller orn and
eter . eterson William S. Susman
lenn . Lowry Mrs. Milton etrie Co-Chairmen of The
Director ifford hillips Contemporary Arts Council
Emily auh ulit er
i hard E. Salomon a id o kefeller Life Trustee
Treasurer a id o kefeller, r. Honorary Trustee
Sharon er y o kefeller
ames ara Lord ogers of i erside
Assistant Treasurer i hard E. Salomon
Ted Sann
atty Lipshut Anna Marie Shapiro
Secretary ilbert Sil erman
Anna ea ere Smith
Wallis Annenberg erry I. Speyer
Celeste Bartos oanne M. Stern
Sid . Bass Mrs. onald B. Straus
Lawren e B. Benenson Yoshio Tanigu hi
Leon . Bla k a id Teiger
Eli Broad Eugene . Thaw
Clarissa Al o k Bronfman eanne C. Thayer
onald L. Bryant, r. oan Tis h
Thomas S. Carroll Edgar Wa henheim III
atri ia helps de Cisneros Thomas W. Weisel
Mrs. an Cowles ary Winni k
ouglas S. Cramer
Paula Crown
Lewis B. Cullman
oel S. Ehrenkran
ohn Elkann
Lauren e ink
H. .H. uke ran of
Ba aria
athleen uld
ianluigi abetti
October: The State Council formally
[ Information on important sociopolitical
e ents in China between 197 and 200 is announces that the ational College
printed in bold type. ] Entrance Exam, interrupted for ten years,
is to be resumed.
1976 December: The Ministry of Culture
March: The journal Art ( Meishu ) resumes announ es that the Central A ademy of
publication. ine Arts, Bei ing Central A ademy of Arts
April: Spontaneous activities memorial- and Crafts, Bei ing Bei ing ilm A ademy
izing Premier Zhou Enlai in Tiananmen and other art institutions are to be reopened.
Square are suppressed. This event has since
been historically referred to as the “April 1978
Fifth Incident” ( see illustration p. 220 ). January: The journal Review of oreign Art
July: The journal Art 197 :3 publishes se - ( Guowai meishu ziliao , renamed Compilation
eral artworks on the theme of Counterattack- of Translations in Art (Meishu yicong , begins
ing the Trend to e erse the Anti- ightists publi ation at the he iang A ademy of ine
Movement (Fanji youqing fan’an feng). Arts, Hang hou it starts publi ir ulation
September: Mao Zedong dies of illness. in 1980.
October: The Chinese Communist Party February: Series on Art ( Meishu congkan )
( CCP ) dismantles the “Gang of Four,” ending begins publication in Shanghai.
the decade-long Cultural Revolution. March: Nineteenth-Century French Rural
Landscape Painting Exhibition ( aguo 19 shiji
1977 nongcun fengjinghua zhan , sponsored by
February: The National Art allery, C A C, opens at the National Art allery.
Bei ing, holds the National Art Exhibition to April: The CCP decides to reinstate all
Enthusiastically Celebrate the Inauguration rightists.
of Comrade Hua Guofeng as the Chairman of May: The China ederation of Literary
the CCP and the Chairman of the Central and Art Cir les Zhongguo wenxue yishujie
Military Commission and to Enthusiastically lianhehui resumes and establishes prepara-
Celebrate the Great Triumph of Smashing the tory ommittees for arious af liated
Gang of Four’s Scheme to Usurp the Party’s societies.
Power ( Relie qingzhu Hua Guofeng tongzhi Guangming Daily ( Guangming ribao )
ren zhonggong zhongyang zhuxi, zhongyang publishes the editorial “Practice Is the Only
junwei zhuxi, relie qingzhu fensui “sirenbang” Criterion of Truth” ( “Shijian shi jianyan zhenli
zhuandang duoquan yinmou de weida shengli de weiyi biaozhun” ). Reprinted in People’s
quanguo meishu zuopin zhanlan ). Daily ( Renmin ribao ) the next day, the article
May: The Art Exhibition to Commemorate starts a national debate over “criteria of truth.”
the 35th Anniversary of Mao Zedong’s Talks The journal Art publishes Xin Bingmao’s
at the “Yan’an Conference on Literature and arti le The refa e to the 197 Inaugural
Art” inian Mao Zedong zai Yan’an wenyi Issue of Art ught to be Criti i ed Meishu
zuotanhui shang de jianghua fabiao 35 197 nian huangkan i bi u pipan .
zhounian meishu zuopin zhanlan ) opens at August: Lu inhua s short story S ar
the National Art allery, sponsored by ( Shanghen is published in Literary Daily
the Ministry of Culture. ( Wenhui bao and oins the term S ar
July: The Third Plenary Session of the 10th Literature Shanghen wenxue . Later, Bei ing s
Central Committee of the CCP passes the Picture Stories ( Lianhuan huabao ) arranges
Resolution to Reinstate Comrade Deng for Liu Yulian, Chen Yiming, and Li Bin to
Xiaoping. reate an illustrated story ersion of S ar.
August: The 11th ational Congress of the November: The Xinhua ews Agency
CCP is held in Beijing, and passes the new reports the Beijing Municipal Committee’s
Constitution of the Communist Party, elects resolution to redress the April Fifth Incident
Hua Guofeng as chairman and Deng Xiaoping of 1976.
as vice chairman of the Central Committee. December: The Ministry of Culture
Hua delivers a political report on behalf of the issues Notes on Art Institutions se of
CCP proclaiming China’s entry into Models Guanyu meishu xueyuan he meishu
a new era of development. chuangzuo bumen shiyong mote de tongzhi ,
September: Chinese eople s Asso iation whi h allows art institutions to use nude
for riendship with oreign Countries models for tea hing and reating art.
C A C sponsors an e hibition of nineteenth- China and the U.S. issue the Joint
and twentieth- entury omanian paintings Communiqué on the Establishment of
at the National Art allery. Diplomatic Relations Between the People’s
409
Republic of China and the United States a hen s arti le A Brief Introdu tion to
of America. Modern Art S hools in the West ifang
The Third Plenary Session of the 11th iandai meishu liupai ian ie . The ournal
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Central Committee of the CCP convenes Chinese Art ( Zhongguo meishu ) begins
in Beijing to establish a political position publication. Art 138:5, 1979 publishes
centered on economic construction and Wu uan hong s arti le ormalist Aestheti s
organizational principles based on demo- in ainting Huihua de ingshi mei ,
cratic centrism. This firmly establishes a new whi h triggers an e tensi e debate.
path to socialist modernization through July: The No-Name ainting So iety
opening and reform, a new theory of ( Wuming huahui holds its rst publi
building socialism with Chinese characteris- e hibition in Huafang Studio in Bei ing s
tics, and a new generation of CCP leaders Beihai Park.
with Deng Xiaoping at its center. The Central Committee of the CCP and
The Art Exhibition Commemorating the the State Council decide to establish Special
85th Anniversary of Chairman Mao’s Birthday Economic Zones in designated areas in
( inian Mao Zedong danchen 85 zhounian Shantou, Shenzhen, Xiamen, and Zhuhai.
meizhan opens at the National Art allery. Japanese Modern Painting Exhibition
( Riben xiandai huihua zhanlan ) opens at the
1979 Working eople s Cultural ala e in Be ing.
January: The Central A ademy of ine August: Chen Yiming, Liu Yulian, and Li
Arts, Bei ing, resumes publi ation of its ournal Bin’s Maple ( Feng pl. 3 is published in
Fine Arts Research (Meishu yanjiu). For the Picture Stories. It becomes a representative
rst time, the ournal Art publishes artworks work of S ar Art Shanghen meishu , and
re e ting on the April ifth In ident. Art starts an enduring debate o er truth in art
returns from being a bimonthly publi ation ( yishu zhenshi ). This group of works wins
to a monthly publi ation s hedule. rst pri e at the National Fine Arts Exhibition
February: New Spring Landscape and Still Commemorating the 30th Anniversary of
Life Paintings Exhibition ( Xinchun fengjing the Founding of New China ( Xin Zhongguo
jingwuhua zhan ), also alled the New Spring chengli 30 zhounian quanguo meizhan ).
Painting Society Exhibition (Xinchun huahui September: Large-s ale murals are
zhanlan , is held in Sun Yat-sen ark in Bei ing. ompleted at the new terminal of the Bei ing
Twelve Artist xhibition ( Shi er ren Capital International Airport, among whi h
huazhan is held at the Huangpu istri t Yuan Yunsheng s The Water Splashing
Children s ala e in Shanghai. estival — Song of Life (Poshuijie — shengming
The Shanghai ainting So iety Shanghai de zange sparks er e ontro ersy and
huayuan holds the Welcoming Spring Painting ultimately has to be o ered.
Exhibition (Yingchun huazhan) in which the The e hibition Paintings by Hirayama
sculpture Wounds (Chuangshang is the rst Ikuo ( Pingshan Yufu huazhan is held at the
nude artwork on publi display sin e 1970. Working eople s Cultural ala e in Bei ing.
March: In his speech at the Party’s n September 27, The rst Stars Art
conference on theory, Deng Xiaoping Exhibition ( Xingxing meizhan ) opens in a
advocates the position that “in order to small garden to the east of the National Art
realize the Four Modernizations in China, allery, featuring more than 150 works of oil
we must uphold the four basic principles.” painting, ink painting, woodblo k prints, and
April: The photography e hibition Nature, wood- ar ing. It is banned on September 29.
Society, and Man (Ziran, shehui, ren , spon- n tober 1, some members of the Stars
sored by the April hotography So iety, ( Xingxing on ene in front of the idan
is held at the r hard oom in Sun Yat-sen emo ra y Wall and begin to mar h in the
ark, Bei ing see p. 7 . streets see p. 9 . Between No ember 23
Art 135:2, 1979 publishes summaries and e ember 2, the e hibition is mo ed
of a group of spee hes, in luding Liu ai u s to Huafang Studio in Beihai ark under the
ne Must Abide by the Laws of Art support of the chairman of the Chinese
Yao an yishu guil banshi , iang eng s Artists Asso iation, iang eng, and the
emo ra y Cannot be i en, It Must be leader of the Bei ing Artists Asso iation,
ought for Nin hu yao heng u, buneng Liu un.
kao en i , and ang Cheng s Without November: The Third Conferen e for
emo ra y, There Are No Cari atures members of the Chinese Artists Asso iation
Meiyou min hu iu meiyou manhua . is held in Bei ing, where they pass a new
June: The journal World Art ( Shijie meishu ) Constitution of the Chinese Artists
begins publi ation and publishes Shao Asso iation, from whi h leftist ontent
has been remo ed. iang eng is ele ted The publi ation of Wu uan hong s
410
as the chairman of the association. n Abstra t Aestheti s in ainting uanyu

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hou iangmei in Art 154:10, 1980 in ites

1980 widespread dis ussion in art ir les on issues
January: Wild Grass — Peer Exhibition on erning ontent and form, formalism,
(Yecao tongren huazhan) is shown in Shapingba and abstra t aestheti s.
ark in Chong ing, Si huan pro in e. Later in November: The Political Bureau of the
the year, in No ember, the Chong ing Wild Central Committee of the CCP convenes
rass ainting So iety Yecao huahui is founded. nine times, and advises the selection of Hu
Deng Xiaoping declares at a CCP meeting, Yaobang as the chairman of the Central
“We cannot settle down to engage in construc- Committee, and Deng Xiaoping as the
tion without political stability and unity.” chairman of the Central Military Commission.
February: The National Fine Arts Exhibition The Bei ing il ainting Study So iety
Commemorating the 30th Anniversary of the ( Beijing youhua yanjiuhui opens its third
Founding of New China ( ingzhu Zhonghua e hibition at the National Art allery. Their
Renmin Gongheguo chengli 30 zhounian di erse styles and emphases on formal elements
quanguo meishu zuopin zhanlan , aka The Fifth of painting attra t e tensi e attention.
National Fine Arts Exhibition (Di wujie quanguo
meizhan opens at the National Art allery 1981
as the rst national art e hibition sin e the January: The State Council issues
Cultural e olution. Cheng Conglin s oil Temporary Regulations Regarding Self-
painting Snow on X Day X Month, 1968 (1968 Funded Study Abroad ( Guanyu zifei chuguo
nian X yue X ri xue pl. 4 and ao iaohua s liuxue de zanxing guiding ) clearly stating
oil painting Why (Weishenme) win honors. that self-funded study abroad is one channel
The rass So iety Caocao she organi es for fostering talent.
the 1980s Painting xhibition ( Bashi niandai The Supreme People’s Court Special
huazhan , held in the Luwan istri t Cultural Session holds trial of ten leading members
Center in Shanghai. of the Lin Biao and Jiang Qing Anti-
March: Art 147:3, 1980 publishes e Revolutionary Clan.
works from the rst Stars Art Exhibition as Art 157:1, 1981 publishes Chen an ing s
well as Li ianting s arti le About the Stars Tibetan Series and Luo hongli s Father
Art Exhibition uanyu Xingxing meizhan . ( Fuqin pl. 5 .
Artist u Leilei argues self-e pression is The Second National Young Artists
the nature of art, and subse uently triggers Exhibition (Di er jie quanguo qingnian meizhan)
a debate that lasts for se eral years. opens at the National Art allery. Luo
April: Art publishes a olumn i e Nude Art Zhongli’s oil painting Father wins top honors.
a air iew heng ue duidai renti meishu , March: Art 159:3, 1981 publishes Wu
whi h instigates a debate on the topi . uan hong s arti le Content etermines
The se ond Nature, Society, and Man orm Neirong ueding ingshi whi h
photography e hibition is held in Huafang not only uestions this theory but is also
Studio in Beihai ark. met with intense debate.
June: The Stars art so iety formally registers The First Exhibition of Modern Art in Xi’an
with the Bei ing Artists Asso iation. ( Xi’an shoujie xiandai yishu zhan , i an,
July: The journal Art laun hes a debate Shaan i, is held and attended by more than
on realism. 0,000 people.
Contemporary Generation Oil Painting The Bei ing bran h of the Chinese Artists
Exhibition ( Tongdairen youhua zhan is held Asso iation and the Bei ing il ainting Study
at the National Art allery. So iety osponsor a symposium on Bei ing
The art group Shen So iety Shen she ) oil painting studies, dis ussing the urrent
is founded in unming, Yunnan, and holds situation and de elopment of the medium
their rst e hibition at the Yunnan Museum. as well as issues su h as lo ali ation and the
August: The se ond Stars Art Exhibition relationship between ontent and form.
is held, at the National Art allery. June: The Sixth Plenary Session of the 11th
October: The 1978 Graduation xhibition Central Committee of the CCP passes the
of Graduate Students at the Central Academy Resolution on Certain Questions in the
of Fine Arts ( Zhongyang meishu xueyuan 1978 History of Our Party since the Founding
ji yanjiusheng biye zuopin zhan is held in of the People’s Republic, reaching some
the e hibition hall at the a ademy. Chen conclusions about key historical events in
an ing s Tibetan Series e.g., pl. and other the previous 32 years, especially the Cultural
works create great impact. Revolution.
September to November:
411
pants in lude Huang Yong ing. Be ause
Important riginal Works from the Collection of the ontent, the organi ing work units
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of American Paintings at the Museum of ( danwei don t allow the e hibition to be
ine Arts, Boston ( Boshidun bowuguan cang opened to the publi , although Huang Yong
meiguo minghua yuanzuo zhan is held in ing do uments its ontents and pro eedings
Bei ing and Shanghai, the rst large-s ale later in The Trend of Art Thought ( Meishu
Ameri an painting e hibition in China sin e sichao 1985: .
the resumption of China- .S. relations. September: Experimental Painting
November: The esear h Institute of xhibition: The Stage 1983 ( Basannian jieduan:
Traditional Chinese ainting Zhongguohua Huihua shiyan zhanlan later alled the Ten
yanjiuyuan is founded in Bei ing. Artists Exhibition ( Shi ren huazhan is held
at udan ni ersity in Shanghai, but is
1982 banned in four days.
January: Art starts to publish in serial Paintings by Zao Wou-ki ( Zhao Wuji
form oseph-Emile Muller and rank Elgar s huazhan is held at the National Art allery.
A Century of Modern Painting. October: The Second Plenary Session
February: Oil Paintings from Sichuan Fine of the 12th Central Committee of the CCP is
Arts Institute ( Sichuan meiyuan youhua zuopin held in Beijing, launching the campaign to
zhan opens at the National Art allery, “Cleanse Spiritual Pollution.”
an important e hibition for the Si huan Paintings by dvard Munch ( Nuowei
painting school. Mengke huihua zhanlan is held at the
The State Council issues Regulations National Art allery and later tra els to
Regarding the Prohibition of the Import, Chengdu, Si huan, and unming, Yunnan.
Duplication, Sale, or Broadcast of Reactionary
Pornographic Audio or isual Material 1984
(Guanyu yanjin jinkou, fuzhi, xiaoshou, bofang January: Deng Xiaoping inspects the
fandong huangse xialiu luyin luxiang zhipin Special Economic Zones of Shenzhen
de guiding ), a prelude to the Anti-Spiritual and Zhuhai.
Pollution campaign. March: The Secretariat of the Central
March: The Hammer Collection from the Committee and the State Council decide to
.S.: 500 Years of Important Works (Meiguo open up fourteen coastal cities to foreign
Hanmo canghua: wubainian mingzuo zhanlan) investment: Beihai, Dalian, Fuzhou,
is shown at the National Art allery. Guangzhou, Lianyungang, antong, ingbo,
April: Expressionist Paintings from Germany Qingdao, Qinhuangdao, Shanghai, Tianjin,
( Deyizhi liangang gongheguo biaoxian zhuyi Wenzhou, Yantai, and Zhanjiang.
huihua zhanlan is held at the National The series Marching Toward the Future
Cultural Palace in Beijing. ( Zouxiang weilai begins publi ation by
June: The National Symposium on Art Si huan eople s ublishing House and
Theory uanguo meishu lilun taolunhui , in ludes translated works and original
sponsored by the ournal Art, is held in writings. By 1988, it has published 74 writings.
Shennong ia, Hubei. July: udolf Arnheim s book Art and
The Leishi ainting So iety Leishi huahui ) isual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative
is founded in Hunan. The First Exhibition Eye is published by Chinese So ial S ien e
of the Leishi Painting Society ( Leishi huahui Publishing Press.
shouzhan held at the Children s ala e in The Wild rass ainting So iety Yecao
Changsha during the same year is one of the huahui of iangtan, Hunan, is founded.
rst modern art e hibitions in China. Its rst e hibition is held in ebruary during
September: The 12th ational Congress the following year.
of the CCP is held in Beijing, stating its aim “to July to September: The Northern
build socialism with Chinese characteristics.” Literature and Art Information E hange
Center ( Beifang wenxue yishu xinxi jiaoliu
1983 zhongxin later renamed the Northern
January: Art 181:1, 1983 triggers debates Art roup Beifang yishu qunti is formally
by publishing arti les about abstra t paintings established in Heilong iang pro in e.
and dis ussions on abstra t art. Meanwhile, the Northern Way Art Allian e
May: Original Paintings by Picasso ( Bijiasuo ( Beifang daolu yishu lianmeng is founded
huihua yuanzuo zhanlan is held at the in Chang hun, ilin pro in e.
National Art allery. November: A new translation of
ive Artists xhibition ( Wuren xiandai Freud’s Psychoanalysis is published by
huazhan is held in iamen, u ian parti i- Commercial Press.
Works by Canadian Painter Alex Colville The art group New Wildness ainting
412
( ianada huajia Yalikesi eerweier zuopin School ( Xin yexing huapai is founded in
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zhan is held at the Bei ing E hibition Center. Nan ing, iangsu.
December: The painting e hibition The British ro k band Wham performs
xploration, Discovery, xpression ( Tansuo, in China.
faxian, biaoxian is held in Lan hou, ansu. May: The Progressive Young Chinese Artists
China and Britain sign a joint declaration Exhibition ( ianjin zhong de Zhongguo
for Hong Kong to be handed over in 1997. qingnian meizhan is held at the National
The Sixth National Fine Arts Exhibition Art allery some unorthodo works in
( Di liu jie quanguo meishu zuopin zhanlan ) is the e hibition pro oke intense rea tions.
held at the National Art allery. June: Art 210: , 1985 publishes a olumn
to introdu e the 41st eni e Biennale.
1985 Fine Arts in China (Zhongguo meishu bao ,
January: The Trend of Art Thought (Meishu sponsored by the esear h Institute of ine
sichao begins publi ation in Wuhan, Hubei. Arts at the Chinese National A ademy of Arts,
Initially a monthly ournal, it hanges to a holds an opening eremony and starts weekly
bimonthly in 198 . The editor-in- hief is eng publi ation on uly . hang iang is the
e. i ao ian, Yan Shan hun, Lu Hong, hairman, and Liu iao hun is editor-in- hief.
Huang huan, Li ianting, and others The rst New igurative xhibition (Xin
parti ipate in the editorial work. This ournal juxiang huazhan is held in the Cultural Hall
eases publi ation in 1987, after 22 issues. of ing an istri t, Shanghai parti ipating
The journal Art goes through editorial artists in lude Mao uhui and hang
hanges. Shao a hen be omes editor-in- Xiaogang. xhibition of Works by Young Artists
hief the editorial staff in ludes ao Minglu, from Fujian and Shanghai (Minhu qingnian
Wang iao ian, and others. meizhan is held at the Yushan gallery in
The journal Jiangsu Pictorial ( Jiangsu u ian pro in e parti ipating artists in lude
huakan hanges from a bimonthly to monthly members of the u ian M Modern Art
publi ation and begins to pay lose attention esear h Asso iation Fujian M xiandai yishu
to Chinese ontemporary art. yanjiuhui su h as Cai uo- iang and Huang
The First Exhibition of the Northern Way Yong ing from u ian, and Shanghai artists
( Shoujie beifang daolu zhan is held at hang ian un, Chen hen, and others.
Chang hun Art Middle S hool. arti ipants July: Jiangsu Pictorial 55:7, 1985 publishes
in lude ing efu, u Yue hun, ao Li iaoshan s arti le My pinion on
Yang, uan awo, Hai Bo, Han iao, Han Contemporary Chinese ainting angdai
uan hong, Lu Ming, Wang Changbai, Yu hongguohua hi wo ian , whi h argues
ianyou, Yu Mingde, hang i hong, hu that Chinese painting has rea hed a dead
ang, and uo Ying ue. end. It is reprinted in Fine Arts in China
March to April: rofessor oman 1985:14 on tober 2 and sparks e tensi e
erostko from Minneapolis College of Art debates in art ir les.
and esign is in ited to gi e a si -week The epartment of Art History at the
series of talks on the history of modern art Central A ademy of ine Arts elebrates
in Western so iety at the he iang A ademy the graduation of the lass of 1985, whose
of ine Arts, Hang hou. undergraduates in lude Hou Hanru, Wen
April: The Symposium on il ainting ulin, and ei awei. raduate students
Youhua yishu taolunhui usually alled hu ingsheng and Yi Ying play important
the Huangshan Symposium Huangshan roles in the 85 Art New Wa e mo ement.
huiyi is held in ing ian, Anhui, near The Graduate xhibition of the Zhejiang
Mount Huang. The symposium is organi ed Academy of Fine Arts ( Zhejiang meiyuan
by the esear h Institute of ine Arts at biyesheng zuopin zhan is held. Works by
the Chinese National A ademy of Arts, eng ianyi and other artists re ei e a great
Bei ing, the Anhui bran h of the Chinese deal of attention.
Artists Asso iation, the Central A ademy September: The Trend of Art Thought
of ine Arts, the Bei ing ine Art A ademy, holds the rst awards eremony for art
and the editorial board of Art History and theory sin e the founding of the eople s
Theory ( Meishu shilun . More than 0 epubli . Young painters and theorists su h
young oil painters and theorists from a ross as Chen an ing, Chen Yungang, Cheng
the ountry parti ipate in the symposium iaoyu, eng ing iang, Wenda u, Li
and engage in dis ussions about renewing iaoshan, Lu Meng, Tan Li iang, Wang Lin,
artisti on epts and de elopmental Yin Shuang i, hang hiyang, and hu
trends in Chinese oil painting. ingsheng re ei e honors.
413
The Northern Art roup holds an at the Central A ademy of Arts and Crafts.
a ademi symposium titled etrospe t The e hibition tra els to Lhasa, Tibet.
December: The ’85 New Space e hibition
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and rospe ts for the Northern Art Style
Beifang yishu fengge de huigu yu han- ( 85 Xin kongjian is held at the e hibition
wang at the Heilong iang Art Museum. hall at the he iang A ademy of ine Arts
French Impressionism and Early-Twentieth- parti ipating artists in lude hang eili, eng
Century Art ( aguo yinxiangpai ji 20 shiji ianyi, and Bao ianfei.
chu zuopin zhan is held in Bei ing. The National Working Conferen e on
September to October: The rst Art Theory uanguo meishu lilun gong uo
Shenzhen Art estival ( Shenzhen meishujie ) huiyi , sponsored by the Chinese Artists
is held in Shen hen, uangdong pro in e, Asso iation, is held in Bei ing.
and arries out dis ussions on Western The group e hibition of the ero art
modernism, abstra t art, and more. group in Hunan Hunan 0 yishu jituan zuopin
October: The First National Art Exhibition zhan opens at u iangyiyuan at the Martyr s
of the No-Name Painting Society (Zhongguo ark in Changsha, after whi h some members
wumingshi huahui shouci quanguo meizhan ) of the group start their performance art
is held at the e hibition hall in Nan uan ark, a ti ity of mar hing toward Lhasa.
Chong ing. Untitled Painting Exhibition ( Wuti
Half Generation Painting Exhibition (Banjiezi huazhan is held at the e hibition hall of
huazhan is held at the National Art allery. the Art epartment at the Central ni ersity
arti ipating artists are mostly a generation for Nationalities, Bei ing the e hibition
of young professors from art institutions. utili es many material ob e ts.
The founding eremony for four Chinese The First Exhibition of Three Steps Studio
Artists Asso iation ommittees oil ( Sanbu huashi di yi ci zhanlan is held at
paintings, murals, prints, and illustrations the Working eople s Cultural ala e in
is held in Bei ing. Taiyuan, Shan i.
iangsu Youth Art Week’s Modern Art
Exhibition ( Jiangsu qingnian yishu zhou — 1986
daxing xiandai yishuzhan is held at the iangsu January: Artists allery Yishujia hualang )
Art Museum in Nan ing. Afterward, primary opens at the new Bei ing Musi Hall. It is
parti ipating artists, su h as ing ang, found the rst professional gallery in Bei ing dealing
the art group ed Brigade Hongse lü ). ontemporary painting sin e the Cultural
The art reation and study group Spa e e olution.
Art Base Taikong meishu jidi is founded Last xhibition ’86 No. 1 (86 nian zuihou
in Lianyungang, iangsu. huazhan No.1 opens at the he iang E hibition
November: Invitational xhibition on New Hall, Hang hou. The e hibition is initiated by
Works of Chinese Painting uohua xinzuo young tea hers at the he iang A ademy of
yaoqing zhan is held in Wuhan parti ipat- ine Arts: Sun Baoguo, Wenda u, and others.
ing artists in lude Wenda u, Liu uosong, It is ordered to lose in three hours.
and Wu uan hong. Zero xhibition ( Lingzhan , initiated and
The journal Painter ( Huajia ) starts organi ed by Wang Chuan and others, is
publi ation in Changsha, Hunan, and held on the busy streets of Shen hen.
be omes an important ournal in the 85 New Works of the Miyang Painting Society
Art Mo ement. The artists group based ( Miyang huajia xinzuo zhan is held in
around this ournal is alled the Painter Shi ia huang, Hebei.
roup Huajia qunti ). February: Works by rench Painters Henri
The Shandong Southwestern roup Cueco and Ernest Pignon ( Faguo huajia Cueco
(Lu xinan qunti is founded in He e, Shandong. he Pignon zuopin zhan is held at the National
It disbands after une 198 . In uly 1987, Art allery. The two artists also gi e le tures
ong Chao and other artists regroup as and engage in dis ussions at the uang hou
Bla k Allian e Heise lianmeng ). A ademy of ine Arts, in uangdong, and
November Painting xhibition ( Shiyiyue Bei ing s Central A ademy of ine Arts.
huazhan is held at the ala e Museum The irst Group xhibition of Works by the
in Beijing. Nanjing Oil Painting Art Group ( Nanjingren
November to December: youhua yishu qunti shouzhan youhua zhan )
Rauschenberg verseas Culture Interchange is held at the Cultural Hall in the ulou
( ROCI ) e hibition is held at the National Art istri t of Nan ing.
allery, and has a signi ant impa t among The group ed Humor Hongse youmo )
Chinese ontemporary artists. uring his stay is founded, onsisting of 1983 graduates
in Bei ing, aus henberg is in ited to le ture from the Edu ation epartment at he iang
A ademy of ine Arts, in luding Wu of major participants from the ’85 New Space
414
Shan huan, Ni Haifeng, and others. e hibition, in luding Wang iang, Bao
April: The il ainting Art Committee of
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ianfei, Song Ling, hang eili, eng ianyi,

the Chinese Artists Asso iation holds its uan Yin, and others. It holds four onse u-
rst National Symposium on il ainting tive art events.
uanguo youhua yishu taolunhui The ed Humor group s pri ate e hibition
near Mount Huang in Anhui, where three 70 Red 25 Black 5 White ( Hong 70 hei
a ademi talks are gi en: ao Minglu s 25 bai 5 is held at the he iang A ademy
85 Art Mo ement 85 meishu yundong , of ine Arts.
hu ingsheng s Contemporary aintings The Horizon Painting Exhibition (Haipingxian
of the West iewed from this Side of the huazhan is held in Shanghai, during whi h
ean angdai ifang huatan ge an guan , the Shanghai ainting Symposium
and Shui Tian hong s Chinese il ainting Shanghai huihua huang uo yantaohui
under the Impa t of Western Art Ideology also takes place.
ifang meishu si hao hong i ia de The Central A ademy of ine Arts formally
hongguo youhua . The symposium also opens an art gallery it e hibits many a ant-
studies the artwork of young artists groups garde artists works o er the years.
sin e 1985, some modern and ontemporary June: Young fa tory workers Wan unyan
works from the West, and slides of works and hu Changyan hold the Non- igurative
by Chinese artists e ploring modern art. Some Exhibition (Fei juxiang zhanlan) in Shanghai.
parti ipants of the symposium make plans Red, Yellow, and Blue: Modern Paintings
to organi e a national slide show. by Young Sichuan Artists (Sichuan qingnian
The rst Grand Exhibition of Shanghai “honghuanglan” xiandai huihua zhan is held
Young Artists’ Works ( Shanghai qingnian in Chengdu. Later in No ember, some
meishu zuopin dazhan is held at the Shanghai parti ipating artists found the ed, Yellow,
Art Museum. and Blue ainting So iety Honghuanglan
Ether Painting Exhibition (Yitai huazhan) huahui ).
is held at the uly irst pen Theater at The A ademi Symposium on Issues
Chaoyang S uare in Nanning, uang i. Later, egarding Tradition in Chinese ainting
another young artists group e hibition alled hongguohua huantong wenti ueshu
Beginning xhibition ( aishi huazhan is held at taolunhui is held in i an, during whi h
the e hibition hall at eople s ark in Nanning. Wenda u s rst solo e hibition Wenda
Xuzhou Modern Art Exhibition ( Xuzhou Gu’s New Ink Painting ( Gu Wenda guohua
xiandai yishu zhan opens at the u hou, xinzuo zhan is also held. u s e hibition
iangsu, E hibition Hall. arti ipating artists is di ided into two parts, one part is publi
are mostly members of the Sunday ainting while the other is restri ted.
So iety Xingqitian huahui in iangsu and New Wildness Painting Exhibition ( Xin
young graduates from art institutions. yexing zhuyi huihua zuopin zhan is held in
April to May: In houshan, he iang, the Nan ing s ulou ark.
artist Wu Shan huan works on Some Passages July: The National Art Theory Conferen e
from the Second Chapter of the Novel Scarlet uanguo meishu lilun huiyi , sponsored
Letter” ( Changpian xiaoshuo Chi Zi di er zhang by the Chinese Artists Asso iation, eople s
ruogan ziranduan , the rst group of artworks ine Arts ublishing House, and the
from the ed Humor series Hongse youmo). Shandong bran h of the Chinese Artists
May: The First Exhibition of Young Artists Asso iation, is held in Yantai, Shandong, to
in Zhengzhou ( Zhengzhou shi shoujie qingnian dis uss Chinese Art under the Impa t of
meizhan is held at the Henan Agri ultural Western Culture.
E hibition Hall. The e hibition Avant-Garde Chinese Art:
A Contemporary Chinese Painting Exhibition Beijing New York opens at the City allery,
is held at Hong ong City Hall. New York, then goes to assar College Art
The Southern Artists Salon Nanfang yishujia allery, oughkeepsie, NY parti ipating
shalong , organi ed by Wang u and Lin Yilin, artists in lude Ai Weiwei and other members
is founded in uang hou other members of the Stars.
in lude Liang uhui and Chen Shao iong. August: rand Slideshow and Symposium
The irst xhibition of Works by Members on the Art Trends of 85 85 ingnian
of Beijing Young Artists’ Painting Society meishu si hao da ing huandeng han i ueshu
(Beijing qingnian huahui shoujie huiyuan zuopin taolunhui is held in huhai, uangdong,
zhan is held at the National Art allery. often known as the huhai Symposium.
The ond So iety Chi she is founded in epresentati es of art groups from a ross
Hang hou, he iang. This art group onsists the ountry introdu e their perspe ti es,
415
ob e ti es, and works-in-progress, while as a nale to the festi al, the premier
also studying sele ted works. uring the e hibition of the group Tribe Tribe Buluo
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symposium, ao Minglu and hu ingsheng buluo is held at the Hubei Institute of ine
gi e le tures at the Changsha Artists Arts, Wuhan. The group onsists of young
Asso iation. Meanwhile, ao, hu, hou fa ulty members at the a ademy.
Yan, Li Luming, Wang iao ian, and Shu un Modern Art Exhibition ( Xiandai yishu zhan )
start to make preparations for the Symposium is held at the Working eople s Cultural
on Modern Art iandai yishu yan iuhui . ala e in Taiyuan, Shan i, during whi h Song
Art publishes ao Minglu s About Yongping and Song Yonghong present their
ational ainting uanyu li ing huihua , performance art.
whi h summari es the main trends in the ’86 Concave-Convex xhibition ( 86 ao tu
85 Art Mo ement. zhan is held in the Cultural Hall of u iahui
Southwest Art esear h roup Xi’nan istri t in Shanghai parti ipating artists
yishu yanjiu qunti , omposed of parti ipants in lude Li Shan, Yu Youhan, ing Yi, Wang
in the New igurative xhibition, is founded iwei, and others.
in unming. Its members in lude Mao Group Exhibition of Young Hunan Artists
uhui, hang iaogang, Ye Yong ing, and ( Hunan qingnian meishujia jiqunzhan ,
others. This group eases a ti ity in 198 after sponsored by Fine Arts in China, Chinese
the ourth xhibition of the New igurative Artists Asso iation, and Hunan Young Artists
Society ( Xin juxiang di si jie zhan ). Asso iation, is held at the National Art
The Salon of Chinese Contemporary allery. arti ipating art groups in lude the
Ar hite tural Culture Zhongguo dangdai Leishi ainting So iety, Painter roup, ero
jianzhu wenhua shalong is laun hed in Art roup, Wild rass ainting So iety,
Bei ing. It is organi ed by u Meng hao erpass ainting So iety Lijiaoqiao huahui ,
and Wang Ming ian. and Huaihua roup Huaihua qunti ).
September: The First Experimental December: History of Chinese Modern
Exhibition of the Southern Artists Salon Painting ( Zhongguo xiandai huihua shi , o-
( Nanfang yishujia shalong di yi hui shiyan authored by Li iaoshan and hang Shao ia,
zhan is held at Sun Yat-sen ni ersity in is published.
uang hou pl. 13 parti ipating artists The event Concept 21, Performance Display
in lude Wang u, Lin Yilin, Chen Shao iong, ( Guannian 21, xingwei zhanxian is held at
and others. eking ni ersity.
The large-scale art event Basking in the M Art Group Performance Art Exhibition
Sun ( Shai taiyang is held in the o ered ( M yishu qunti xingwei yishu zhan is held at
orridor and lawn at uanwuhu ark the No. 2 Working eople s Cultural ala e
in Nan ing, iangsu. The e ent is repeated in Hongkou istri t, Shanghai.
on e, in tober.
Fine Arts in China starts the column “Notes 1987
on New Trends Xinchao ziliao jianbian , January: The Central Committee of the
introdu ing e hibitions and a ti ities of CCP issues a otice Regarding Issues of the
young artists groups from a ross the nation. Current Opposition to Bourgeois Liberalism
September to October: ( Guanyu dangqian fandui zichanjieji ziyouhua
Xiamen Dada — Exhibition of Modern Art ruogan wenti de tongzhi ).
(Xiamen dada — xiandai yishuzhan is held at The art group The hino eros ainting
iamen Art Museum afterward, in No ember, So iety Xiniu huahui in u hou, iangsu,
parti ipating artists set re to a pile of some holds the Xuzhou ’87 Art xhibition ( Xuzhou
of their works in the s uare see p. 95 . 87 yishuzhan ).
October: hang uoliang, ing Yi, and February: The Northern Art roup holds
in Yifeng from the ine Arts College of its rst biennial at ilin Art A ademy in
Shanghai ni ersity arry out their perfor- Chang hun, as well as a symposium on the
mance Cloth Sculpture ( Bu diao ) on the topi ational ainting Lixing huihua ).
Wusongkou do k in Shanghai. March: The preparatory onferen e for
November: The Hubei Young Artists the rst nationwide modern art e hibition is
estival ( Hubei qingnian meishujie is held held in Bei ing. In early April, the Ministry
in nine ities simultaneously, in luding of ropaganda issues an order prohibiting
Wuhan, Huangshi, Shashi, Shiyan, iangfan, national a ademi e ents as a result, the
and Yi hang. ifty organi ations and groups e hibition originally intended to open on
parti ipate and e hibit about 2,000 works uly 1 is an eled.
at 28 e hibition sites. Meanwhile le tures and Contemporary Oil Paintings from the
slide shows are also offered. In e ember, People’s Republic of China opens at Harkness
House in New York. Some of the works from de shengming i ing , pro oking re e tions
416
the e hibition are also shown in the Ninth and debates about the great spirit.
October: The preparatory ommittee for
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International Art E po in New York.

April: A State of Transition: Contemporary the China Avant-Garde e hibition Zhongguo
Paintings from Shanghai is held at the Hong xiandai yishuzhan is founded in Bei ing,
ong Arts Centre. headed by ao Minglu. Meanwhile, the rst
May: The First Posthouse Painting Exhibition announ ement regarding its uratorial
( Di yi yi huazhan is held at the Nan ing Arts preparation ( Chouzhan tonggao di yi hao )
Institute, featuring work by the members is released.
of the ed Brigade. A symposium titled Trends in the
June: The book series Culture: China and e elopment of Contemporary Art angdai
the World ( Wenhua: Zhongguo yu shijie , meishu fa han ushi is held in Nan ing.
edited by an Yang, starts publi ation by Nan ing s ed Brigade oordinates with the
S oint ublishing, Bei ing. symposium to hold The Second Posthouse
Wenda u and Shi Hui parti ipate in Painting Exhibition ( Di er yi huazhan ) in the
the 13th International Biennial of Tapestry e hibition hall of the iangsu ublishing
organi ed by the Cantonal Museum of ine building.
Arts in Lausanne, Swit erland. Two e hibitions, Prints by Xu Bing (Xu Bing
October: Toward the Future ( Zouxiang banhua yishu zhan and Paper-Cut Art by Lü
weilai huazhan is held at the National Art Shengzhong ( Lü Shengzhong jianzhi yishu zhan )
allery. see p. 131 , are held at the National Art
December: The First Chinese Oil Painting allery. or the rst time, u Bing shows his
Exhibition ( Shoujie Zhongguo youhua zhan , installation work A Mirror to Analyze the
osponsored by the il ainting Committee World — in de Si cle Book ( Xi shi jian —
of the Chinese Artists Asso iation and shijimo juan , later known as Book from the
the Shanghai Af liation of the Chinese Sky Tianshu see pl. 14 .
Artists Asso iation, opens at the Shanghai Beijing International Ink Painting xhibition
E hibition Center. ( Beijing guoji shuimohua zhan , sponsored
The Chinese nited erseas Artists by the Chinese Artists Asso iation and the
Asso iation, omprising e patriate artists in esear h Institute of Traditional Chinese
Europe and Ameri a, is founded in New York ainting, is held in Bei ing.
City by Yuan Yunsheng, Wang eping, November: North Star Exhibition
Ai Weiwei, and others. ( Beidouxing huazhan ) opens in Nanjing.
The First Exhibition of the New Academic
1988 School ( Xin xueyuanpai di yi hui zuopin
April: Shanghai Art Museum holds its rst zhanlan opens at the e hibition hall of
Art Today Exhibition ( Jinri yishu zhan , mostly the he iang A ademy of ine Arts.
consisting of abstract works. The 88 Symposium on the Creation of
June: Contemporary Chinese Ar hite ture Chinese Modern Art 88 hongguo iandai
Heading Toward the World: Cultural S holars yishu huang uo yantaohui , osponsored
A ademi Symposium ou iang shi ie de by the esear h Institute of ine Arts at
dangdai hongguo ian hu: wenhua ue he the Chinese National A ademy of Arts and
ueshu yantaohui , sponsored by the Salon the Hefei ainting and Calligraphy Institute
of Chinese Contemporary Ar hite tural (Hefei shuhuayuan , is held at Tun i, at the
Culture and the editorial board of the ournal foot of Huangshan Mount Huang , Anhui
Reading ( Dushu , is held in Bei ing. province. The main objectives are to present
September: The TV series Great and share information about a ti ities
arthquake ( Da dizhen sponsored by 21st surrounding e ploratory artwork sin e 1985,
Century A ademy, written and dire ted by and to e amine the de elopmental trends
Wen ulin and produ ed by ing Bin in modern Chinese art by integrating issues of
starts produ tion. A ti ities lmed in lude ultural de elopment, ontemporary artists
ro k musi performan es, modern drama thoughts and on epts, the opening up of
performan es, spee hes, and performan e an art market, and so on.
art. or arious reasons, the postprodu tion December: The Last Supper — the Second
of the series is ne er nished and the staff Concave-Convex xhibition ( Zuihou de
is dismissed in une 1989. wancan — di er jie ao tu zhan is held at
Fine Arts in China 1988:37 publishes the Shanghai Art Museum.
Li ianting s under the pen name Hu Cun The Grand Exhibition of Figure Painting
arti le The Era Awaits the reat Spirit s ( Youhua renti yishu dazhan is held at the
assion for Life Shidai idai he da linghun National Art allery and attended by more
417
than 200,000 isitors. A igure ainting yi hui zhan , osponsored by the esear h
Symposium enti wenhua yantaohui is Institute of Traditional Chinese ainting and
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also held. the esear h Institute of ine Arts at the
In this year, iangsu ine Arts ublishing Chinese National A ademy of Arts, is held at
House releases a olle tion of Lang Shao un s the National Art allery, during whi h the
writings, On Chinese Modern Art ( Lun Chinese New Literati ainting Symposium
Zhongguo xiandai meishu . By 2000, its series hongguo in wenrenhua yantaohui is
Chinese Contemporary Art Studies (Zhongguo also held.
dangdai meishu yanjiu in ludes olle tions Hu Yaobang, member of the CCP Central
of writings by these riti s: eng e s Visual Committee Political Bureau, dies in Beijing.
Revolution ( Shijue geming , Liu iao hun s The public organizes spontaneous large-scale
Disintegration and Reconstruction (Jieti yu memorials.
chongjian , eng ing iang s On the Third May: The T do umentary Chinese Modern
Generation Painters ( Lun di san dai huajia , Artists ( Zhongguo xiandai yishujia ) starts
Wang Lin s The State of Fine Art in shooting the nal produ tion is alled
Contemporary China (Dangdai Zhongguo de Modern Artists in Southwest China (Zhongguo
meishu zhuangtai , Tao Yongbai s The Painting xinan xiandai yishujia . It is written and
Circle: A emale Critic’s Reflections (Huatan: dire ted by L eng and Yi an.
Yiwei n pinglunzhe de sikao , ia ang hou s On May 4, college and university students
Diversity and Choice (Duoyuan yu xuanze , organize demonstrations in Beijing in
i ao ian s The Condition of the Fine Arts in commemoration of the 70th anniversary
Contemporary China (Dangdai Zhongguo de of the May Fourth Movement, an anti-
meishu zhuangtai , ao Minglu s Chinese imperialist movement in 1919 that called
Avant-Garde Art ( Zhongguo qianwei yishu , for reform through the adoption of modern
and Li ianting s The Significance Is Not the ideals such as science and democracy.
Art (Zhongyao de bushi yishu). Huang Yong ing, u e in, and Yang
ie hang go to aris to parti ipate in the
1989 e hibition Magiciens de la terre at the Centre
January: The Stars: Ten Years ( Xingxing eorges ompidou, urated by ean-Hubert
shi nian , the third e hibition of the Stars, Martin. ei awei is a onsultant for the
is held at Hanart T allery in Hong ong. Chinese portion of the e hibition.
Salon 49 Shalong 49 is founded in Fine Arts Research 1989:2 publishes
Wuhan, Hubei its members ome from Lang Shao un s arti le ebuilding Elite Art:
numerous dis iplines su h as philosophy, e onsidering Changes in the Stru ture of
art, literature, and ar hite ture. Twentieth-Century Chinese Art Chong ian
February: China Avant-Garde Zhongguo hongguo de ingying yishu: ui 20 shi i
xiandai yishuzhan , an e hibition omprising hongguo meishu ge u bian ian de airen-
293 works by 18 artists, opens on ebruary 5 shi . The arti le in ites igorous debates.
at the National Art allery pl. 1 . It is the rst Dawn of June 3 – June 4: Martial law
large-s ale national modern art e hibition enforcement troops enter Beijing to suppress
and is sponsored, funded, and organi ed by student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square.
non-of ial a ademi groups. It is also the rst The violent crackdown on protestors continues
large-s ale art e hibition urated by riti s. through June 4, ending in bloodshed.
n the opening day, the gunshot in ident August: The Chinese Artists Asso iation s
o urs, resulting in the rst losing of the leading CC group announ es reforms to
e hibition. n ebruary 10, the e hibition the editorial board of the ournal Art and
resumes. n ebruary 11, the forum My iew dismisses Shao a hen from the post of
of Art Wo de yishu guan is held at the editor-in- hief.
Central A ademy of ine Arts. n ebruary 13, December: Fine Arts in China ceases
the “China Avant-Garde Symposium publication.
hongguo iandai yishu taolunhui is held In this year, the Wu uoren International
at the National Art allery, on the se ond oundation of ine Arts is founded in
oor. n ebruary 14, the Beijing Daily (Beijing Bei ing the rst art foundation in China
ribao , the Bei ing ubli Se urity Bureau, and and issues the rst Young Artist Award.
the National Art allery all re ei e anonymous
hoa letters laiming bombs are set in the 1990
museum, and the e hibition is losed again. January: The State Council lifts martial
n ebruary 17, it reopens. law on January 11.
April: The First Exhibition of Chinese New April: Salon de la jeune peinture is held at
Literati Painting ( Zhongguo xin wenrenhua di aleries Nationales du rand alais, aris,
during whi h eng ianyi, uan Wei, He do ens of artists li e there, su h as ing ang,
418
ianguo, Mao Li i, Shen Chen, Wang uangyi, ang Li un, Wang Ying, Yi Ling, and Tian Bin.
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Wang Luyan, Ye Yong ing, and hang eili s These artists organi e group e hibitions,
works are e hibited. whi h are noti ed by the media, art dealers
May: The e hibition Liu Xiaodong’s Paintings from o erseas, and the ultural ir le.
( Liu Xiaodong huazhan is held at the Central
A ademy of ine Arts gallery. 1991
Xu Bing carries out his project Ghosts January: “I Don’t Want to Play Cards with
Pounding the Wall ( Gui da qiang ) at the C zanne and ther Works: Selections from
inshanling portion of the reat Wall in Hebei. the Chinese New Wave and Avant-Garde
World of Female Artists ( Nü huajia de Art of the Eighties is held at the a i Asia
shijie is held at the e hibition hall at the Museum, asadena, California, urated by
Central A ademy of ine Arts gallery. i hard E. Strassberg. E hibited artists
June: The Journal of Literature and Art in lude eng ianyi, L Sheng hong, Mao
( Wenyi bao publishes Yang Chengyin s arti le uhui, u Bing, Ye Yong ing, Yu Hong, hang
The utline of New Wa e Art in hao eili, hang iaogang, and eng iaofeng,
meishu lungang , a total repudiation of the among others. A series of le tures and
85 Art Mo ement. dis ussions about Chinese ontemporary art
July: The outdoor ontemporary art is held in on un tion with the e hibition.
e hibition Chine demain pour hier opens in Big-Tail lephant Group Art xhibition
ourri res in southern ran e, urated by ei ( Dawei xiang gongzuoshi lianhe yishuzhan ) is
awei. The Chinese e patriate artists in ited held at the uang hou Cultural ala e, and
to e hibit in lude Chen hen ran e , Wenda in ludes works by Lin Yilin, Chen Shao iong,
u .S.A. , Huang Yong ing ran e , Cai and Liang uhui.
uo- iang apan , Yang ie hang ermany February: The State Council holds a
and Yan eiming ran e . uring the conference in Beijing on reforming the
e hibition, the symposium Malentendu national economic system. It states that the
ulturel Cultural misunderstanding is held. general objective for reform in the 1990s is
The Chinese Artists Asso iation, Chinese to lay down the basic framework of a new
Calligraphy Asso iation, and hotographi socialist planned commodity economy and the
So iety of China osponsor a forum on operational mechanism for integrating the
the issues of reati e on epts, dis ussing planned economy with market regulations.
how to further leanse and re tify the effe ts March: Close Up: Wang Huaxiang’s Art
of bourgeois liberalism and orre t the ( Jin juli — Wang Huaxiang yishu zhan is held
orientation of literature and art. at the Central A ademy of ine Arts gallery.
September: Yu Hong’s Oil Paintings April: The esear h Institute of ine Arts
( Yu Hong youhua zhan is held at the Central at the Chinese National A ademy of Arts,
A ademy of ine Arts gallery. Bei ing, holds a symposium on The New
The Group Exhibition of Chinese New Era of Artisti Creation in shi i meishu
Literati Paintings ( Zhongguo xin wenrenhua huang uo yantaohui , often alled the
lianzhan is held at the esear h Institute of ishan Symposium ishan huiyi . The
Traditional Chinese ainting, Bei ing. symposium a knowledges a hie ements
September to October: The 11th in art sin e the opening and reform, and
Asian Games is held in Beijing. fo uses on new art trends in the early 1990s.
October: Chinese ainting Studies June: The Beijing Xisanhuan Art Research
Symposium hongguohua ueshu Documents Exhibition ( Beijing xisanhuan yishu
yantaohui is held in Changping, Bei ing, yanjiu wenxian ziliao zhan is held at the
mainly to dis uss the a hie ements and gallery of the esear h Institute of Traditional
problems of painting in the 1980s. Chinese ainting, urated by Wang Lin. It
The leadership of the Chinese Artists is later renamed the Modern Chinese Art
Asso iation is restru tured. Wang i is added Research Documents Exhibition ( Zhongguo
as the vice chairman of the association. dangdai yishu yanjiu wenxian ziliao zhan and
November: The Shanghai Stock Exchange tra els to Nan ing, Chong ing, unming,
is formally established as the first stock and Shenyang.
exchange in mainland China since the July: The New Generation Art e hibition
founding of the People’s Republic. ( Xin shengdai yishu zhan ) opens at the
Sin e the end of the 1980s, freelan e Museum of Chinese History, Bei ing, spon-
artists ha e gradually gathered around sored by Beijing Youth Daily and urated by
uyuanmen illage near the Yuanmingyuan Wang Youshen. uring the e hibition, a
ala e in Bei ing. Within two to three years, symposium is also held to dis uss issues su h
419
as the urrent state and future trends of an only be a hie ed by being on guard
so- alled New eneration artists, the path against the eld of plasti arts.
June: Encountering the Others is held
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for Chinese ontemporary art to enter the
international art s ene, et . on urrently with o umenta I in assel,
Wu uan hong re ei es f ier de ermany. Chinese artists parti ipating
l rdre des Arts et des Lettres from the in -18 in lude Li Shan, L Sheng hong,
ren h Ministry of Culture. Ni Haifeng, Sun Liang, Cai uo- iang,
August: The e hibition Exceptional Passage iu eshu, and Wang Youshen.
is held indoors at Mitsubishi- isho Artium, Chen hen solo e hibition at Magasin,
Chuo-ku, and outdoors at the former ashii Centre national d art ontemporaine,
railway yard in Higashi-ku, ukuoka, apan, renoble, ran e.
with ei awei a ting as hief urator. September: The Invitational xhibition
arti ipating artists in lude Huang Yong ing, of Young Contemporary Sculptors ( Dangdai
Yang ie hang, Wenda u, Cai uo- iang, qingnian diaosujia yaoqing zhan is held at the
and Wang Luyan. gallery at the he iang A ademy of ine Arts.
September: Yanhuang Art allery opens October: The 14th ational Representative
in Beijing. Conference of the CCP is held in Beijing,
Works by Liu iaodong and Yu Hong during which Jiang Zemin delivers a speech
are in luded in Christie s Hong ong au tion titled “Hasten the Steps of Reform, Opening
of Chinese Contemporary il ainting. This Up, and Modernization, Strive for Even
marks the rst time a group of ontemporary Greater Success in the Cause of Socialism
Chinese oil paintings enters international with Chinese Characteristics” (“Jiakuai gaige
auction market. kaifang he xiandaihua jianshe bufa, duoqu you
November: The First Annual Exhibition Zhongguo tese shehuizhuyi shiye de gengda
of Chinese Oil Painting ( Zhongguo youhua shengli”), clearly stating the objective of
nianzhan is held at the Museum of Chinese Chinese economic system reform is to build
History and Bei ing riental il ainting a socialist market economy mechanism.
Art allery. The Second Modern Chinese Art Research
Three Installations by Xu Bing is held Documents Exhibition ( Zhongguo dangdai
at the El eh em Museum of Art in Madison, yishu yanjiu wenxian ziliao di er hui zhan )
Wis onsin, urated by Britta Eri kson. It opens at the uang hou A ademy of ine
presents Book from the Sky A Mirror to Arts, uangdong.
Analyze the World — in de Si cle Book , Ghosts The irst 1990s Biennial Art air il
Pounding the Wall, and the print-work ive Painting Section ) ( Shoujie 90 niandai yishu
Series of Repetitions. shuangnian zhan [youhua bufen] ) opens
Garage Art Exhibition ( Cheku yishuzhan ) at the e hibition enter at the Central
is held in Shanghai. uang hou Hotel, sponsored and funded
December: The journal Painter ( Huajia ) by the Western Si huan Art Company.
ceases publication. The sponsors hampion the e hibition with
In this year, Australian Brian Walla e the slogan China s rst art fair. The hief
establishes the ed ate allery Hongmen urator is L eng, and the ury is omposed
hualang , the rst foreign-funded ommer ial of art riti s. uring the e hibition, the
gallery in Bei ing. New History roup Xin lishi xiaozu ) from
Wuhan arries out a performan e art pie e,
1992 Disinfecting, in the e hibition hall.
January: Deng Xiaoping inspects Wuchang, December: In ited by the 1990s So iety
Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and Shanghai and issues (Jiushi niandai she of eking ni ersity, a
his Southern Tour Speeches (Nanxun jianghua), group of Yuanmingyuan illage artists holds
which plays a key role in propelling economic an open-air modern art e hibition on ampus.
reform and social progress in the 1990s. The Se ond National Symposium on
April: Liu Wei and Fang Lijun’s Paintings il ainting i er i uanguo youhua yishu
( Liu Wei, Fang Lijun huazhan ) opens at the taolunhui is held at hongyuan Hotel
Bei ing Art Museum. in Beijing.
May: To ommemorate the 50th anni er- More than 30 art riti s on ene in
sary of Mao s Yan an Talks, the ournal Art Bei ing and rea h a onsensus on prote ting
publishes Cai uohong s arti le There Is No intelle tual property rights and institute
End to the Combat handou heng wei an agreement learly stating that any
you iong i , whi h argues that bourgeois soli ited writing should be paid with a rate
liberalism has in i ted disasters among art ranging from 300 to 800 yuan per thousand
ir les and notes that a pea eful e olution hara ters. This agreement is published
in Jiangsu Pictorial 148:4, 1993 , and is met March: Contemporary Oil Paintings from
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with ontro ersy in art ir les. the Northeast ( Dongbei dangdai youhua zhan )
A History of Chinese Modern Art: is held at the Liaoning Museum, Shenyang,
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1979 –1989 ( Zhongguo xiandai yishu shi: urated by u hen ing and Yang Li. At the
1979 – 1989 by L eng and Yi an and same time, the symposium E perien es
Chinese Contemporary Art Documents of il ainting in the Northeast ongbei
’90 – ’91 ( Zhongguo dangdai yishu wenxian dangdai youhua ingyan is on ened.
90 – 91 are published by Hunan ine Arts The lm nfinished Documentary ( Wei
ublishing House. wancheng jilupian do umenting the li es
As at the artists illage near Yuanmingyuan, of Yuanmingyuan artists is ompleted.
a group of artists gathers around April: The Hubei New History roup s
ashan huang and Silu u on the eastern e hibition Big Consumer Products ( Da
outskirts of Bei ing. They are often referred xiaofei yishuzhan is held at M onald s
to as East illage artists, the best-known in Wangfu ing in Bei ing. It is suspended
being hang Huan and Ma Liuming. partway through.
May: China uardian Au tions Co., Ltd.,
1993 is founded, the rst omprehensi e au tion
January: The group Lan hou Art Legion house spe iali ing in Chinese ultural ob e ts
( Lanzhou yishu juntuan ) carries out perfor- and artworks. It holds its rst spe ial au tion
man e art in Lan hou, performing funeral for oil painting and s ulpture in 1994.
a ti ities for a tional hara ter alled hong June: The 45th eni e Biennale opens,
iandai. urated by A hille Bonito li a. In the
The Countryside Project 1993 ( Xiangcun e hibition Passaggio a Oriente, the uratorial
jihua 1993 , organi ed by Shan i artists, onsultants for whi h in lude Li ianting
begins its rst a ti ities. These in lude and ran es a al Lago, 13 Chinese artists
in estigating the banks of the Yellow i er in hang eili, Yu Youhan, Yu Hong, u Bing,
the L liang region of the pro in e, ompleting Wang iwei, Wang uangyi, Sun Liang, Song
a group of paintings and photographi works Haidong, Liu Wei, Li Shan, eng ianyi, eng
in the ountryside, making T series, musi Mengbo, and ang Li un parti ipate. Wang
ideos, and olle tions of do umentary Youshen and Wu Shan huan parti ipate
literature, all under the title Countryside in Aperto 93, whi h ong Chang an helps
Project 1993. In August, they hold the to curate.
e hibition Countryside Project 1993 at the A smaller ersion of China’s New Art,
National Art allery and the gallery of Post-1989 is e hibited as Mao Goes Pop at the
China Daily simultaneously. Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney.
The e hibition China Avant-Garde: Counter- The Annual Art Critics Nomination
Currents in Art and Culture opens at the Haus xhibition 1993, Ink (Meishu pipingjia niandu
der ulturen der Welt, Berlin, later tra eling timing zhan 1993, shuimo ) opens at the
to the unsthal otterdam, the Netherlands National Art allery. The hairperson for the
Museum of Modern Art in ford, and e hibition is Lang Shao un. A symposium
unsthallen Brandts laedefabrik, dense, a ompanies the e hibition.
enmark. Si teen Chinese artists parti ipate July: Fragmented Memory: The Chinese
in the e hibition, in luding Huang Yong ing, Avant-Garde in xile is held at the We ner
Wenda u, ang Li un, u e in, eng ianyi, Center for the Arts, The hio State
Ni Haifeng, and hang eili. ni ersity, Columbus, urated by ulia .
China’s New Art, Post-1989, organi ed by Andrews and ao Minglu the artists
Hanart T allery, Hong ong, and urated in luded are Wenda u, Huang Yong ing,
by Chang Tsong- ung and Li ianting, is Wu Shan huan, and u Bing.
held at the Hong ong Arts Centre and Hong The irst Chinese il Painting Biennial
ong City Hall. It in ludes 54 artists from (Shoujie Zhongguo youhua shuangnian zhan) is
the mainland in an e hibition of more than held at the National Art allery, a partially non-
200 works. That year a smaller ersion 29 go ernmentally organi ed national e hibition.
artists tra els to Sydney and Melbourne, September: The irst Asia Pacific Triennial
Australia, and then from 1995 to 1997 a form of Contemporary Art is held at ueensland
of it tra els to the an ou er Art allery, BC, Art allery, Brisbane, Australia. A symposium
Canada, and e enues in the nited States. titled Tradition and Change: Contemporary
A large-format book with genre-de ning Art of Asia and the a i is held. The
te ts by Chang Tsong- ung, Li ianting, and Chinese artists in luded are ing Yi, Li Lei,
others is published in on un tion with Shen Haopeng, Shi Hui, Sun Liang, u iang,
the e hibition. Yu Youhan, and hou Chang iang.
May: The journal Avant-Garde Today
421
Gilbert & George China Exhibition ( Yingguo
yishujia Jierbote yu Qiaozhi zuopinzhan ) is ( Jinri xianfeng begins publi ation by S
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held at the National Art allery and later oint ublishing.
travels to Shanghai. The Third Modern Chinese Art Research
October: eng e, Li Mei, and Yang Documents Exhibition ( Zhongguo dangdai
iaoyan reate the weekly pi torial Focus yishu yanjiu wenxian ziliao di san hui zhan )
( Jiaodian in Shen hen. is held at East China Normal ni ersity
The October Art Experimental Exhibition in Shanghai. The theme is Installation,
( Shiyue yishu shiyanzhan is held at the nvironment, Performance ( Zhuangzhi,
underground e hibition hall at Shanghai huanjing, xingwei and e plores the issue
Huashang Art S hool. of shifts in media in a ant-garde art.
November: The First Chinese Art July: The a ant-garde Black Cover Book
Exposition (Di yi jie Zhongguo yishu bolanhui , ( Heipishu is pri ately published and
organi ed by the Ministry of Culture, is ir ulated underground, edited by eng
held at the China E port Commodities Trade iao un, Ai Weiwei, and u Bing, with
air Building in uang hou. igong eng Boyi as te t editor. eng
December: Art riti ao Ling organi es iao un and Ai Weiwei subse uently
the forum Contemporary Art Salon edit and pri ately publish the White Cover
angdai meishu shalong with the Book ( Baipishu and Gray Cover Book
ob e ti e to study, e plore, and e hange ( Huipishu in 1995 and 1997, respe ti ely.
information on the ultural alue and reati e Wang insong and Liu Anping s reen
state of urrent Chinese a ant-garde art. their ideo work MW — Good Morning
Contemporary Chinese Art is held at Beijing ( MW — Beijing ninzao at ahua
allery in the SoHo distri t in New York. Cinema in Bei ing. uring the s reening,
Andrew Solomon’s article “Their Irony, hao Shaoruo and Liu Anping splash
Humor ( and Art ) Can Save China” is ink onto the audien es, later referred to
published as the cover story of a New York as the ink-splashing in ident.
Times Magazine. August: Experiments in Tension —’94
The e hibition Red Star ver China: Tenuous xpressive Ink Painting xhibition ( Zhang li
Peace is held at the een allery, New York. de shiyan — 94 biaoxianxing shuimo zhan )
Chinese ine Arts in the 1990s: xperiences is held at the National Art allery. It is
in Fine Arts in China ( 90 niandai de Zhongguo urated by Chen Tie un with Liu iao hun
meishu, Zhongguo jingyanzhan is held at as the e hibition s a ademi hairperson.
Si huan Art allery, Chengdu. September: Liu Haisu Art allery in
Chang hou, iangsu, opens.
1994 October: The Annual Art Critics’
January: u Bing s e perimental Nomination xhibition 1994, il Painting
e hibition Cultural Animal (Wenhua dongwu) (Meishu pipingjia niandu timingzhan 1994,
is held at Bei ing s Hanmo Art allery. It youhua] is held at the National Art allery.
is u Bing s rst e hibition in China sin e It is sponsored by the Metropolitan Art
he left for the nited States in 1990. Center ( Beijing daduhui meishu zhongxin )
French Abstract Painter Pierre Soulages and Chong ing Huaren angdai Art
( Faguo chouxiang huajia Sulare ) is shown at Company. Shui Tian hong ser es as the
the National Art allery. hairperson of the e hibition. uring
March: Italian Trans-Avant-Garde Painter the e hibition, a symposium is also held
Mimmo Paladino ( Yidali chaoqianwei huajia at the State Coun il Hostel.
Baladinuo is held at the National Art allery. ang Li un, Li Shan, Liu Wei, Wang uangyi,
April: Fine Arts Literature ( Meishu Yu Youhan, and hang iaogang parti ipate
wenxian , a periodi al ompiled by eng in the 22nd Bienal de S o aulo, Bra il.
e, begins publi ation by Hubei ine November: The Symposium on Theories
Arts ublishing House. of Chinese Art Creation in the 1990s iushi
Wu uan hong sues Shanghai uo niandai hongguo meishu huang uo lilun
Yun uan and Hong ong Yong Cheng yantaohui , sponsored by the ournal Art
Anti ues Au tion Company for au tioning and ommissioned by the CC group, the
a forged Bombarding the Headquarters ( Pao Chinese Artists Asso iation, is held in
da silingbu ). The case comes to trial at a Longshan, uang hou.
mid-le el eople s Court. It is the rst lawsuit December: The Eighth National Exhibition
in China of a domesti painter suing an of utstanding Artwork (Di ba jie quanguo
au tion ompany, and Wu e entually wins meizhan youxiu zuopinzhan is held at the
the case. National Art allery.
Jiangsu Pictorial 1 8:12, 1994 publishes urated by ia ang hou and eng ing iang.
422
Yi Ying s arti le The Meaning of Work Should The 39 parti ipating female artists ome
be Clear Li iu ming ue de yiyi , whi h from mainland China, Hong ong, Ma ao,
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pro okes e tensi e dis ussions on the issue and o erseas. Lin Tianmiao and iang ie s
of meaning. installation works fail to pass the censors
and therefore are remo ed.
1995 The Three Men Studio Sanren lianhe
February: oeraendering tveckling gongzuoshi Sui ianguo, han Wang, and
( Change is organi ed at onsthallen, Yu an arries out a ti ities on the ruins
taplatsen, teborg, Sweden, and assisted of the original site of the Central A ademy
by the Cultural Emissary of the Swedish of ine Arts. Later, they organi e an e hibition
Embassy in China. alled Women. Site ( Nüren xianchang is held
March: The Liu Haisu Art Museum, at the ontemporary gallery of the Central
Shanghai, opens. A ademy of ine Arts High S hool. It is
The group performances To Add One spe i ally dire ted at the nited Nation s
Meter to an nknown Mountain ( Wei Women s Congress audien e.
wumingshan zenggao yimi and Nine Holes The United ation’s Fourth International
( Jiugedong are performed on Bei ing s Women’s Congress is held in Beijing.
Miaofeng Mountain, by performan e artists Der Abschied von der Idiologie opens
mostly from the East illage. at ampnagel Halle, 3, Hamburg, ermany,
June: Configura 2 — Dialog der ulturen sponsored by the Cultural Bureau of Hamburg,
is held in Erfurt, ermany. The Chinese and urated by Shan an and Li ianting.
se tion is urated by Hans an i k from New September: The irst wang u Biennale
Amsterdam Art Consultant Company and opens in wang u, orea, with the theme
uliane Noth, a long-time resident in China. Beyond the Borders. Participating Chinese
arti ipating Chinese artists in lude the artists in lude ang Li un, eng Mengbo, L
New Measurement roup Xin kedu xiaozu Sheng hong, Song ong, and Wang ianwei.
formerly the Analysis roup, Jiexi xiaozu , October: The most famous oil painting
Ai Weiwei, iang ie, and Liu Anping. during the Cultural e olution, Chairman
Des del pa s del centre: Avantguardes Mao Goes to Anyuan ( Mao zhuxi qu Anyuan ,
artistíques xineses is held at Centre d Arte is sold for 5.5 million yuan S 59,844
Santa M ni a in Bar elona, Spain, as part at the 1995 China uardian autumn au tion.
of the e hibition Aperto 95, funded and November: Tension and Expression —
sponsored by the Bar elona go ernment s Ink Painting xhibition ( Zhangli yu biaoxian —
ultural organi ations. Huang u parti ipates shuimo zhan is held at the National Art
in the curatorial work. allery, urated by Chen Tie un with Liu
The 4 th eni e Biennale opens. Chinese iao hun as the e hibition s a ademi
artists in lude Liu Wei, hang iaogang, chairperson. The participating artists are
and Yan eiming. ne of the e hibitions, mostly young painters engaged in modern
Asiana: Contemporary Art from the Far East, ink painting. This e hibition is a follow
urated by A hille Bonito li a and ino up to the gallery s 1994 ink e hibition.
di Maggio, omprises artists from China, Open Your Mouth and Close Your Eyes —
apan, and orea, and parti ipating Chinese Beijing-Berlin Art Communication xhibition
artists in lude u e in, Huang Yong ing, ( Zhangkai zui, bishang yan, Beijing-Bolin
Cai uo- iang, and Yang un. yishu jiaoliu zhan is held at the Art Museum
July: The rst international en ironmental of Capital Normal ni ersity, Bei ing. The
art e hibition titled eepers of the Waters e hibition is o urated by Huang u and
is held in Chengdu, Si huan. It is initiated and Angelika Stepken.
organi ed by Ameri an artist Betsy amon. December: The Annual Art Critics’
This art e ent is organi ed three more times, Nomination xhibition 1995, Sculpture and
in 199 , 1997, and 2000. Installation) (Meishu pipingjia niandu timing
The Central A ademy of ine Arts mo es zhan 1995, diaosu yu zhuangzhi holds only
out of the Wangfu ing distri t of Bei ing. a nomination e ent, haired by Liu iao hun,
August: The emale Art and Cultural So iety as insuf ient funds are raised. The results
(Nüxing wenhua yishu xueshe , af liated with are published in Jiangsu Pictorial 183:3, 199 .
the China Arts esear h A ademy, is founded.
Tao Yongbai is appointed dire tor. 1996
The Invitational xhibition of Chinese March: In the Name of Art — Chinese
Women Painters (Zhonghua n huajia yaoqing- Contemporary Art Exchange Exhibition ( Yi
zhan is held at the National Art allery, yishu de mingyi — Zhongguo dangdai yishu
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jiaoliuzhan is held at Liu Haisu Art Museum Consciousness ( Yishu yu lishiyishi ) — are
in Shanghai, urated by hu i. pri ately published in on un tion with the
The First Shanghai Biennale ( Shanghai e hibition and distributed during its run.
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meishu shuangnian zhan is held at the The Second Asia Pacific Triennial of
Shanghai Art Museum with the theme Open Contemporary Art is held at ueensland
Space ( aifang de kongjian . The e hibition Art allery, Brisbane. arti ipating Chinese
is osponsored by the Shanghai Cultural artists are Cai uo- iang, Chen Yanyin,
Bureau and the Shanghai Art Museum. Wang uangyi, Wang ianwei, Wang Luyan,
A symposium on the de elopment and and hang iaogang.
possibilities of foreign artisti styles in China October: The Sixth Plenary Session of
is also held. the 14th Central Committee of the CCP
April: An International A ademi is held in Beijing, and passes The CCP’S
Symposium on the Rent Collection Courtyard Resolution on Several Issues Regarding
S ulpture Nisu Shouzuyuan guo i ueshu the Strengthening of the Development of
yantaohui is held at the Si huan ine a Socialist Spiritual Civilization.
Arts Institute, Chong ing. December: Reality: Present and Future —
May: The maga ine New Photo ( Xin 1996 Chinese Contemporary Art xhibition
sheying , self-funded by artists Liu heng ( Xianshi: jintian yu mingtian — 1996 Zhongguo
and ong ong, starts publi ation and dangdai yishuzhan is held at the Bei ing
ir ulation. By 1998, four issues ha e been International Art ala e gallery in the Holiday
produ ed by hand and photo opied, and Inn Crowne la a Hotel. Leng Lin a ts as the
ir ulated pri ately. hief urator. The e hibition is sponsored
June: The Chinese Contemporary Ink by the Sungari International Au tion Co.,
Art Heading Toward the 21st Century Ltd., and is followed by an au tion.
symposium ou iang 21 shi i de hongguo The multimedia First Exhibition of the
dangdai shuimo yishu yantaohui and Cartoon Generation ’96 ( atong yi dai 96 di
e hibition are held at Huanan Normal yi huizhan is held at the e hibition hall
ni ersity in uang hou, with i ao ian of the Art epartment at Huanan Normal
as the e hibition s a ademi hairperson. ni ersity in uang hou.
The entral topi s for the symposium are: The First Academic Exhibition of Chinese
the trend of de onstru ting easel painting Contemporary Art 96 – 97 ( 96, 97 shoujie
and ontemporary ink art, ultural ollisions dangdai yishu xueshu yaoqingzhan , originally
in ontemporary ink art, and the ontempo- intended to open at the National Art allery
raneity and internationalness of ink art in on No ember 31, 199 , is an eled the day
the 1990s. arti ipants demonstrate di erse before. It is sponsored by Hong ong s China
opinions on how to position ontemporary il ainting allery and the ournal Gallery
ink and sort out rele ant theoreti al issues. ( Hualang from uangdong. The hief
July: The Current State of Contemporary a ademi urator is Huang huan. The
Chinese Ink Painting ( Dangdai Zhongguo painting and s ulpture se tion is held at the
shuimo xianzhuang zhan is held at the ao Siu Loong allery at the Hong ong
National Art allery. Arts Centre.
September: The ideo art e hibition Returning to the Visual — igurative
Image and Phenomena ( Xianxiang, yingxiang ) Paintings by ive Artists from China National
is held at the gallery of the China National Academy of Fine Arts ( Huidao shijue — Zhong-
A ademy of ine Arts formerly alled the guo meishu xueyuan juxiang biaoxian huihua
he iang A ademy of ine Arts Hang hou, wuren zhan is held at the e hibition hall
urated by Wu Mei hun and iu hi ie. at the China National A ademy of ine Arts,
arti ipating artists in lude hang eili, hu Hang hou.
ia, Yan Lei, Yang hen hong, Wang ong in,
Tong Biao, iu hi ie, ian Weikang, Li 1997
Yongbin, ao Shi iang, ao Shiming, Chen January: The Annie Wong Art oundation
Shaoping, Chen Shao iong, and others. is founded in an ou er, BC. It is dedi ated
uring the e hibition three symposia are to promoting and e panding international
held: Art in the Age of eprodu tion re ognition and understanding of ontempo-
Ying iang eng hi shidai de yishu , Image rary Chinese art.
and henomena ian iang, ying iang , loating: ’97 uzhou Contemporary Art
and The ossibilities for ideo Art Exhibition ( Piaoyi: 97 fuzhou dangdai yishu
Lu iang yishu de keneng ing . Two lianzhan is held at the u hou ine Arts
te ts Documents of Video Art ( Luxiang A ademy, u ian.
yishu wenxian and Art and Historical February: Deng Xiaoping dies.
Paintings by Chen Yifei, a Chinese Artist Cai uo- iang s rst solo e hibition in
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Living in the .S. ( Lümei huajia Chen Yifei the nited States, Cultural Melting Bath:
huazhan is held at the National Art allery. Projects for the 20th Century, is held at the
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March: Cai uo- iang s rst solo ueens Museum of Art in New York.
e hibition in Europe, Flying Dragon in the September: The preview of New Image:
Heavens, opens at the Louisiana Museum Art Exhibition of Conceptual Photography
of Modern Art in Humlebaek, enmark. ( Xin yingxiang: guannian shiying yishuzhan )
April: The e hibition Red and Grey — Eight and Symposium on Theories of Con eptual
Avant-Garde Chinese Artists is held at SooBin hotography uannian sheying lilun
allery in Singapore. It in ludes Liu Wei, yantaohui are held at the main hall of the
Mao uhui, Wang uangyi, Wei uang ing, Bei ing Theatre. Both are sponsored by
Ye Yong ing, Yue Min un, hang iaogang, the journal Modern Photography ( Xiandai
and hou Chunya. sheying bao and the Bei ing isual Art
The He iangning Art Museum in Center, and urated by ao i.
Shen hen opens. Zeitgenossische otokunst Aus der R
May: The Spiritual Civilization Steering China is held in ermany at Neuer Berliner
Committee ( Zhongyang jingshen wenming unst erein, in luding 1 e perimental
jianshe zhidao weiyuanhui ) is founded photographers’ work. It is an important show
in Beijing. for Chinese e perimental photography.
June: The 47th eni e Biennale opens. Stir-Fry: A Video Curator’s Dispatches from
Cai uo- iang e hibits in the Future, Past, China, a Web site by Barbara London, a
Present e hibition in the Arsenale. urator at MoMA New York, hroni les her
o umenta opens in assel, ermany tra els and en ounters with media art and
eng Mengbo and Wang ianwei parti ipate. artists in Bei ing, Shanghai, Hang hou,
July: The British handover ceremony of and uang hou.
Hong Kong to China takes place. Hong Kong October: A Chinese Dream: ’97 Chinese
is established as a Special Administrative Contemporary Art ( Zhongguo zhi meng:
Region of the People’s Republic. 97 Zhongguo dangdai yishu is held at the
The Ministry of Culture sponsors the Yanhuang Art allery in Bei ing, urated
Grand Exhibition of Chinese Art ( Zhongguo by Leng Lin, and after whi h an au tion
yishu dazhan , multiple e hibitions throughout takes place.
China to elebrate the return of Hong ong. December: Bloodline: Big amily — Zhang
Liu iao hun and eng ing iang assume Xiaogang’s Oil Painting Exhibition (Xueyuan:
the positions of se retary general and deputy da jiating — Zhang Xiaogang youhua zhan ) is
general, respe ti ely, of the preparatory held at the ontemporary art gallery at the
ommittee. i ao ian ser es as the hairper- Central A ademy of ine Arts High S hool.
son of the Chinese painting se tion in Shanghai, Photography and Video Art from China
while ia ang hou hairs the Chinese e hibition at Ma rotet h allery in New
ontemporary oil painting se tion in Shanghai. York in ludes work by si artists, Wang
The ourth Biennale d Art Contemporain insong, hang eili, huang Hui, Ma Liuming,
de Lyon opens in Lyon, ran e, urated Yang hen hong, Li Yongbin.
by Harald S eemann. The Chinese artists
in luded are An Hong, Chen hen, eng 1998
Mengbo, u ie, Wang ingwei, u Yihui, January: Trace of Existence — A Private
Yan ei Ming, and hang eili. Showing of Contemporary Chinese Art ’98
August: Thirteen art publishing rms and ( Shengcun henji — 98 Zhongguo dangdai yishu
Xinhua Bookstore sign on to collaborate on neibu guanmozhan , urated by eng Boyi
the publi ation of the 48- olume Collected and Cai ing, is held at Art Now Studio
Works of Chinese Modern Art ( Zhongguo in Yao ia huang, Bei ing. Artists reate
xiandai meishu quanji , as part of the larger works on-site.
collection Classification of Chinese ine Arts March: The art e hibition Century, Women
( Zhongguo meishu fenlei quanji ). ( Shiji nüxing is held in Bei ing at the National
Demonstration of ideo Art ’97 China Art allery, the Museum of Contemporary
( 97 luxiang yishu guanmozhan ) opens at the Art, and the Bei ing International Art ala e
art gallery of the Central A ademy of ine gallery lo ated inside the Holiday Inn
Arts, urated by Wu Mei hun, and in luding Crowne la a Hotel simultaneously. The
works by more than 30 Chinese artists. e hibition is urated by ia ang hou and
iu hi ie s solo e hibition Logic: ive ideo sponsored by the Center for Comparati e
Installations ( Luoji: Wuge luxiang zhuangzhi ) Studies at China National A ademy of ine
takes place there at the same time. Arts. The a ompanying symposium is alled
425
ender erspe ti e: Women s Art and East Third ing oad, Bei ing. An a ant-garde
Artisti eminism in Cultural Transformation underground e hibition, it is losed down
ingbie shi iao: wenhua bian ian hong by authorities the ne t day.
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de n ing yishu yu yishu n ing . The e hibition Inside Out: New Chinese
Mondrian in China — A Documentary Art opens at Asia So iety alleries and
Exhibition with Chinese Originals ( Mengde .S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York.
li’an zai Zhongguo — Mengde li’an wenxian rgani ed by the Asia So iety and the
yu Zhongguo yishujia zuopin , sponsored San ran is o Museum of Modern Art and
by China E hibition E hange Centre and urated by ao Minglu, it in ludes 58 artists
the Netherlands Embassy in China, is held from mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong
at the Bei ing International Art ala e. ong and e patriates li ing o erseas. A
Jiangnan: Modern and Contemporary three-day symposium, ushing Boundaries:
Chinese Art Exhibitions and International New ire tions in Chinese Art, is held.
Symposium is held in arious enues in The e hibition goes to S M MA and the
an ou er, BC, organi ed by Hank Bull, Asian Art Museum, San ran is o and then
heng Shengtian, a id Chan, and ia Wei. tra els to Monterrey, Me i o Seattle and
Stru tured around the iangnan region Ta oma, Washington Hong ong and
south of the Yang i i er and the ultural Canberra, Australia. The atalogue, edited
ba kground of the parti ipating artists, the by ao Minglu, gi es an o er iew of the
pro e t s e hibitions in lude: two-person sub e t sin e 1984 and is opublished with
shows of u Bing and Huang Yong ing, ni ersity of California ress.
hou Tiehai and eng ianyi, Chen hen October: The ’98 Asia-Pacific Contemporary
and en Lum, Wenda u and hang eili, Art Invitational xhibition ( 98 yatai dangdai
ohnson Su-sing Chow and Chen eng-T e, yishu yaoqingzhan takes pla e at the u hou
solo e hibitions or performan es by ine Arts A ademy and Yushan Hotel, u ian,
u iong, Hu ieming, Chen Yanyin, Yang urated by an i an. The in ited artists
hen hong, Shi Yong, aul Wong, a group are from Canada, .S., apan, and China.
e hibition of ing Yi, Shen an, Chen Haiyan, A Symposium on the Current State and
Shi Hui, and Liang Shao i and the e hibitions Trends in 1990s Chinese Art 90 niandai
Three Generations of Modernism: Qiu Ti, hongguo meishu ian huang yu ushi
Pang Tao, and Lin Yan, and late works by yantaohui is held in the Museum of
an Tianshou 1897 1971 . A related Chinese Art at the Wang family ourtyard
symposium on Chinese art is held at Emily in Lingshi County, Shan i pro in e. The
Carr Institute of Art and esign. symposium is sponsored by the Central
April: Internal do uments from the A ademy of ine Arts and its ournal Fine
e perimental art e ent Wildlife: Starting Arts Research. an i an and Yi Ying ser e
from ingzhe Day, 1997 ( Yesheng — 1997 as a ademi hairs.
nian Jingzhe shi are published. Wildlife is The rst Chinese Contemporary Art
sponsored by Bei ing Contemporary Art Award CCAA is awarded to hou Tiehai
Center and urated by Song ong and uo S 3,000 , Yang Mian, and ie Nan ing.
Shirui. Starting on Mar h 5, it lasts one This award is funded by the Chinese
year and 27 artists from a ross the nation Contemporary Art Asso iation in Swit erland
participate. to re ogni e artists under the age of 35.
Video and Computer Art Exhibition (Luxiang, The ury this year in ludes Yi Ying, Ai Weiwei,
diannao yishu zhan is held at ilin ro in ial olle tor li Sigg, and urator Harald
S hool of Industrial esign in Chang hun. S eemann.
June: Die Hälfte des Himmels — Chinesische The Se ond Shanghai Biennale takes pla e
nstlerinnen der Gegenwart Half of the at the Shanghai Art Museum and Liu Haisu
Sky: Contemporary Chinese Women Artists Art Museum with the theme Inheritance
opens at the rauenmuseum Bonn, urated and Exploration ( Ronghui yu tuozhan . A
by Chris Werner and iu ing. symposium on Ink Art in the Contemporary
The Fourth Taipei Biennale Site of Desire Cultural En ironment angdai wenhua
( Yuwang changyu is held at the Taipei huan ing hong de shuimo yishu is also
ine Arts Museum, Taiwan, urated by Nan o held during the e hibition.
umio. Cai uo- iang, Chen hen, u e in, November: Reflecting on Their wn
Lin Yilin, u Bing, u Tan, Wang ingsong, Tradition: An Exhibition of Chinese
heng uogu, and others parti ipate. Contemporary Art ( Chuantong Fansi —
August: Persistent Deviation Corruptionist Zhongguo dangdai yishu zhan is held at
( Pianzhi , urated by u uotao and u Yihui, the erman Embassy in Bei ing and urated
is held in the basement of Building 3, no. 10, by E khard . S hneider.
It’s Me! ( Shi wo! , urated by Leng Lin, ompleted, transforming an old warehouse in
426
is slated to open at the Main itual Hall Longguashu illage in the southern outskirts
in the former Imperial An estral Temple in of Bei ing into an art spa e, where they hold
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Bei ing, only to be an elled by authorities the e hibition Innovations Part I (Chuangxin).
the day before the opening. The reason ited: April: Street Theater, urated by Hou Hanru
failure in ompleting the re uired pro edure and E elyne ouanno, takes pla e at ape art,
for appro al. New York.
The First Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin
Sculpture ( Di yi jie dangdai diaosu yishu 1950s – 1980s, organi ed by the ueens
nianduzhan opens at the outdoor spa e Museum of Art, opens in New York and begins
at He iangning Art Museum in Shen hen. a national tour. ao Minglu is one of the
The duration of the e hibition is one year. eight curators.
Counter-Perspective: The nvironment The e hibition Supermarket ( Chaoshi zhan ,
and Us ( Fan shi: zishen yu huanjing ) takes urated by u hen, Yang hen hong, and
pla e at Constru tion ni ersity in Tong ian, Ale ander Brandt, takes pla e on the fourth
Bei ing, with ia ang hou as art hair and oor at Haoshanghai la a, 138 Huaihai oad,
urated by Lin Lin, hou Yibin, and others. Shanghai. It is an e perimental e hibition
December: The First International Ink that rethinks the entire e hibitionary format.
ainting Biennial of Shen hen Di yi jie artway through, it is shut down by the
Shenzhen guoji shuimohua shuangnianzhan , authorities.
sponsored by the Shen hen muni ipal The e hibition Departing from China ( Cong
go ernment, is held at the uan Shanyue Zhongguo chufa is intended to open at the
Art Museum. Talks on the e hibition are esign Museum in Bei ing, urated by hang
also held. haohui, but is banned before its opening.
The rst He iangning Art Museum May: e eloping a New Network of Asian
A ademi orum Contemporary Art and Art: An International Conferen e on Asian
Humanities Shou ie He iangning Art Curatorship a ian Ya hou yishu in
meishuguan ueshu luntan dangdai yishu hang ian: Ya hou meishu e hanren huiyi
yu renwen ke ue is held at the museum is held in Taipei parti ipants in lude Chang
in Shen hen, with Huang huan as a ademi Tsong- ung, ei awei, and Hou Hanru.
urator. uring the forum, an e hibition of the ongyu Art Museum in Shenyang is
priver Gallery Collection (Shanghe meishuguan founded with Wang Yigang as dire tor.
shoucang zhan ) also takes place. It holds the e hibition Open Channels: First
Exhibition of the Dongyu Art Museum
1999 Collection aiqi tongdao: dongyu meishuguan
January: Post-Sense Sensibility: Distorted shoujie shoucangzhan , with Li ianting as
Bodies and Delusion ( Hou ganxing: yixing the a ademi hair.
yu wangxiang , urated by Wu Mei hun uh La La itsch ( ua shiji caihong zhan )
and iu hi ie, is held in the basement of opens at the Teda Contemporary Art
Building No. 202 in the Shaoyao u neighbor- Museum in Tian in, urated by Liao Wen
hood in Beisihuan, Bei ing. The e hibition and Li ianting.
in ludes some works made from human June: Extraordinary Space — Experimental
body parts. Works by Young Chinese Architects ( Feichang
February: Transience: Experimental kongjian — Zhongguo qingnian jianzhushi
Chinese Art at the End of the Twentieth shiyan zuopin zhan ) takes place at the
Century, is organi ed by the a id and Alfred e hibition hall of the Bei ing International
Smart Museum of Art, ni ersity of Chi ago, Con ention Center, urated by Wang
Illinois, urated by Wu Hung. The 21 artists Ming ian.
in the e hibition in lude Wenda u, Sui At the 48th eni e Biennale, Huang
ianguo, Cai in, Wang in, ing anwen, Yong ing is one of two artists representing
u Bing, Yin iu hen, han Wang, and hu ran e in its pa ilion. Cai uo- iang shows
adong. n April 17, a symposium on lobal Venice’s Rent Collection Courtyard p. 3 9
erspe ti es on Contemporary Chinese Art and re ei es a olden Lion Award. More
takes pla e. It tra els to the ni ersity of than 20 Chinese artists e hibit at d’APERTutto
regon Museum of Art, Eugene, and the urated by Harald S eemann, in luding
Hood Museum of Art, artmouth College, Lu Hao, Ma Liuming, and Yue Min un.
Hano er, New Hampshire. August: The e hibition Life and Culture
China Art Ar hi es Warehouse Yishu (Shenghuo yu yishu , urated by Li henhua,
wenjian cangku , reated by Ai Weiwei, Hans in the basement of the Asso iation of Chinese
an i k, and olle tor rank ytterhaegen, is Literature building in Bei ing is banned.
September: The Third Asia Pacific Triennial
427
The e hibition Images Telling Stories —
of Contemporary Art is held at ueensland Chinese New Conceptual Photography
Art allery, Brisbane, with the theme Beyond ( Yingxiang zhiyi — Zhongguo xin gainian
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the Future. Chinese parti ipants, in luding sheying yishu zhan tra els to Shanghai,
e patriate artists listed under Crossing Bei ing, Nan ing, Chang hun, Shen hen,
Borders, in lude Ah ian, Chen hen, uan and Hong ong.
Wei, Li Yongbin, Sang Ye, Shi Yong, Cai uo-
iang, u Bing, u Tan, Yin iu hen, and 2000
Zhang Peili. January: 2000 China: Internet, ideo,
October: Visions of Pluralism: Contemporary and Photo Art Exhibition ( 2000 nian Zhongguo
Art in Taiwan 1988 – 1999 ( Fushuyuan de shiye: wangluo sheying yingxiang yishu zhan ) is
Taiwan dangdai meishu 1998 – 1999 is held at held at the e hibition hall at ilin ro in ial
the National Art allery, urated by i toria A ademy of ine Arts in Chang hun, urated
Lu ong hi . uring the e hibition, there by Huang Yan, Hai Bo, and iao Ying i.
is a symposium titled egional Art and eaturing mediums su h as the Internet,
lobali ation A ialogue on a New Century multimedia, digital imagery, and photogra-
of rospe ts for Contemporary Cross-Straits phy, it is the rst a ant-garde art e hibition to
Art iyu yishu yu uan iuhua liang an use the term Internet in its title 48 artists
dangdai yishu hanwang in shi i de duitan . from a ross the ountry parti ipate.
The Second Annual Exhibition of February: Mingling under the Spring
Contemporary Sculpture ( Di er jie dangdai Moon — A Sino-German Painting Exhibition
diaosu yishu nianzhan) takes place at Overseas ( Jiaorong zai chunyue xia — zhongde huihua
Chinese Town in Shen hen urated by jiaoliu zhan takes pla e at the erman Embassy
Huang huan, its theme is Balanced xistence: in Bei ing, urated by E khard . S hneider.
Future Plans for the Eco-City. The e hibition Back- orth and Right-Left
November: Xu Bing creates a banner ( Qinhouzuoyou , urated by Wang Mai,
for The Museum of Modern Art, New York, is held at He hang arden in Ma u iao,
with his original New English Calligraphy Tong hou, Bei ing.
as part of Projects 70. March: The Third wang u Biennale opens
Food for Thought: Chinese Contemporary Art with the theme Man + Space. Participating
takes pla e at e Witte ame in Eindho en, Chinese artists in lude Ma Liuming, hang
as part of the Chinese arakters esti al in iaogang, Wang ingsong, Yan eiming,
the Netherlands. Wenda u, and uan Wei.
December: Chinese Artists in the World — The Shanghai Art Museum mo es to
Installation and Documentary is held at a new site on 325 Nan ing i oad.
Art Commune, Hong ong, urated by April: Sponsored by ShanghA T allery
Ma in hong. and Bank of China, the artist hao Bandi
Gate of the New Century: 1979 – 1999 presents Zhao Bandi and the Little Panda
Chinese Art Invitational xhibition ( Shiji zhi ( Zhao Bandi he xiongmao , large-s ale
men — 1979 – 1999 Zhongguo yishu yaoqing on eptual art light-bo es in the form of
zhan is held at the Chengdu Contemporary publi ser i e announ ements, at the new
Art Museum at the Chengdu International Shanghai udong International Airport.
Con ention Center, sponsored by the This is the rst e ent integrating art and
Muni ipal o ernment of Chengdu. It is ad ertisement in Shanghai.
urated by Lang Shao un Chinese painting , An international delegation of urators,
Shui Tian hong oil painting , Liu iao hun in luding heng Shengtian, Yao Shouyi,
s ulpture and installation , and iu Leung it Wah, Sarat Mahara , en Lum,
hen hong alligraphy . Sebasti n L pe , Susanne he , kwui
China resumes sovereignty over Macao. Enwe or, Chris er on, Lynne Cooke, and
This year, Collections of Critical Essays essi a Bradley, ondu t a 15-day tour of
on Chinese Contemporary Art Phenomena Hang hou, Shanghai, Bei ing, uang hou,
( Zhongguo dangdai meishu xianxiang piping Taipei, and Hong ong, where they intera t
wencong , edited by hang iaoling, is with Chinese artists, riti s, and urators.
published by ilin ine Arts ublishing House. The e hibition Home?: Contemporary
It omprises 10 olumes, e.g., Abstract Art, Art Proposals ( Jia?: xiandai yishu ti an ,
Pop Art, Feminism, New Art, Neo-Classical Art, urated by Wu Mei hun and iu hi ie, takes
New Literati Art, and so on. Contributors pla e at the Star-Moon Home urnishing
in lude more than 10 historians and riti s, Center in Shanghai.
su h as hang iaoling, Yu ing, Sun in, The e hibition Infatuated with Injury
L intian, Liao Wen, and Hang ian. ( Dui shanghai de milian ) takes place at the
esear h Institute of S ulpture at the Central from Huadong Attorney irm in Shanghai,
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A ademy of ine Arts, urated by Li ianting. ei awei, hu ingsheng, and ao Ling

Some works in the e hibition use orpses pro ide written spee hes in absentia.
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and animals as material and thus pro oke The 31st Art Basel opens Shanghai s
heated debate. ShanghA T allery is in ited to attend.
Man and Animals ( Ren yu dongwu , a The ifth Biennale d Art Contemporain
series of performan e e ents urated by u de Lyon takes pla e, urated by ean-Hubert
hen ing, takes pla e o er a period of e Martin, with the theme Partage d’exotismes.
months in different lo ations in Bei ing, arti ipating Chinese artists in lude Wenda
Chengdu, uilin, Nan ing, Chang hun, u, Liang Shao i, Lu Hao, eng Yu, in a,
and uiyang. Cai uo- iang, Sun Yuan, Sui ianguo, iao
A omprehensi e Chinese Web site on Yu, Yan eiming, hang Han i, hang Huan,
art, Tom. om, laun hes in Bei ing, reated hu Yu, and huang Hui.
by eng Boyi, i Li, and Hua Tian ue. August: Documentation of Chinese Avant-
a ing the New Century: The pening Garde Art in the 1990s is held at the ukuoka
Ceremony of the ingdao S ulpture Art Asian Art Museum, urated by eng Boyi
Museum and A ademi E ents on S ulpture and Hua Tian ue. A symposium on Chinese
Mian iang inshi i: ingdao diaosu A ant- arde Current State and rospe ts
yishuguan luo heng ingdian i diaosu ueshu for the 21st Century is also held.
ilie huodong takes pla e in ingdao, September: The 18th World Image
Shandong. esti al is held in Amsterdam. Chinese artists
May: Curated by ia ang hou and others, Wang ong in, Wang ianwei, and Song
the Opening Exhibition of Shangyuan Artists’ ong are in ited.
Studios ( Shangyuan yishujia gongzuoshi etrospe t and rospe t Symposium
kaifang zhan takes pla e in Shangyuan on the Historiography of Chinese Art in the
illage in ingshou, Changping istri t, Twentieth Century Huigu yu hanwang
Bei ing. Artists residing here hold open hongguo ershi shi i meishu shi ue ueshu
studios for the publi to isit. uring the yantaohui takes pla e at intai Hotel
e hibition, a riti s tea party is held in Beijing.
to dis uss the phenomenon of Chinese The Second Invitational xhibition of Young
artists relo ating from the ity to the Contemporary Sculptors ( Di er jie dangdai
ountryside. qingnian diaosujia yaoqing zhan , sponsored
The 12th Biennale of Sydney takes pla e by the epartment of S ulpture at China
Cai uo- iang and u Bing parti ipate National A ademy of ine Arts and the
in the e hibition. Shen hen Institute of S ulpture, is held at
June: The Se enth eni e Ar hite ture West Lake Art Museum in Hang hou, the
Biennale opens with the theme Less Museum of S ulpture Art in ingdao, and
Aesthetics: More Ethics. Yung Ho Chang the e hibition hall at Shen hen Institute
is the only Chinese ar hite t in ited. of Sculpture.
Luo hongli, president of the Si huan October: The Third Sex — Internet Art.
ine Arts Institute, sues Harald S eemann, China (Di san xing — wangluo yishu. Zhongguo)
urator of the 48th eni e Biennale, and takes pla e in Bei ing, urated by Huang Yan,
Chinese e patriate artist Cai uo- iang Cang in, and Wang uofeng.
for opyright iolation, harging that Cai s November: The Third Shanghai Biennale
work at the 48th eni e Biennale plagiari es opens at the Shanghai Art Museum with
the group of lay s ulptures Rent Collection the theme Shanghai Spirit ( Haishang,
Courtyard ( Shouzuyuan ). This unleashes Shanghai , urated by Hou Hanru, Toshio
ontro ersy in China on the boundaries Shimi u, hang ing, Li u, and ang
between opyright infringement and now- eng ian. It is the rst time for an of ial
ommon ontemporary art methods su h Chinese museum e hibition to adopt an
as reprodu tion and appropriation. n international uratorial system. In addition
une 20, the ournal Avant-Garde Today holds to traditional art forms, it in ludes installa-
a Symposium on Rent Collection Courtyard tion, ideo, lm, media, photography,
and Contemporary Art Shouzuyuan yu ar hite ture, and Con eptual art.
dangdai yishu uotanhui dis ussing a series The e hibition uck ff Buhezuo fangshi,
of important problems in Chinese art history urated by Ai Weiwei and eng Boyi in
and new issues regarding ontemporary de an e of the Third Shanghai Biennale,
art and opyright. Wu Hung, Li ianting, takes pla e in onglang allery in Shanghai
Liu iao hun, and Sui ianguo parti ipate p. 355 , pro oking a grand dis ussion o er
in the symposium, and attorney Ma ian un performan e art.
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Canceled: Exhibiting Experimental Art in heretofore alled the National Art allery
China is held at the a id and Alfred Smart urated by Tao Yongbai.
Museum of Art at the ni ersity of Chi ago, June: The journal New Wave ( Xinchao )
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urated by Wu Hung. begins publi ation, well-known artists and
December: The Third Annual Exhibition urators su h as Li ianting, Wu Wenguang,
of Contemporary Sculpture ( Di san jie dangdai and iu hi ie take part in editing. eng
diaosu yishu niandu zhan is held at the He ubo is the editor-in- hief.
iangning Art Museum in Shen hen, urated July: The Second Northern China
by Yi Ying and Yin Shuang i. Contemporary Art Invitational xhibition
Chen hen, e patriate artist, dies in aris. ( Di er jie beifang dangdai yishu yaoqingzhan )
The e hibition Contemporary Chinese is held at ongyu Art Museum in Shenyang,
Painting takes pla e at the illa Breda Museum urated by Wang Yigang.
in adua, Italy. Beijing succeeds in its bid to host the
In this year, Selected Works of ine Arts 2008 Summer Olympic Games.
of the 20th Century (20 shiji Zhongguo meishu UP-ricing, a tra eling e hibition, begins
wenxuan , edited by Shui Tian hong and Lang ir ulation to se en Asian ities: Hong ong,
Shao un, is published by Shanghai ine Arts Ma au, Singapore, uala Lumpur, Taipei,
ublishers, a work of 1,280,000 hara ters, Chiayi Taiwan , and Bei ing. The hief urator
olle ting more than 190 arti les on modern is Andrew Lam of the Museum of Site, Hong
Chinese art from the early twentieth entury ong, while hu i parti ipates
to the 1990s. in curating the Beijing stop.
The Central A ademy of ine Arts and September: Reshuffle: In the Name of
he iang eople s ublishing House ollabora- Ink and Wash ( Chongxin xipai — yi huimo de
ti ely edit and publish a atalogue omprising mingyi is held at the e hibition hall of
olumes, 1979 – 1999 Chinese Contemporary Shen hen Institute of S ulpture, urated
Art (1979 – 1999 Zhongguo dangdai meishu) by Lu Hong and Sun henhua.
with an i an as editor-in- hief. The United States suffers a terrorist
attack, which receives widespread attention
2001 in China.
January: Journal of Literature and Art The rst Pingyao International Photography
( Wenyi bao ) publishes the article “In the estival ( Pingyao guoji sheying jie is held in
Name of Art: The ead End of Chinese A ant- the an ient ity of ingyao, Shan i.
arde Art Yi yishu de mingyi: hongguo The irst Independent ilm ideo estival
ianwei yishu de iongtumolu riti i ing ( Zhongguo shoujie yingxiang jie ) opens at
and triggering dis ussion o er a ant-garde the Bei ing ilm A ademy, urated by ong
art and performan e art. n April 3, the Bingfeng, Yang i, hang Ya uan, and Yang
Ministry of Culture issues a noti e to ease Chao. Its signi an e lies in that it is the rst
all performan es and bloody, brutal displays attempt to resear h and summari e more
of obs enity in the name of art. In April, than 10 years of Chinese independent
the journal Art ondu ts is ussions on ideo-making.
erforman e Art uanyu ingwei yishu de October: The inth Asia-Pacific Economic
taolun . n No ember 22, the Ministry of Cooperation ( APEC ) Economic Leaders’
Culture and the epartment of Laws and Meeting is held in Shanghai.
egulations osponsor a Symposium on Reel China — New Chinese Documentary
Implementing the Central Committee of the estival takes pla e in New York City.
CC s utline for Ci i Morality Luoshi December: China joins the World Trade
honggong hongyang gongmin daode Organization ( WTO ).
ianshe shishi gangyao uotanhui , on e Transplantation in situ — The Fourth
again riti i ing a few people for iolent, ruel, Shenzhen Contemporary Sculpture Art
and pornographi ondu t in the name of Exhibition (Bei yizhi de xianchang — di si jie
art and proposing to ta kle problems with Shenzhen dangdai diaosu yishu zhan is held
performan e art in a omprehensi e way. at the He iangning Art Museum in
March: The e hibition Post-Sensibility: Shen hen, showing publi s ulpture by
Spree ( Hou ganxing: kuanghuan is held at Chinese and ren h artists. Huang huan
the Bei ing ilm A ademy, urated by is the urator for the Chinese side.
iu hi ie. The ontemporary Chinese art e hibition
2001 Beijing New Century International Dialogo — Others takes pla e in Bari, Italy.
Women’s Art Exhibition ( 2001 nian Beijing xin The irst Chengdu Biennial Di yi jie
shiji guoji funü yishu zhan ) opens at the Chengdu shuangnianzhan is organi ed by
National Art Museum of China, Bei ing the Museum of Modern Art in Chengdu,
urated by Liu iao hun, u hen ing, June: The Academic Exchange Exhibition
430
Huang iaorong, and eng Bin, and funded of Contemporary Prints ( Dangdai banhua
by ia hou California Industrial, Ltd. The xueshu jiaoliu zhan and orresponding
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theme is Model, Easel ( Yangban, jiashang ). symposium, urated by Chen iao in, are
The 16th Asian International Art xhibition held at Chengdu A ademy of ainting.
is held at the uangdong Museum of Art, September: Bridge — Changchun
uang hou. Contemporary Art Annual Invitational
Xi’an Contemporary Open Art Exhibition Exhibition (Qiao — Changchun dangdai yishu
( Xi’an dangdai yishu kaifang zhan takes place niandu yaoqing zhan ) takes place in the
at ongyang rimary S hool in i an. Chang hun ar East Art Museum, urated by
nowledge Is Power ( Zhishi jiushi liliang ) Wang ianguo, hao Shulin, and Huang Yan.
is sponsored by and held at the Bei ing Books The First Triennial of Chinese Art ( Shoujie
Building in idan, Bei ing, urated by eng Zhongguo yishu sannianzhan is held at
Boyi and Hua Tian ue. uang hou Art Museum, urated by eng
e and Li iaoshan.
2002 November: Beijing Afloat ( Beijing
January: The Allure of Tradition — fushihui , the opening e hibition of Bei ing
International Art Exhibition of the Tokyo Art ro e ts, urated by eng Boyi,
Contemporary Art Collection at the National is held in the Bei ing 798 ashan i Art
Art Museum of China and Work Donated istri t. Bei ing Tokyo Art ro e ts, sponsored
by Mr. and Mrs. Ludwig ( Chuantong mei- by Tokyo allery, is the rst foreign gallery
li — Zhongguo meishuguan diancang dangdai business to open in the new ashan i
meishu zuopin ji ludeweixi fufu juanzeng Art istri t.
guoji yishupin zhan) opens at the Museum The 16th Congress of the CCP is held in
of Modern Art in Chengdu. Beijing, which issues the important decree
February: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang “Three Represents” ( principles for continued
( Cai Guoqiang de yishu is held at the progress ). The First Plenary Session of the
Shanghai Art Museum a symposium on 15th Central Committee of the CCP elects
the e hibition is also held. Hu Jintao as the General Secretary of the
2002 Shanghai Abstract Art Group Show Central Committee.
( 2002 Shanghai chouxiang yishu quntizhan ) The Fourth Shanghai Biennale opens at
takes pla e at the Liu Haisu Art Museum, the Shanghai Art Museum with the theme
Shanghai. Urban Creation (Dushi yingzao , urated by
Wang Bing s do umentary Tie Xi Qu: u iang, an i an, Alanna Heiss, Wu iang,
West of the Tracks wins the grand pri e at laus Biesenba h, and Yuko Hasegawa.
the Lisbon International o umentary The irst uang hou Contemporary
Film Festival in Portugal. Art Triennial, Reinterpretation: A Decade of
March: The themati art e hibition xperimental Chinese Art 1990 – 2000
Beijing Youth Daily — Media and Art ( Beijing ( Shoujie Guangzhou dangdai yishu sannian-
qingnian bao — chuanmei yu yishu is held zhan —Chongxin jiedu: Zhongguo shiyan yishu
at the China International E hibition Center shinian 1990 – 2000 opens at the uangdong
the e hibition hair is Yang un. Museum of Art, with Wu Hung as the hief
April: A Journey into Fantasy — Interactive urator other urators in lude Wang
xhibition of Salvador Dal ’s Works Huangsheng, Huang huan, and eng Boyi.
( uangxiang de l cheng: dashi Dali huzhu uring the e hibition, a symposium titled
yishu zhan takes pla e at the uangdong la e and Model idian yu moshi
Museum of Art. is held. Reinterpretation: A Decade of
The symposium Chinese il ainting xperimental Chinese Art 1990 – 2000/Chongxin
and the New Century hongguo youhua jiedu: Zhongguo shiyan yishu shinian 1990 –
yu in shi i , sponsored by the Chinese il 2000 is published in both Chinese and English
ainting So iety, is held in Bei ing. ersions, offering a omprehensi e o er iew
May: The symposium etrospe ti e of of Chinese e perimental art in the 1990s.
100 Years of Chinese Ink ainting and Its
e elopment in the New Century is held 2003
in New York, sponsored by the Asso iation January: The e hibition Junction:
of Modern Chinese Art. Architectural Experiments of Chinese
The Chinese ontemporary art symposium Contemporary Art ( iedian: Zhongguo dangdai
New ision, New Media in shi ian in yishu de jianzhu shijian is held at the Lianyang
meiti is held in un un, in hou, Shan i Ar hite ture Art Museum, urated by
pro in e, moderated by an i an and Yi Ying. Ai Weiwei and hang ing.
March: SARS breaks out in China, creating
431
Exhibition of Contemporary Art ( Zuoshou yu
widespread social panic. youshou — Zhong De dangdai yishu lianzhan ,
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Chinese Maximalism ( Zhongguo jiduo urated by eng Boyi, and Tui-Transfiguration:
zhuyi organi ed by the Millennium Art The Image World of Rong Rong and inri
Museum, Bei ing, and ni ersity of Buffalo ( Tui: Rongrong and yingli , urated by Wu
New York Art alleries, S NY Buffalo, Hung pl. 48 .
urated by ao Minglu, opens in Bei ing. The rst adao Li e Art esti al Dadao
Text & Subtext: Contemporary Asian xianchang yishujie is held in the ashan i Art
Women Artists is held at - AY Art Center istri t in Bei ing.
in Bei ing, urated by Binghui Huangfu. Turnaround — the irst Annual Invitational
An e ent titled Transborder Language: Exhibition by the journal Contemporary Artists
Poetry Performance Art ( Yuejie yuyan: shi (Zhuanxiang — 2003 Dangdai yishujia shoujie
xingwei yishu de xianchang ) takes place at niandu yaoqingzhan is held at the Chong ing
the Bei ing Tokyo Art ro e ts. Museum of Art.
Asia Art Ar hi e AAA , dedi ated to September: 2003 Microwave International
do umenting the re ent history of isual art New Media Arts estival opens at Hong ong
from the region in an international onte t, City Hall.
opens in Hong ong. The 2003 Chinese Cartoon Industry orum
June: The 50th eni e Biennale opens. i e and ingdao International Cartoon Art Week
artists were chosen to represent China at the ( 2003 Zhongguo katong chanye luntan ji
rst e er Chinese national pa ilion, howe er, ingdao guoji katong yishuzhou ) takes place
due to SA S, their parti ipation is an eled. in the International Convention Center
Alors, la Chine? opens at Centre eorges in ingdao.
ompidou in aris, the rst large-s ale Chinese November: Double Time: Invitational
ontemporary art e hibition in ran e to be Exhibition of Contemporary Asian Art
prepared in asso iation with the Chinese ( Shuangchong shijian: Yazhou dangdai yishu
go ernment. It is sponsored by the Ministry yaoqingzhan opens at the art gallery of
of Culture and urated by an i an. the China National A ademy of ine Arts.
July: An e hibition to elebrate the Hello, Comrade Mingong — Contemporary
completion of the renovation of the National Art Exhibition ( Mingong tongzhi — dangdai
Art Museum of China and ommemorating yishu zhan is held at Today Art Museum,
the 40th anni ersary of its founding is held. Bei ing, urated by Yang inyi. It in ludes
The e hibition, Experiment and Exploration 14 artists, su h as Song ong, iu hi ie,
( Shiyan, tanxun , in ludes Chinese a ant- Wang in, Yang udong, and hang Nian.
garde art. December: The Fifth Shenzhen
September: The 2003 Shanghai Spring International Contemporary Sculpture
Art Salon ( Art Shanghai ) ( 2003 Shanghai Exhibition ( Di 5 jie Shenzhen guoji dangdai
chunji yishu shalong opens at the uangda diaosu zhan ) takes place at Overseas Chinese
E hibition Center, during whi h Wang Lin Town in Shen hen, urated by Hou Hanru
presides o er the irst National orum and i Li. The theme is The Fifth System —
of Young Art Criti s Shou ie uanguo Public Art in the Age of Post-Planning ( Di wu
ingnian meishu piping ia luntan . Its xitong — hou guihua shidai de gonggong yishu).
pro eedings are published in Critics’ The photography e hibition Humanism
Criticisms and Self-Criticisms ( Pipingjia de in China — A Contemporary Record of
piping yu ziwo piping ). Photography ( Zhongguo renben — jishi zai
The rst Bei ing International Art Biennale dangdai opens at uangdong Museum
( Zhongguo Beijing guoji meishu shuangnian- of Art, urated by An e, Hu Wugong, and
zhan takes pla e at the Millennium Art Wang Huangsheng. A symposium of the
Museum and the National Art Museum of same title also takes place.
China, sponsored by the Chinese ederation The international tra eling e hibition of
of Literary and Art Cir les, the Bei ing the Stedeli k Museum, Amsterdam, olle tion
Muni ipal o ernment, and the Chinese Encounters with Modernism ( Quanshi
Artists Asso iation. The theme is Originality: xiandai opens at the Shanghai Art Museum.
Contemporaneity and Locality ( Chuangxin: Image of Images — 2003 Chinese
dangdaixing yu diyuxing ). Contemporary il Painting Invitational
uring the Bei ing International Art Exhibition ( Tuxiang de tuxiang — 2003
Biennale, a number of a ant-garde satellite Zhongguo dangdai youhua yaoqingzhan )
e hibitions take pla e two share the 798 opens at Shen hen Art Museum.
furna e fa tory transformed into an art spa e: The rst forum of the Shen hen Art
Left Hand, Right Hand — A Sino-German Museum, Symbiosis and Intera tion
Contemporary Art Criti ism and meizhan is held in 10 sites: Hang hou
432
Contemporary Art ongsheng yu Chinese painting , uang hou oil painting ,

hudong dangdai yishu piping yu dangdai Chengdu prints , Shantou water olor,
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yishu , is held at the onferen e hall at goua he , Chang hun s ulpture , iamen
Beiling u Hotel in Shen hen. It re e ts s ulpture , uang hou murals , Nan ing
on Chinese ontemporary art riti ism and la uer painting, New Year s painting,
20 years of ontemporary art, and ondu ts propaganda art, illustration, pi ture books,
a comprehensive critical review of the artoons , Shanghai art design , and
a hie ements and problems of 20 years Shen hen spe ial in itational works from
of art criticism. Hong ong and Ma ao .
ollowing on the 2000 e hibition Tobacco
2004 Project: A Series of Installations Created by
February: Zooming into ocus: Xu Bing at uke ni ersity, urham, North
Contemporary Chinese Photography and Carolina, Tobacco Project: Shanghai (Yancao
Video from the Haudenschild Collection (Jujiao jihua: Shanghai opens at Shanghai allery
Zhongguo dangdai sheying he luxiang — of Art, urated by Wu Hung, and with
laizi Haudenschild fufu de shoucang ) opens an a ompanying symposium.
at the Shanghai Art Museum. September: The 2004 Nomination
March: Chinese Digital Art Exposition Exhibition of the Journal “Fine Arts Literature”
( Zhongguo shuma yishu bolanhui is held ( 2004 niandu Meishu wenxian timingzhan )
at Haidian Theatre in Bei ing. is held at the gallery at the Hubei Institute
Xu Bing’s installation Where does the of ine Arts, urated by Liu Ming, with
dust itself collect? ( He chu ruo chen ai ) wins i ao ian, Wang Lin, eng Boyi, and others
the Artes Mundi 1 ri e in Wales. presiding o er the nominating pro ess.
April: The rst China International Gallery uring the e hibition, the Fine Arts
Exposition ( CIGE ) ( Zhongguo guoji hualang Literature orum is on ened and a Fine
bolanhui is held at the Chinese International Arts pri e is awarded.
S ien e and Te hnology Con ention Center The rst Architectural Biennial Beijing
in Beijing. ( Zhongguo guoji jianzhu yishu shuangnianzhan )
The rst Dashanzi International Art estival is held at the National Museum of Art and
( DIAF ) ( Dashanzi guoji yishujie ) takes place other sites.
in Bei ing s ashan i Art istri t, urated Shanghai Duolun Exhibition of Young Artists
by Huang ui. (Shanghai duolun qingnian meishu dazhan)
June: Le Moine et le démon: Art contempo- is held at the uolun Museum of Modern Art
rain chinois is held in Lyon, oprodu ed by in Shanghai, urated by in eng and others.
uangdong Museum of Art, Lyon Museum of The ifth Shanghai Biennale is held at
Contemporary Art, and the uy and Myriam Shanghai Art Museum, urated by u iang
llens oundation, and urated by ei awei. hief urator , heng Shengtian, Sebasti n
This is the last and the biggest Chinese L pe , hang ing, and ao Shiming the
ontemporary art e hibition in the Year theme is Techniques of the Visible ( Yingxiang
of China in ran e. shengcun ).
Between Past and uture — New dyssey s 2004 ( Aodesai , an e hibition
Photography and Video from China, co- of e patriate artists li ing in ran e, is
organi ed by the International Center of held at the Shanghai allery of Art, urated
hotography IC and the a id and Alfred by Martina ppel-Yang parti ipants are
Smart Museum of Art, ni ersity of Chi ago, Chen hen, u hen un, Huang Yong ing,
in ollaboration with the Asia So iety and Lin Minghong, Shen Yuan, Wang u,
the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chi ago, Yan eiming, Yang ie hang, and Adel
and o urated by Wu Hung and Christopher Abdessemed Maimaiti.
hillips, opens in New York at the IC October: The a ademi forum ubli Art
and Asia So iety alleries, then tra els to in China onggong yishu ai hongguo
Chi ago, Seattle, London, and Berlin. is held in Shen hen, urated by Sun henhua
July: The losing eremony for the Year and Lu Hong the pro eedings are published
of China in ran e, China, Imagination: under the same name.
Chinese Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition December: The Fourth International
( Zhongguo, xiangxiang: Zhongguo dangdai Ink ainting Biennial of Shen hen opens at
diaosu zhan is held at ardin des Tuileries in uan Shanyue Museum, Shen hen ine
aris, urated by an i an and Yin Shuang i. Art Institute, and Shen hen Museum of Art,
August: The rst phase of the Tenth urated by ong iaoming, Yan Shan hun,
National Art Exhibition ( Di shi jie quanguo Lu Hong, and ao Minglu.
2005
433
on editing the Contemporary Chinese Art
January: Re - viewing the City — 2005 Yearbook ( Zhongguo dangdai yishu nianjian ).
Guangzhou Photo Biennial ( Chengshi, The Se ond Triennial of Chinese Art,
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Chongshi — 2005 Guangzhou guoji sheying Archeology of the Future ( Weilai kaoguxue , is
shuangnianzhan opens, urated by u held at the Nan ing Museum the urators
heng, Alain ullien, and An e. in lude iu hi ie, uo ing, and hu Tong.
The He iangning Art Museum Ad isory The First China International Animation
Committee on enes in Shen hen for its estival and xposition ( Shoujie Zhongguo
rst annual meeting, presided o er by guoji dongmanjie is held in Hang hou.
Wu Hung, and parti ipants in lude Ai Weiwei, June: At the 51st eni e Biennale, for
an i an, ei awei, eng Boyi, ao the rst time, China has a national pa ilion
Minglu, Huang Yong ing, Huang huan, at a temporary site . The theme is Virgin
Le hengwei, aren Smith, Wang uangyi, Garden: Emersion, urated by Cai uo- iang,
Wang ianwei, u Bing, u iang, Yan and it in ludes e artists.
Shan hun, Yi Ying, Yung Ho Chang, hang ne hundred artists sign the petition
eili, and hu ingsheng. The meeting passes to sa e the Bei ing International Art Camp
the Constitution of the He iangning Art ( Beijing guoji yishu ying in Suo ia illage,
Museum Ad isory Committee, the lan Cuige huang iang, Bei ing.
for the International esiden y rogram Mahjong: Contemporary Chinese Art from
at the CT Contemporary Art Terminal, the Sigg Collection opens simultaneously
and the proposal for the Si th Shen hen at unstmuseum Bern, Swit erland, and the
Contemporary S ulpture E hibition. Holderbank e hibition hall of Hol im A ,
Wu Hung heads the CT Contemporary near Zurich.
Art Terminal Ad isory Committee. The irst Biennale internationale d art
The CT Contemporary Art Terminal of ontemporain hinois opens in Montpelier,
the He iangning Art Museum CAT opens ran e, urated by os r hes. The
in Shen hen with the e hibition Taking ff: opening eremony is held simultaneously
An Exhibition of the Contemporary Art in Montpelier and Chengdu.
Collection in the He Xiangning Art Museum Time magazine features Chinese contem-
and Contemporary Art Terminal ( Qifei: He porary artworks on the cover and publishes
Xiangning meishuguan ji OCAT dangdai yishu more than 20 pages of related articles on
diancang zhan . CAT also holds The irst the topic of “China’s ew Revolution.”
oi e: orum of Chinese Contemporary The 3 th annual ongress of the Bund
Artists i yi hong shengyin: hongguo reis haffender oto- esigner erman
dangdai yishu ia luntan the pro eedings Asso iation of reelan e hotographers
are published under the same name. dis usses the topi China – otografie, unst
March: Body Temperature — Commemorating & Werbung heute ( China — Photography, Art
the 200th Anniversary of the Birthday of Hans Advertising Today in Hamburg, ermany.
Christian Andersen: Invitational xhibition July: The Se ond Chengdu Biennial, on
of Chinese Contemporary Art ( Tiwen — jinian the theme Century and Paradise ( Shiji yu
Antusheng Danchen 200 zhounian Zhongguo tiantang , is sponsored and held at the
dangdai yishu yaoqingzhan is held at the Chengdu Century City New International
Millennium Art Museum. an i an is the Con ention E position Centers, urated
chair of the art committee. by an i an, Yin Shuang i, eng Boyi, Huang
The e hibition About Beauty and its iaorong, and eng Bin.
a ompanying symposium open at the Haus The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese
der ulturen der Welt in Berlin, urated Art ( iang: Zhongguo dangdai yishu ershinian
by Wu Hung. arti ipating Chinese artists de lishi chonggou , organi ed by the Albright-
in lude Wang ong in, Lin Tianmiao, no Art allery, Buffalo, and the ni ersity at
in Yufen, hu inshi, Liu heng, Liu an, Buffalo Art alleries, urated by ao Minglu,
ong ong, Shi Chong, and huang Hui. opens at the Millennium Art Museum, Bei ing,
To regulate the business of the Chinese and then is seen in Buffalo at the Albright-
art market, the China Commer ial Allian e no and the ni ersity alleries.
Art Market ederation Zhongguo shangye Hans Hartung in China opens at the
lianhehui yishu shichang lianmeng is founded National Art Museum of China, urated by
in Beijing. Andr neib, hu ingsheng, and ean-
May: Chinese Modern Art Ar hi es at Charles Agboton- urmau. The e hibition
eking ni ersity, CAT in Shen hen, and travels to the Nanjing Museum.
the Center for the Art of East Asia at the September: The large-scale public
ni ersity of Chi ago agree to ollaborate welfare a ti ity ourney of the Big River —
co China 2005, Ten Thousand Miles on the The Se ond uang hou Triennial ( Di er jie
434
Yellow River begins. nder the dire tion of Guangzhou dangdai yishu shuangnianzhan )
rofessor hu ingsheng, members of the is held at the uangdong Museum of Art,
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Modern Art Studies so iety and students urated by Hou Hanru, Hans lri h brist,
from the epartment of igital Art at eking and uo iaoyan.
ni ersity present work titled Washing the The So iologi al Turn in Contemporary
Yellow River ( Xi huanghe , parti ipating in this Art Criti s orum and Se ond Shen hen
e perimental art e ent in the form of purely Art Museum orum Shen hen and Ma ao
Internet art. angdai yishu de shehui ue huan ing
The se ond Bei ing International Art hong ingnian piping ia luntan i di er ie
Biennale is held at the National Art Museum Shen hen meishuguan luntan is held at the
of China. Shen hen Art Museum.
The 1 th Congress of the International December: The 2005 Shen hen Biennale
lasti Artists Asso iation Di shiliu jie guoji of rbanism and Ar hite ture, with the theme
zaoxing yishujia xiehui daibiao dahui is held City, Open Door! ( Chengshi, kaimen , is held
in Bei ing and Hefei. at CAT, urated by Yung Ho Chang.
The large-s ale multimedia e hibition Song ong s solo e hibition Waste Not
Plato and His Seven Spirits ( Bailatu he ta de qi ( Wujinqiyong opens at Bei ing Tokyo Art
zhong jingling is held in Bei ing and Shen hen, ro e ts, urated by Wu Hung. In the
urated by Huang huan. e hibition, Song ong ollaborates with
The Century of Chinese Characters — Grand his mother hao ianglan, using ob e ts
Exhibition of the Art of Chinese Characters hao has olle ted o er 50 years.
(“Hanzi shiji” — hanzi yishu dazhan is held at
the Millennium Art Museum, urated by 2006
Luo Li. January: After being shown in Taipei and
November: Cultural Translation — Wenda Bei ing, the e hibition iction Love ( Xuni de
Gu’s Forest of Stone Steles: Retranslation and ai , urated by i toria Lu, is shown at the
Rewriting of Tang Poetry 1993 – 2004 (Wenhua Museum of Contemporary Art and Bund 18
fanyi — Gu Wenda Beilin — Tangshi houzhu Creati e Center, both in Shanghai. It then
1993 – 2004 see pl. 49 is held at CAT tra els to the Singapore Art Museum.
in Shen hen along with an international Contemporary Image — First Contemporary
symposium Translating isuality anyi Chinese Art Almanac Exhibition and Zhong
yu shi ue wenhua , urated and hosted by Hongxin International Auction Company
Wu Hung. Contemporary Chinese Art Auction ( Dangdai
The 2005 China Bei ing International shixiang — shoujie Zhongguo dangdai yishu
Calligraphy Biennial 2005 Zhongguo Beijing nianjian ji Zhonghongxin Zhongguo dangdai
guoji shufa shuangnianzhan is held. yishupin paimaihui is held at the Millennium
Zooming into ocus: Contemporary Chinese Art Museum, urated by an i an.
Photography and Video ( ujiao: Zhongguo The international touring e hibition Asian
dangdai sheying he luxiang is held at the Traffic ( Yazhou jiaotong , urated by Huangfu
National Art Museum of China, the rst Binghui and Huang huan, is shown in
spe ial sur ey e hibition of the sub e t at Shen hen at CAT, the si th stop on its tour
the museum. 2004 .
Sculpture: A Century — the Opening of February: The Thirteen: Chinese Video
Shanghai Sculpture Space & Exhibition Now is held at .S. 1 Contemporary Art
( Diaosu bainian — Shanghai chengshi diaosu Center in New York, o urated by a id
yishu zhongxin kaiguan dazhan is held on Thorp and Sun Ning. In uly, the e hibition
the opening day of the enter, urated by tra els to latform China Contemporary Art
u hongwang. The e hibition is di ided Institute in Beijing.
into three parts: Centennial Classics — March: Documents on Drifting: Exhibition
Masterpieces of Chinese Sculptors ( Shiji of Hu Min’s Photography and Hu Jie’s
jingdian — Zhongguo diaosu mingjia mingzuo Documentary Film of Yuanmingyuan Artists
guanmozhan Opening Up — Invitational ( Piaoliu dang’an: Hu Min Yuanmingyuan
Exhibition of Famous Sculptors in the New Era yishujia qunluo sheying zhan ji Hu Jie
( aifang zhi l — Xin shiqi diaosu mingjia Yuanmingyuan yishujia qunluo jilupian
yaoqingzhan and Heading Toward the zhanying is held at Today Art Museum,
Future — A Group Exhibition of Outstanding Bei ing, and urated by Yang Wei.
Works by Young Sculptors ( Zouxiang weilai — April: Special Exhibition of Early Contemporary
dangdai qingnian diaosujia youxiu zuopin Chinese Art from the Fischer Collection
lianzhan ). ( eishe’er fufu zaoqi Zhongguo dangdai yishupin
435
shoucang tezhan is held at the Bei ing Imperial ( Changzheng jihua — Yan’an ) take place
City Art Museum, in luding 300 works in Yan an, urated by Lu ie.
olle ted by Swiss olle tor rgen Ludwig The 2006 Shanghai Spring Art Salon
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is her between 1990 and 1993. ( Art Shanghai ) ( 2006 Shanghai chunji yishu
The Third China Independent ilm estival shalong is held at ShanghaiMart.
( Di san jie Zhongguo duli yingxiang zhan ) June: The Exhibition of Proposals for the
is held at the CM Art Museum, Nan ing, Beijing lympics: Public Art, nvironmental
urated by Cao ai, uo ing, and hu ikun. Facilities, and City Sculpture ( Beijing Aoyun
The festi al arefully sele ts important gonggong yishu huanjing sheshi ji chengshi
independent works by utting-edge dire tors diaosu fang’an zhan is held at the Bei ing
in China between 2004 and 2005 and in ludes City lanning E hibition Hall.
three types: feature lm, e perimental The Zhengzhou International City of
shorts, and do umentaries. Sculpture & Cultural Year: First International
The opening eremony and press Sculpture Exhibition ( Zhongguo Zhengzhou
onferen e for the Artist ension Trust A T guoji chengshi diaosu yishu nian — shoujie
are held at the Long Mar h Spa e in Bei ing. guoji diaosu jingpin zhan ) opens at the
A T Bei ing is reated by Mutual Art, a rm heng hou International Con ention and
dealing in new monetary ser i es in the art E hibition Centre, in Henan.
domain, whose head uarters are in New York. The 2008 lympic Landscape Sculpture
The interdis iplinary symposium International Exhibition ( Aoyun jingguan
Modernity and the Transformation of diaosu fang’an zhengji dasai ) starts to tour
Twentieth-Century Chinese Art and the the ountry.
e hibition The Road of Chinese Modern Art: A Symposium on erforman e Art
An Exhibition of Historical Literature ingwei yishu yantaohui is held in Bei ing,
(Xiandaixing yu 20 shiji Zhongguo meishu hosted by hu ingsheng.
zhuanxing qua xueke xueshu yantaohui ji July: Code: Blue — Confluence of Currents
Zhongguo xiandai meishu zhi lu wenxianzhan) (Daima: lanse — chaoliu huiji , the Third Beijing
take pla e at City ni ersity of Hong ong, International New Media Art Exhibition, and
urated by an ongkai. its a ompanying symposium take pla e at the
Adopting the theme Beijing Background Millennium Art Museum and Bei ing Cubi Art
( Beijing Beijing , the 200 Dashanzi Center, urated by hang a and Timothy
International Art estival takes place in the ru krey.
ashan i Art istri t, urated by Huang ui The e hibition One Time Consumption —
and Li ing. CAT in Renovation ( Yicixing xiaofei —
Stay Put ( Liushou , the opening e hibition zhuangxiu OCAT , urated by Huang Liaoyuan,
of the Suo ia illage International Art Camp, is held at CAT, one of the sites for the
Bei ing, is held. 200 China Shen hen erseas Chinese
May: The Symposium on Humanisti Town Tourism Carni al and the rst Chinese
lympi s and ubli Art enwen aoyun yu Contemporary Art esti al 2006 Zhongguo
gonggong yishu iaoliu uotanhui , ospon- ( Shenzhen Huaqiaocheng l you kuanghuanjie
sored by the National City S ulpture ji shoujie Zhongguo dangdai yishujie ).
Constru tion Ad isory Committee and Bei ing August: From Polar Region to Tiexi
City S ulpture Constru tion and Management District —Contemporary Art in Northeastern
f e, pro ides a platform to e hange iews China 1985 – 2006 ( Cong jidi dao tiexiqu —
on the meaning of publi art, to ondu t dongbei dangdai yishu zhan 1985 – 2006 )
omparati e studies between publi art and is held at the uangdong Museum of Art,
ity s ulpture, and to dis uss the e e ution of the rst in the e hibition series Phenomena
publi art and ity s ulpture for the promotion of Art Since 1985 ( ’85 yilai xianxiang yu
of i i irtue and humanist alues. E perts zhuangtai xilie dazhyan organi ed by the
on publi art from other ountries introdu e museum.
their managerial systems and e perien es The irst Asian Art Museum ire tors
with publi art in de eloped nations. orum: ASEAN 3 is held at the National
Revival: New Ink Art Shanghai 2006 Art Museum of China.
( Shuimo zaisheng: 2006 nian Shanghai xin September: The Twelve: Chinese
shuimo yishu dazhan is held at the hu Contemporary Art Awards Exhibition (Shier:
i han Art Museum and uolun Museum CCAA dangdai yishu jiang is held at the endai
of Modern Art, both in Shanghai, urated Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai, urated
by u hen ing. by i Li it is the rst CCAA award e hibition.
The reation, e hibition, and symposium The Si th Shanghai Biennale, Hyper Design
events of the Long March Project — Yan’an ( Chao sheji , is held. The urators in lude
hang ing, Huang u, Lin Shumin, Wonil Arts. The three topi s under dis ussion
436
hee, onathan Watkins, and ianfran o are riti ism and e hibition, riti ism and
Maraniello. media, and art riti ism.
|
The Si th wang u Biennale opens, November: ITAL 06: International

with the theme ever ariations. Wu Hung Chinese Live Art estival is held at the Chinese
is the hief urator of the irst Chapter. Arts Centre in Man hester, , sponsored
arti ipating Chinese artists in lude Hong by the Li e Art e elopment Agen y.
Hao, iu hi ie, Song ong, u Bing, hang arti ipating artists in lude He Chengyao,
ali, hang Huan, and others. He Yun hang, ai uangyu, and others from
Entry Gate: Chinese Aesthetics of China and the diaspora.
Heterogeneity ( Rujing: Zhongguo meixue ) Coming from Daily Life: First Documentary
is held at the Museum of Contemporary Art Exhibition of Academic Experimental Art
in Shanghai, the rst in a series of biannual (Yuanyu shenghuo: shoujie xueyuan shiyan yishu
En isage e hibitions at the museum. wenxianzhan) is held at the Central A ademy
Curators in lude Ye Yong ing, li Sigg, of ine Arts hu Lou art spa e, urated by
Sunhee im, and i toria Lu. Wu ian an. This is the rst large-s ale
A Yellow Box in ingpu: Art and a ademi e hibition with the theme of
Architecture in a Chinese Space ( Huang hezi, e perimental art at CA A s S hool of ine Arts.
ingpu, Zhongguo kongjian li de dangdai yishu December: 2006 Annual Lianzhou
zhan is held at iao imen, ingpu istri t, International Photo estival ( 2006 Lianzhou
Shanghai, urated by ao Shiming, Chang guoji sheying nianzhan ) takes place at the
Tsong- ung, and Hu iang heng. Cultural la a in Lian hou, urated by uan
The 10th eni e Ar hite ture Biennale Yuting. The a ademi theme is Origin:
takes pla e, and for the rst time China Between the bserver and the bserved
parti ipates in its national pa ilion, at whi h ( Yuandian, guancha yu beiguancha ).
an i an is urator. The Fifth International Ink Painting
Size Decides Attitude: irst 5x7 Pingyao Biennial of Shen hen, Design and Ink Painting
Picture-Taking Biennale Project ( Huafu jueding ( Sheji shuimo , is held at uan Shanyue
taidu: shoujie 5x7 Pingyao zhaoxiang Art Museum, Shen hen, urated by ong
shuangnian zhan) is held in ingyao, Shan i, iaoming and Wang u.
urated by Wu Hong. Documenta Mobil, a retrospe ti e
The se ond Architectural Biennial Beijing e hibition in elebration of the 50th
takes pla e at the National Museum of China, anni ersary of o umenta in assel, ermany,
Bei ing lanning E hibition Hall, and China tra els to the Chong ing Art Museum and
Millennium Monument. the gallery at Si huan ine Arts Institute.
Shu: Reinventing Books in Contemporary Aftershock: Contemporary British Art
Chinese Art, organi ed by the China Institute 1990 – 2006 takes pla e at the uangdong
in New York, urated by Wu Hung, opens. Museum of Art and the Capital Museum in
It tra els to the Seattle Art Museum and the Bei ing, urated by i Li, Colin Chinnery,
Honolulu A ademy of Arts. uo iaoyan, and Li ie Carey, and organi ed
October: The Blossoming of Realism — by the British Coun il and the two museums.
The il Painting in Mainland China Since 1978 2006 China Contemporary Art Document
( Zhankai de xianshizhuyi — 1978 nian yilai de Exhibition ( 2006 Zhongguo dangdai yishu
Zhongguo dalu youhua is held at the Taipei wenxianzhan is held at the Millennium Art
ine Arts Museum, urated by an i an. Museum. ia ang hou is the hief urator.
The Second Songzhuang Culture and Art 2006 Chinese Art Today ( 2006 jinri
estival ( Di er jie Zhongguo Songzhuang Zhongguo meishu dazhan is held at the
wenhua yishujie ) opens at the Xiaopu National Art Museum of China, urated by
Commer ial la a in Song huang, Bei ing, uo iao huan.
urated by Yang Wei. Its a ademi theme
is opening Song huang.
The Sixth Plenary Session of the 16th
Central Committee of the CCP is held,
passing the Resolution of the CCP Central
Committee on Major Issues Regarding the
Building of a Harmonious Socialist Society.
i an: Symposium on Models for
Contemporary Art Criti ism i an: angdai
meishu piping moshi tantaohui is held
at the gallery at the i an A ademy of ine
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Note: age numbers in italics refer to as theme in, 195 9 folk, 1 4, 201, 203
INDEX
illustrations. freelan e independent artists, 288
funding of, 333 audy, 199 204, 343
’98 Asia-Pacific Contemporary Art Invitational genuine s. prostitution, 87 history
Exhibition, 425 of, 100, 102, 403 , 412 human body used
2000 China: Internet, ideo and Photo Art in, 185, 270 8 , 345 47, 3 1 independent
Exhibition, 427 urators, 288 international, 152, 154,
2000 Shanghai Biennale Shanghai Spirit , 289, 349, 35 intrinsi and e trinsi
32 27, 330, 347 55, 348, 39 , 404, 428 perspe ti es on, 152 Land Earth, 182
as China s rst legitimate modern art Maoist theory on, 1 4 market for,
e hibition, 351 52 and transitions, 398 401 of the mind, 37 Ministry of
347 50 Culture Noti e, 27 77 moral irtue
of, 90 ob e ti e reality as sour e of, 3
abstra t e pressionism, 1 8 performan e, 11 , 117, 119 20, 121 23,
Aburdene, atri ia, 19 121, 154, 178, 179 84, 224, 274 7 , 342
A ademi Symposium on Issues egarding politi i ation of, 5, 102, 152 as pro ess,
Tradition in Chinese ainting, 414 105 11, 181, 340 propaganda, 5, 8
aestheti s, 1 , 17 18, 53 purifying language of, 101 3 readymades,
Against Capitalist Liberali ation ampaign, 1 8, 372, 377 realism, 410, 43 rethinking,
113 101 sear h for new forms, 11 taboo
Ai Weiwei 艾未未, 211, 401, 404, 425, 42 , 428, materials in, 270 71 tea hing of, 17
430, 433 ialogue with huang Hui, traditional, 101 unof ial groups and
2 9 Fur, 2 7 Han-Dynasty Urn with e hibitions, 7 untitled, 17
Coca-Cola Logo, Pl. 40 Art ( Meishu ) 美术, 14, 4 47, 9, 84, 117, 310,
Ai Weiwei and eng Boyi, on uck ff 312, 408 12, 414, 417, 419, 421
e hibition, 354 55 Art Market 艺术市场, 289, 292, 292, 300, 30 ,
Albright- no Art allery, 433 311 12
Ale ander the reat, 352 Art as Food, 334
Alors, la Chine? e hibition, 431 Art Asia Pacific, 1
An e pseud. , 安哥, 431, 433 art riti ism, 324 2 feminist, 185, 193 98
Analysis roup 解析, 99, 154, 405 Measuring Art Gallery 画廊, 312, 313 14, 413
Dots, 106 as New Measurement roup Art Garden 美苑, 315
新刻度小组, 422 Art History and Theory 美术史论, 49
Andrea, ohn de, 375 Art in America, 293
Andrews, ulia ., 358, 420 Art Life 艺术界, 314
Anhui ro in ial il ainting esear h art maga ines, 4 48, 310 15
Asso iation, 5 Art Panorama 艺术广角, 312
animals, slaughter of, 270, 274 7 , 278, Art Trends 艺术潮流, 310
345 47, 3 1 Artists 艺术家, 293, 314
Annual Art Critics Nomination Exhibition, 420, Artists Newsletter 美术家通讯, 315
421, 422 artists illages, 288, 400, 418, 419, 420, 422
Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Sculpture, 434
322 ARTnews, 1 7, 293
Anti-Spiritual ollution ampaign, 35, 72, 411 Arts Circle 美术界, 314
antirationalism, 58 Asia Art Ar hi e AAA , 404, 431
April ifth In ident 197 , 5 , 220 21, 408, Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, 420,
409 423, 427
April hotography So iety 四月影会, , Asia So iety, 425, 432
220 21 a ant-garde, 45, 48, 51, 8 , 174, 190
Ar hite tural Biennial Bei ing, 432, 43 China Avant-Garde e hibition, 113 2 and
Armory Show, New York 1913 , 127 modern art, 184 Neo-A ant- arde, 110
art: abstra t, 102, 117 a ademi , 5, 19, 7, and New Wa e, 127, 128, 129, 288 system
9 72, 154 animals used in, 270, 274 7 , to ir le, 307 10 underground, 320
278, 345 47, 3 1 for art s sake, 5, 78, 181 Avant-Garde Chinese Art: Beijing New York,
autonomy of, 118 Cartoon, 319, 343, 347 e hibition, 414
olle ti e a ti ities, 99 Con eptual, 37, Avant-Garde Today 今日先锋, 315, 421, 428
5, 129, 343 44 ontemporary Chinese,
, 5, 152, 184, 288 91, 307 10, 403 Bao ianfei 包剑斐: New Spa e series, 84, 85,
and reati ity, 99, 102 3, 111, 129 death 413 and ond So iety, 88, 414 esponses
e perien ed through, 279 8 owers to the E hibition 85 New Space, 84, 85
Bas uiat, ean-Mi hel, 175 Cao Xuelei 曹学雷, Rejecting Perspective, 84,
440
beha iorism, 0 1 85
Bei ing airport mural, 2, Castelli, Leo, 293
|
Bei ing lympi s, 402 Central A ademy of Arts and Crafts, Bei ing,
Bei ing Spring period 北京之春, 4 408, 413
Bei ing Tokyo Art ro e ts, 430, 431, 434 Central A ademy of ine Arts, Bei ing, 154,
Beijing Youth Daily 北京青年报, 418, 430 15 , 408, 409, 410, 412, 413, 414, 417, 418,
Beuys, oseph, 170, 250 422, 424, 425, 428, 429, 43 High S hool,
Biennale d Art Contemporain de Lyon, 424, 428 422, 424
Biennale internationale d art ontemporain Centre eorges ompidou, 417, 431
hinois, 433 C anne, aul, 1
Biennale of Sydney, 428 Chagall, Mar , White Crucifixion, 374
Bienal de S o aulo, 421 Chai iaogang, 95n3
Big-Tailed Elephant group 大尾象, 22 , 235, Chan, a id, 3 0, 425
345, 418 Chang Tsong- ung, 34 , 347, 359, 3 0, 42 ,
Brandt, Ale ander, 337 38, 42 43 and China’s New Art, Post-1989
Brouwer, Marianne, 358 e hibition, 359, 420 Fast Shots: China,
Bull, Hank, 3 0, 425 Hong ong and Taiwan ideo Art, 237
Bunin, I an Aleksee it h, 57 58 Chardin, ean-Baptiste, 27
Chen an ing 陈丹青, 412 and Bei ing
Cage, ohn, 105, 3 5 airport mural, 2, Entering the City, 2
Cai uo- iang 蔡国强: 412, 418, 419, 422, 423, Men of Gangba, 2 Mother and Son, 25,
425, 42 , 427, 428, 430, 433 The Earth Has 27 28 Pl. 6 My Se en aintings, 25 29
Its Black Hole, Too, 2 1 2 The Oxford Pilgrimage, 27 29 Shepherd, 25 Tibetan
Comet, 2 5 The Unrealized Century at the series, 19, 40, , 410 Pl. 6
Turn of the Millennium, 2 0 1 Air Chen Haiyan 陈海燕, 425 Herd of Sheep, 40
Pyramid pro e t, 2 2 Bringing to enice On the Horizon, 40
What Marco Polo Forgot, 2 3, 353 Pl. 45 Chen iagang 陈家刚, 333
Cultural Melting Bath, 2 , 358, 424 Earth Chen Lingyang 陈羚羊, 272, 273, 345
S TI Base Project, 2 1 etus Movement II, Chen L shou 陈绿寿, 175
2 3, 264 Floating, 2 5 Flying Dragon in the Chen L sheng 陈履生, e e tions on
Heavens, 358, 424 gunpowder drawings, erforman e Art, 274 27
398 Horizon Project, 2 5 Making a Ladder Chen i i, 115
to the Earth, 2 5 belisk of Tolerance, 2 2, Chen Shaoping 陈少平, 237, 423 egarding
2 3 as o erseas artist, 248, 354, 35 , 3 5, Analysis , 10
401 2 Parting of the Seas, 2 5 Peaceful Chen Shao iong 陈劭雄, 179, 198, 22 , 235,
Clouds, 2 2 3 Placid Earth, 2 2, 2 414, 415, 418, 423 The Bride Changes Her
ro e t for E traterrestrials series, 249, 264 Mind When the Television Channel Is
Project to xtend the Great Wall by 10,000 Changed, 235 Street — Haizhu Square, 218
Meters, 2 2, 2 3 Rebuilding the Berlin Why o I hotograph the Streets of
Wall, 2 2 Shifting Continents, 2 5 Sinking uang hou , 217 19
and Rising, 2 2 Time Space Reversion Chen Shu ia 陈淑霞, 155, 15 , 195
Project, 2 2 Trap, 2 True Collection, 2 3 Chen Wenbo 陈文波, 175, 273, 34
Venice’s Rent Collection Courtyard, 35 , Chen Xi 陈曦, 19
3 9, 369, 371 72, 374, 377 78, 402 42 , Chen iao in 陈孝信, 430 Sele tion
428 Wild lights of an y, 2 1 ro ess, 299 302
Cai in 蔡锦, 42 Banana series, 19 Pl. 26 Chen iaoyi, 299, 412
Cai ing 蔡青, 343, 344, 345, 424 Plow and Chen Yanyin 陈妍音, 423, 425
Sow, 340 Chen Yiming 程宜明, Liu Yulian, Li Bin:
alligraphy, 185, 188, 254 57 Maple, 19 21, 47, 409 Pl. 3 Scar, 20, 408
Camus, Albert, 51, 158 Chen Zhen 陈箴, 248, 249 50, 251, 358, 3 5,
Cang Xin 苍鑫, 224, 428 412, 418, 424, 425, 427, 429, 432 Jue Chang,
Cao Biao, 119 ifty Strokes to ach, 353 Pl. 38 solo
Cao Fei 曹斐 China Tra y, RMB City: A e hibition, renoble, 419
Second Life City Planning, 397 Pl. 47 Chen ui, 42 43
Cao Li 曹力, 58 Cheng Conglin 程丛林: A Summer Night in
Cao Liwei 曹力伟, White Ox, 40 1979, 32 Snow on X Day X Month, 1968,
Cao iaodong 曹晓冬, 95n3 22 23, 410 Pl. 4
Cao Xiao’ou 曹小鸥, on China Avant-Garde, Cheng Yanan 程亚楠, 59
121 2 Cheng Yan iu, 1
441
Chengdu Biennial, 429, 433 Cui ian, 158, 1 0
Chengdu Contemporary Art Museum, 332, Cultural e olution: art politi i ed in, 5, 157,
|
427 170, 25 beginning of, 5, 118 bourgeois
INDEX
Chia, Sandro, 128 intelle tuals in, 18 oming of age in, 11, 12,
China Art and Ar hi es Warehouse, 42 32 33 end of, 5, 159, 198, 219 modern
China: 5,000 Years e hibition, 2 3 trends afterward, 77 78 most famous oil
China: Internet, Video, and Photo Art, 331 painting of, 422 post- re olutionary art,
China Avant-Garde e hibition, 113 2 , 3 3, 158 1, 1 2 re y led images from, 154,
417 ba kground material on, 114 15 brief 17 77, 185, 39 and S ar Art, 19, 22, 23,
a ount of, 121 2 urator onfessions, 408 as Ten-Year Calamity, 29 Western art
11 20 and end of New Wa e, 157 58 forbidden in, 35
gun re, 119 20, 121, 122, 12 idea for, 49, Current of Life mo ement 生活流, 53, 55, 2,
113, 127 No -Turn sign, 119, 121 118
ob e ti e of, 115, 117 opening day, 114, 119, Cyni al ealism 玩世现实主义, 154, 157, 158,
417 Pl. 16 and op art, 172 73 and role of 1 1 2, 1 4, 1 7, 198, 311, 321, 343, 3 3,
riti s, 301, 312 prepatory ommittee for, 3 4, 3 8
41 so ial impa t of, 113, 180, 31 , 39
suspension of, 120, 121 22, 12 , 173, 417 ada 达达, 49, 51, 89, 132, 1 8
symposium on, 4 , 48, 124 25 al Lago, ran es a, 3 1, 420
China National A ademy of ine Arts al , Sal ador, 39, 59, 127 Premonition of Civil
formerly he iang A ademy , 232, 423, War, 374
424, 238, 431 Damaged by Affluence e hibition, 200
China’s New Art: Post-1989, 1 7, 318, 320, 347, ao i 岛子, 424 and New History roup,
35 , 359, 3 0, 360 180 eprodu tion of Rent Collection
Chinese Artists Asso iation, 4 , 9, 75, Courtyard and ostmodernism, 371 7
85 8 , 348 49, 409, 410, 412, 413, 415, ashan i Art istri t, Be ing, 430, 431, 432,
41 , 417, 418, 421, 431 435
Chinese Contemporary Art Award CCAA , a id and Alfred Smart Museum of Art,
425, 435 ni ersity of Chi ago, 42 , 429, 432
Chinese Dream, A e hibition , 331 de onstru tionism, 1 8, 1 9, 170, 173, 185,
Chinese Experience e hibition, 190 340
Chinese identity, sear h for, 11 ela roi , Eug ne, Massacre at Chios, 1
Chinese Modern Art Ar hi es, 433 elusion, 271 73
Christie s Hong ong, 398 99, 419 demo ra y mo ement, , 7, 10
Christo, 183 demo rati entrism, 409
Classic of Mountain and Seas, 353 eng u ing, 210
Clemente, ran es o, 128 eng Hong 邓鸿, 332
Close p artists 近距离, 154, 155 57 eng ing iang 邓平祥, 124, 408, 409, 410,
Cocart International Art Invitational, 1 7 411, 412, 417, 422, 423 Man s ational
Cohen, oan Lebold, 357 Meditation, 22 23
Col ille, Ale , 33, 412 eng iaoping, 5, 221, 289, 319, 408, 409, 410,
Communist arty CC , 5 , 35, 99, 113, 411, 419, 423
408, 409, 410, 411, 415, 417, 419, 421, 423, errida, a ues, 171
429, 430, 43 i Nai huang 邸乃壮, Walk Red, 183 84
Compilation of Translations in Art 美术译丛, ing ang 丁方, 118, 413, 418 City, Pl. 12 ed
48, 312, 408 Brigade re ept, 94 95
Comte, Auguste, 59 ing in 丁品, 58
on eptual inno ation, 49 ing Yi 丁乙, 415, 420, 425
on eptual-realism, 15 o umenta, 419, 424, 43
contemplative painting 思索画, 29 33 ong i hang, 203
Contemporary Art 当代艺术, 310, 311, 319 ong iuyu, 124
Contemporary Chinese Art, 1985 – 1986, 114 reissen, Chris, 3 0
Contemporary Oil Paintings from the People’s u hamp, Mar el, 99, 105, 110 11 Fountain,
Republic of China, e hibition 415 41 117, 372, 377 L.H.O.O.Q., 377
Counter-Perspective e hibition, 345, 42 un hen 敦桢, Yearning, 41
Countryside Project 1993 performan e , 179,
180, 181, 420 Edwards, olke, 359
Courbet, usta e, 27, 100, 375 85 Art Mo ement 85美术运动, 51 3, 413,
Critics’ Nomination Exhibition, 193 415, 418 age of parti ipants, 55 and art
Cu hi, En o, 128, 250 maga ines, 47, 48 beha iorism, 0 1
auses of, 54 ’85 New Space e hibition, Fine Arts Research 美术研究, 314 15, 409, 417.
442
54 55, 83 87, 413 e aluations of, 3 425

intuitionism, 57 59 origins, 52 54 reworks, 402
|
parti ipants of, 78 79 phenomena, 54, irst 1990s Biennial Art air, 193, 298 307,
114 promotion of a rational spirit, 54 57 318 and Art Market, 289, 300, 311 12
rethinking, 100 101 see also New Wa e atalogue prefa e, 298 99 do uments
Einstein, Albert, 102 produ ed for, 300 301 e onomi system
Ele enth arty Congress, 5, of, 289 90, 298, 331 and performan e art,
Eliot, T. S., 51 178, 180 and op art, 1 7, 174, 175, 300
Elliott, a id, 2 5, 358 re e tions and uestions raised, 303 7
Eri kson, Britta, 419 The e eption in the sele tion pro ess, 299 302
West of E perimental Mainland Chinese Flash Art, 1 7, 35
Art of the 1990s, 357 2 lu us, 188
e perimental art e hibitions, 32 3 , 415, formal beauty, debate, 14 18
421, 424, 42 , 429 biennials and triennials, Founding of the Nation, The, 21, 1 4
39 98, 400, 404 in ommer ial galleries, our lds, 5
399 400 reating ersatile spa es for, reud, Sigmund, 51, 54, 59, 108, 158, 3 , 411
334 3 funding for, 344 45 in publi Fu Zhongwang 傅中望, 180, 434
galleries, 328 31 in semipubli and pri ate uck ff e hibition, 354 55, 355, 428
galleries, 331 34, 398 irtual Internet , u ian Art Museum, 9
335 3 , 353 in the West, 357 2
Experimental Painting Exhibition: The Stage an Yang 甘阳, 115
1983, 35, 411 ang of our, n1, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22,
89, 219, 408
actory No. 2 e hibition, 332 ao Brothers 高氏兄弟 ( 高兟, 高强 :
an i an 范迪安, 115, 12 , 397, 425, 429, 430, Inflatable Installation or Midnight Mass,
431, 432, 433, 43 121, 122 Prophecy, 330
an ing hong 范景中, 4 ao Ling 高岭, 115 428 Contemporary
an Weimin, 119 Art Salon, 421 Sur ey of
ang Li un 方力钧, 158, 159, 1 1, 185, 317, 418, Contemporary Chinese erforman e Art,
419, 420, 421, 422 Series 2, No. 2, 15 , 1 0, 179 84
192 Pl. 20 ao Minglu 高名潞, 45, 4 , 47, 49, 412, 415,
Fang Shaohua 方少华, 175 Wind from Eight 417, 420, 431, 432, 433 and China Avant
Sides, 178 Garde e hibition and symposium, 115, 11 ,
au ism, 89 117, 124, 41 ed. An Anthology of Historical
ei awei 费大为, 44, 4 , 115, 358, 377, 40 , Sources, 404 5 ed. A History of
412, 417, 418, 419, 42 , 428, 432, 433 Contemporary Chinese Art, 403 5, 40
Challenging Modernism, 10 11 oes and Fragmented Memory e hibition, 358
a Culture in E ile Ne essarily Wither , and Global Conceptualism e hibition, 42
252 54 ed. Archives of the 85 New Wave, and Inside Out e hibition, 3 0 1, 425
405 The 85 Art Mo ement, 52 3, 4, 404,
feminist and women s art, 185, 193 98, 31 , 414, 415
341, 359, 422, 424 25, 429, 431 ao Shiming 高世名, 272, 273, 343, 423, 432,
Feng Bin 冯斌, 430, 433 43
eng Boyi 冯博一, 320, 354 55, 404, 424, 428, ao Shi iang 高世强, 272, 423
430, 431, 432, 433 on Trace of Existence, ao Tianmin, 322
338 42, 343 Garage Art Exhibition, 1 5, 233
eng i ai, 115, 121 Gate of the New Century e hibition, 332, 427
Feng Mengbo 冯梦波, 175, 178, 237, 420, 422, Gaudy Life e hibition, 200
424 e Weimo, 115
eng ianyu 冯倩钰, 273 e Yan, 43
eng iaoying 冯晓颖, 272, 345 eng ianyi 耿建翌, 8 , 88, 99, 123, 1 5, 329,
eng Yidai, 121 405, 412, 413, 414, 418, 420, 425 Group
Feng Zhengjie 俸正杰, 175, 201 2 Happiness, Portrait, 1 4 Haircut No. 3: Another Shaved
201 Romantic Trip, 201, 202 Head of Summer 1985, 84, 84 Haircut No.
illiou, obert, 3 5 4, 55 Hair ut series, 85 Integrated World,
Fine Arts in China 中国美术报, 35, 42, 45, 47, 237 Marriage Law, 183
49, 79, 84, 88, 100, 114, 118, 127, 310, 412, 415, erman Embassy, Bei ing, 425, 427
41 , 417, 420 lu kman, i hard, 399
Fine Arts Literature, 314, 421, 432 ombri h, Ernst, 171
ong iawei 龚嘉伟, 175, 178 Happy Moment,
443
He Yong, 1 0
17 Invitation Song, 17 Hegel, eorg Wilhelm riedri h, 93
ou Hongbing, A ialogue on Dialogue, Heidegger, Martin, 55, 83
|
INDEX
212 13 Heller, oseph, 187
reat Leap orward, 228 Henri, Adrian, Total Art, 37
Great Wall Performance Art, 181 82 Higashiyama, ai, 1
u, Wenda 谷文达, 54 55, 251, 412, 413, 41 , Hirst, amien, 34 , 347, 399
418, 419, 20, 425, 42 , 427, 428 434 and Home? e hibition, 334, 427
Archives, 405 Dangerous Chessboard Leaves Hong Hao 洪浩, 43 Selected Scriptures, Page
the Ground, 358 Forest of Stone Steles — A 331, The Strategic Defense rder, 35 Pl. 46
Retranslation and Rewriting of Tang Poetry, Hong ong Arts Centre, 41 , 420, 423
99, 402 3 Pl. 49 inter iew with, 10 11 Hong ong City Hall, 414, 420, 431
Wenda Gu’s New Ink Painting, 414 nited Hong Lei 洪磊, After Liang ai’s Song-
Nations series, 248, 257 0, 258, 403 and Dynasty Masterpiece Shakyamuni Coming
Western art, 35 , 3 5 Wisdom Comes from out of the Mountains”, 224 Pl. 34
Tranquility, 10 Pl. 15 Hong Lumei, 23
u Chengfeng 顾丞峰, 299 Tenden ies in Hong ai in, 84
Chinese op, 171 79 Horse Trampling a Hun Warrior ( stone
u e in 顾德新, 340, 357, 405, 417, 420, 422, s ulpture , 1
425 ctober 31, 224 Pl. 35 Hou engke 侯登科, 223
u ai hi, 17 Hou Hanru 侯翰如, 4 , 115, 358, 3 1, 412, 42 ,
u Meng hao, 127, 415 428, 431, 434 Entropy, Chinese Artists,
u Shangfei, 43 Western Art Institutions, 249 52, 3 3 5
u heng, 223, 433 Hou Wenyi 侯文怡, 90
uan Ce 管策, 95n3 Hsieh, Teh hing, 275
uan Shanyue Art Museum, Shen hen, 42 , Hu intao, 430
432, 43 Hu Wei 胡伟, Li Daozhao, Qu Qiubai, Xiao
uan Wei 关伟, 418, 427 Hong, 39
uang un 广军, 59 Hu iangdong, Dream Plants, 201
uangdong Museum of Art, 24 , 430, 431, Hu Yaobang, 410, 417
432, 434, 435, 43 Hua uofeng, 408
uang hou Triennial, irst 2002 , Hua Tian ue, 428, 430
Reinterpretation: A Decade of Experimental Huang Binhong, 17 18, 53
Chinese Art, 397, 404, 405, 430 Huang u 黄笃, 43 , 422 My iew of Art
uo Shirui 郭世锐, 328 and Criti ism, 325 2
uo iaoyan 郭晓彦, 434, 43 Huang ui 黄锐, 7 8, 11, 432, 435 Last Will
and Testament, 13 New Life, 13 Space, 13
Hagens, unther on, Body Worlds, 274, 27 Huang iaorong 黄效融, 430, 433
Hai Bo 海波, 427 They No. 6, 231 32, 231 Huang Yan 黄岩, 182, 198, 427, 428, 430
Half Generation Painting Exhibition, 54, 59, 0431 — China’s ideo Art, 237 Changchun,
413 China, 58, 205 , 205 Collection
Hälfte des Himmels, ie, e hibition, 425 Series — Demolished Buildings, 183
Hamilton, i hard, 177 Huang Yong ing 黄永砯, 51, 99, 123, 250 52,
Han ynasty, 102, 173, 179 353, 411, 412. 417, 418, 419. 420, 422, 425,
Han Lei 韩磊, 223 42 , 432, 433 and Archives, 405 Bat
Hanart T allery, 35 , 3 0, 417, 420 Project, 249 The History of Chinese Painting
Hang ian 杭间, 427, on China Avant-Garde, and A Concise History of Modern Western
121 2 Painting Washed in the Washing Machine
Hanson, uane, 375 for Two Minutes, 99 House of Oracles
Haring, eith, 175 retrospe ti e, 402 An Indigestible Object,
Haus der ulturen der Welt, 420, 433 251 Magiciens de la terre, 417
He Changlin, 300 Introdu tion to The vents xhibition, 9
He uoling 何多苓, 19 Ancient Wall, 30, 31, Non-E pressi e aintings, 103 5 as
32 Spring Breeze is Awake, 31, 31, 32 o erseas artist, 248, 35 , 357, 358, 3 5, 401
He ong 何工, The Story of Flower-Planters, Roulette Wheel, 103 Statement on
39 40 Burning, 95 9 Theater of the World
He ong 何溶, 4 Bridge, 250 Pl. 39
He iangning Art Museum, 424, 42 , 429, Huang hou 黄胄, 331, 412
433 CT Contemporary Art Terminal of, Huang huan 黄专, 4 , 154, 299, 320, 322,
see CAT 40 , 412, 423, 42 , 427, 429, 431, 433, 434
n Cultural Idealism, 318 The Misread oons, eff, 399
444
Great Criticism, 1 7 71 Who Is oing to ppel-Yang, Martina, 432 Nationwide

Sponsor the History , 291 98 orum and Model, 45 50
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Huangshan Symposium, 49 ounellis, annis, 250

humanism, 19, 49, 51, 123, 1 4, 1 9 ur , tto, and Ernst ris, Legend, Myth, and
Huo ubin, 1 Magic in the Image of the Artist, 293
wang u wang u Biennale, 422, 42 , 43
“I Don’t Want to Play Cards with Cézanne”
e hibition, 418 Lang Shao un 郎绍君, 4 , 115, 124, 417, 420,
Idealism, 154, 159 427, 429 ebuilding Elite Art:
Impressionists, 27, 129 e onsidering Changes in the Stru ture of
Infatuated with Injury e hibition, 277 78, 427 Twentieth-Century Chinese Art, 124
Inside Out: New Chinese Art, e hibition, Lan hou Art Legion, 179, 420
3 0 1, 425 atalogue, 361, 425 Lei eng, 342
International Center of hotography, 432 Lei Shuang 雷双, 19
International Ink Painting Biennial of Leishi ainting So iety, 411, 415
Shen hen, 422, 42 , 432 Leng Lin 冷林, 331, 334 35, 423, 424 It s
International Year of Youth, 54, 5 Me , 192, 42
International Young Artists Exhibition, 5 Leonardo da in i, Mona Lisa, 27
Internet, irtual e hibitions on, 335 3 , 353 Li Bangyao 李邦耀, 175 Product Trust, 177
intuitionism, 57 59, 5 , 81, 102 3 Li Bin 李斌, 19 21, 47, 409
Invitational xhibition on New Works of Li Chen 李辰, 155
Chinese Painting, 108, 413 Li i 李迪, Doves, 39
Invitational xhibition of Sculptures by Young Li ongming, 322
Artists, 322 Li Hong 李虹, 195
It’s Me! e hibition, 192, 34 47, 42 Li Honggang, 20
Li ianli, 328
ia ang hou 贾方舟, 417, 422, 42 , 428, 43 Li iatun pseud. , The Signi an e Is not the
eturning to Art Itself, 100 101 Art, 2 3
ia uanli 贾鹃丽, 195 Li in 李津, Impressions of Tibet, 57
ian Shi, 4 Li u huan 李巨川, Living with ika, 233
iang eng, 409, 410 Li eran, 107
iang ing, 5, 410 Li Luming 李路明, Chinese Hand Gestures, 203
iang Tao, eport on hang ali s Dialogue, Li Mei and Yang iaoyan, Trends and Stages
209 12 in hotography s e elopment, 219 23
iang ueying 姜雪鹰, 155 Li Shan 李山, 5 , 415, 419, 420, 421 ouge
iang emin, 419 series, 17
iang hi 蒋志, 272, 273, 343 Li Song, 124
Jiangnan: Modern and Contemporary Chinese Li Tianyuan 李天元, 155, 15
Art Exhibitions and International Li Tuo, 124, 127
Symposium, 425 Li Weimin 李为民, House series, 121
Jiangsu Pictorial 江苏画刊, 35, 4 , 48, 114, 117, Li ianting 栗宪庭, 4 , 115, 1 7, 252, 317, 318,
30 , 310, 312 13, 314, 412, 420, 422 347, 410, 411, 420, 422, 42 , 428, 429
iangsu Youth Art Week, 54, 55, 95n3, 413 About the Stars Art Exhibition, 11 13,
in Shangyi 靳尚谊, 115 410 Apathy and e onstru tion in ost-
inyuan Road no. 310 xhibition, 337 89 Art, 154, 157 and China Avant-
iro, Takamatsu, Blue Dream, 41 Garde e hibition, 11 20 and China’s New
ung, Carl, 51 Art, Post-1989 e hibition, 359, 420 and
Fine Arts in China, 50n22, 41 The
ang Mu 康木, performan e art, 117 Signi an e is Not in the Art, 2, 5, 417
ant, Immanuel, 55, 93 and The Trend of Art Thought, 412 and
aret ky, atri ia Ei henbaum, 3 0 eni e Biennale, 3
iefer, Anselm, 250 Li iaoliang, 300
ieslowski, r ys tof, Toward the Austere Li iaoshan 李小山, 430 My pinion on
Theater, 87 Contemporary Chinese ainting, 4 , 47,
its h, 199 204 48, 412 History of Chinese Modern Painting,
ollwit , the, 11, 12 415
ong Chang an 孔长安, 115, 420 Li Yan 李燕, 195
ong Yong ian 孔永谦, ulture T-shirt, Li Yongbin 李永斌, 423, 424, 427 ace No. 1,
158, 1 2 234, 237
Li ehou 李泽厚, 115 Liu Yi 刘意, Who Am I?, 235
445
Li hengtian, 124, 125 Liu Yulian 刘宇廉, 19 21, 47
Liang iang, 44 Liu heng 刘峥, Copying a Calendar, 203
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INDEX
Liang iu ing, The Far Away Sail, 41 Fashion Girl, 203 Love of Lushan, 203
Liang uhui 梁钜辉, 414, 418 One Hour Game, Liu heng 刘铮, 423, 433
208, 208 Liu henggang, 101
Liang Shao i 梁绍基, 425, 428 Liu henyun, 158
Liang i hao, 101 Lonely Old Man, 32
Liang iao huan 梁小川, erami artillery Long March Project, 435
shell pro e t, 181 L pe , Sebasti n, 427, 432
Liao Wen 廖雯, 42 , 427 Criti al Irony of Lu anfeng, 20
audy Art, 199 204 Lu Hao 卢昊, 42 , 428 lower Bird Insect
Li htenstein, oy, 175, 293 Fish, 202 Pl. 30
Lin Biao, 20, 21, 410 Lu Hong 鲁虹, 412, 429, 432
Lin engmian, 1 , 53 Lu Lei 陆磊, 272
Lin Hu ia, 9 L Nan 吕楠, 223
Lin Shiming, 23 L eng 吕澎, 317 18, 417, 420 Art Needs
Lin Tianmiao 林天苗, 185, 224, 225, 234, 341, to be rodu ed to Sell, 30 and First
401, 422, 433 Bound nbound, 197 Pl. 27 1990s Biennial Art air, 298 99, 300,
Wrapping and Se ering, 197 301, 303 7, 419 Heading Toward the
Lin Wei 林微: Angel, 41 Market, 290 91 pening p the
Lin Yilin 林一林, 414, 415, 418, 425 1990s, 298 99
Lin Yonghui 林永惠, 223 L eng and Yi an: A History of Modern
Lin Yutang, 1 n2 Chinese Art: 1979 – 1989, 404, 420
Ling Huitao 凌徽涛, 115 L intian, 44, 427
Liu, Hung, 249 Resident Alien, 2 9 70, 270 L Sheng hong 吕胜中, 123, 405, 419, 422
Liu Anping 刘安平, 224, 422 Paper-Cut Installation, 130 31, 131, 41 , 418
Liu Bo hun, 115 Lu, i toria ong hi , 427, 434, 43
Liu Chun 刘淳, 179 Lu un, 253, 374
Liu ahong 刘大鸿: Model Opera, 17 Sweet Lu Yuanmin 陆元敏, 223
Day, 17 Lu ie-Smith, Edward, 178 79
Liu ong 刘东, 115 Lum, en, 425, 427
Liu enghua, 342 Luo Brothers 罗氏兄弟, Welcome World-
Liu Haisu, 53 Art allery, 421 Art Museum, amous Brands, 202 3
422, 423, 425, 430 Luo iaoyun 罗小韵, Mainstay, 220
Liu ianhua 刘建华, n ainted S ulptures, Luo hongli 罗中立, 32, 377, 428 Father, 19,
21 17 23 25, 31 32, , 410 Pl. 5
Liu ai u 刘开渠, 115, 408
Liu Liguo 刘力国, Classics, 203 Ma esheng 马德升, 11 Rest, 12 13
Liu Liping 刘丽萍, 155, 19 Ma Liuming 马六明, 185, 224, 420, 424, 42 ,
Liu Min 刘敏, 115 427 Fen-Ma Liuming’s Lunch II, 187 our
Liu ian 刘谦, Alley, 40 Notes, 187 88
Liu inghe, 155, 15 Ma Lu 马路, 58
Liu Shaohui 刘绍荟, Emotion, Indi iduality, Ma in, 344
ormal Aestheti s, 17 18 Ma it hie, Lynn, re arious aths on the
Liu Shao i, 25 , 331 Mainland, 3 4
Liu Ting, 331 Magiciens de la terre e hibition, 417
Liu Wei 刘炜, 158, 272, 273, 343, 345, 419, 420, Mannerism, 53
421, 422, 424 Spring Dream in a Garden: Mao Xuhui 毛旭輝, 57, 412, 415, 419, 424
Dad in Front of the TV, 15 , 1 1 Pl. 21 New igurati e, 89 93 Shepherdess and
Liu Wen ai, 3 8, 3 9 White Goat, Pl. 11
Liu iao hun 刘骁纯, 43, 4 , 47, 124, 417, 421, Mao edong, 5, 20, 127, 1 4, 172, 173, 17 77,
422, 424, 427, 428, 430 and Fine Arts in 219, 254, 3 3, 3 , 3 7, 373, 408
China, 412 uoting oes Not E ual Maomao, 212
lagiarism, 377 78, 412 Martin, ean-Hubert, 357, 3 1, 417, 428
Liu iaodong 刘小东, 158, 1 0, 1 1 2, 31 , Martíne , osa, 2 4 5
398, 401, 418, 419 Hotbed No. 1, 399 oke, Mar , arl, 55, 1 5
155, 15 , 158 Pl. 19 Pastoral, 1 0 May ourth New Culture Mo ement, 52, 53,
Liu un, 331, 409 118, 157, 417
Liu Ye 刘野, 398, 401 May Se enth Art ni ersity, n2
Mayako sky, ladimir, A Slap in the Face of New Literati painting 新文人画, 118 19, 1 3,
446
Public Taste, 58 173, 174, 417, 418, 427

Meng Luding 孟禄丁, 35, 3 38, 44, 123 New Photo maga ine, 225, 423
|
Mepham, Lydie, 358 New ealism, 55, 89, 173, 174, 300
Mi helangelo Buonarotti, 17, 292, 372 David, 27 New Wa e 85 Art New Wa e 85新潮 , 47,
Middle Ages, 80 48, 49, 252, 308 anti New Wa e trend,
Mierlo, Heidi an, 3 0 118, 1 3 China Avant-Garde e hibition,
Millennium Art Museum, 431, 433, 434, 435, 113 2 in 85 Art Mo ement, 51 52, 3,
43 85, 8 , 99, 11 , 128, 129, 132, 159, 1 2 4,
Millet, ean- ran ois, 27, 39 175, 288, 317, 3 0, 404 end of, 127 28,
Minford, ohn, 1 n2 129 30, 154, 155, 157 58 ree amination
Ming ynasty, 12 of, 155, 157 58
Ministry of Culture, 408, 419, 421, 424, 429, New York Times Magazine, The, 35
431 Noti e, 27 77 Ni Haifeng 倪海峰, 414, 419, 420
Miyang Painting Society Exhibition, 1 Ni Weihua 倪卫华, 182 Continuously Diffusing
modern art, 97, 101 3, 129 30, 152, 184, 31 the State of Affairs, No. 2 — ’93 Placard, 183
Modern Chinese Art Exhibition, 49 Niet s he, riedri h, 51, 82, 107, 158
Modern Chinese Art Research Documents Ning ang ian 宁方倩, 155
Exhibitions, 174, 178, 418, 419, 421 No-Name ainting So iety 无名画会, 5, ,
Modern hotography Salon, 221 22 409, 413
Modern Sculptures e hibition, 322 Northern Art roup 北方艺术群体, 51, 54, 55,
modernism, 51, 52, 99, 108 9, 111, 1 8 79 82, 1 8, 411, 413, 415
Montaigne, Mi hel de, 100 Northern Way Art Allian e, 411, 412
Moore, Henry, 91 November Painting xhibition, 57, 58, 413
Morimura, Yasumasa, 225
Muni ipal Committee, 8 10 brist, Hans- lri h, 3 1, 434
Museum of Chinese History, 418, 419 CAT, 433, 434, 435
Museum of Modern Art, Chengdu, 429, 430 li a, A hille Bonito, 3 1, 3 8, 374, 420,
Museum of Modern Art, New York, 424, 427 422
My Interpretation of the Judgment of Paris, pen oor poli y, 35, 4 , 89, 128, 152, 157
124 o erseas Chinese artists, 248 70, 401 3
Naisbitt, ohn, 19 , 295 aik, Nam une, 237

Nan o, umio, 425 Seascape, 2 3 4 Painter 画家, 48, 413, 419
Narrative of Skin e hibition, 200 Painter roup, 413, 415
National Art allery, 328 30, 359, 408 17, an ehai 潘德海, 91
420 24, 427, 429 and see National Art an Tianshou, 1 , 53
Museum ang Lei 庞磊, 155
National Art Museum, 397, 402, 411, 429 31, Passaggio a Oriente e hibition, 420
433 3 eking ni ersity, 415, 419, 433, 434
National ine Arts E hibition, 409, 410, 412 eng e 彭德, 4 , 124, 299, 300, 417, 430 on
Nati e Soil Art, 19, , 83 84, 158 the end of New Wa e, 127 28 and Fine
Nature, Society, and Man e hibition, , 7, 7, Arts Literature, 421 and The Trend of Art
220 21, 221, 409, 410 Thought, 412
Neo-E pressionism, 128 Peng Zhenge 彭振戈, 223 see also An e
New A ademi S hool 新学院派, 118, 173, 41 photography, 219 32 April hotography
New Art mo ement, 322 So iety, , 220 21 China Special Exhibition,
New Classi al Mo ement, 173, 174 222 do umentary, 220, 222 23 Journey of
New Culture Movement 新文化运动, 132 Hardship ompetition, 222 National
New esign, Hunan, 300 Photography Exhibition, 223 Nature,
New Figurative 新具像, 89 93 Society, and Man, , 7, 7, 220 21, 221 New
New igurative xhibition, 57, 58, 89, 93, 412, So ial o umentation, 222 23 upture
415 roup, 222 ideo art, 232 48
New eneration 新生代, 154, 155 57, 194, photorealism, 19, 24, 39, 15 , 375
198, 317, 318 19, 347, 419 New Generation i ao ian 皮道坚, 124, 299, 300, 417, 423, 424,
Art e hibition, 155, 158, 317, 418 432 and The Trend of Art Thought, 412
New History 1993 Big Consumer Products i ao ian and i Li, Contemporary Chinese
performan e , 178, 179, 181 Art Media in the 1990s, 310 15
New History roup 新历史小组, 180 81, 419, i Li 皮力, Ba k to So iety, 321, 428, 431,
420 435, 43
447
i asso, ablo, 11, 12, 100 101, 411 Guernica, 38, rationalism, 54 57, 58, 132, 1 4
101, 374 Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 100, 101 aus henberg, obert, 35, 42 45, 1, 3, 5,
Picture Stories 连环画报, 19, 21, 408 1 8, 293, 413
|
INDEX
issarro, Camille, 1 realism 现实主义, 27, 317, 318 in Chinese
it enar, Marianne, 359 artisti tradition, 2 on eptual, 15
lato, 93 riti al, 19, 53 Cyni al, see Cyni al ealism
pluralism, 45, 49 debate on realism, 410 e pressionist, 15
Political Pop 政治波普, 157, 158, 1 4 5, 1 7, ink paintings, 118 19 in literature, 158
170, 224, 233, 318, 319, 343, 347, 3 3, 3 4, model of, 1 1 2 and New eneration,
3 8 15 New ealist S hool, 55 photorealism,
olla k, Barbara, 399 19, 24, 39, 15 , 375 re olutionary, 157, 1 2
ollo k, a kson, 0 s ienti , 53 So ialist, 19, 154, 3 3 Super-
ond So iety 池社, 51, 83 89, 414 manifesto ealism, 375
of, 87 88 Work No. 1: Yang-Style Taichi Reality: Present and Future, 331, 332
Series, 88 Work No. 2: Walker in Green ed Brigade 红色旅, 51, 94 95, 413, 41
Space, 83, 88 89 ed ate allery, 419
Pop art 波普, 83, 85, 11 , 119 allegori al ed uard mo ement, 19 20, 155, 17
nature of, 178 Ameri an, 3 3 ed Humor 红色幽默, 413, 414
onsumerist, 1 2 Cultural op, 154, 198 egionalism 地域主义, 15
de elopment of, 172 75 emergen e of, relati ism, 88
171 72 u Chengfeng on, 171 79 Hubei Remaking 798, 400-401, 401 Pl. 48
op Wa e, 173, 174, 175, 300 imagery and embrandt an i n, 100 Night Watch, 27
spirit of, 17 79 oliti al, see oliti al op en ian 任戬, 55, 180 Archives, 1 5 New
regional traits and age groups, 175 History 1993 Big Consumer Products [with
Popular Model e hibition, 200 others , 178 Primordial Transformation, 173
ost-Impressionism, 129 Siphon ff series, 1 4, 1 5 Stamp
Post Sense-Sensibility: Alien Bodies and Colle ting series, 1 5, 173, 177, 181
Delusion e hibition 后感性 ), 271 73, 279, enaissan e, 78
343 47 Rent Collection Courtyard: Cai uo- iang s
postmodernism 后现代主义, 190, 319, 321 Venice ersion of, 35 , 3 9, 369, 371 72,
Progressive Young Chinese Artists xhibition, 374, 377 78, 402, 42 , 428 original ersion
35, 38 42, 5 , 412 of, 3 8 71, 423 uoting s. plagiarism,
u is de Cha annes, ierre, 1 377 78, 428 reprodu tion of, 371 7
uy, Imma, 359 Si huan ine Arts Institute press release
on, 370 71
i Baishi, 17, 53 epubli an era, 2, 102
ian Weikang 钱喂康, 235, 423 esear h Institute of ine Arts, 412, 41 , 417,
Breath Breath, 23 418
in a 琴嘎, 271, 344, 428 esear h Institute of Traditional Chinese
in Ming 秦明, A Procession Praying for Rain, ainting, 411, 41 , 417, 418
39 oberts, Claire, 359
in Wenna, 115 odin, Auguste, 372 The Burghers of Calais, 1
in Yufen 秦玉芬, 433 In Between, 248 Pl. 37 olling Stones, 177
ing ynasty, 12, 102, 293 ong ong 荣荣, 224, 423, 433 ragments
iu ing, 359, 425 series, 230 31, 230 1997 No. 1 1 Beijing,
iu hi ie 邱志杰, 154, 175, 232, 237, 238, 423, 224 Pl. 32
424, 427, 431, 433, 43 Assignment No. 1: ong ong and inri, Tui — Transfiguration
Copying the rchid Pavilion Preface a e hibition, 400 Pl. 48
Thousand Times, 185, 188 89, 189, 234 vil onte, ieter, 359
Heart, 273 Hands of Escher, 23 Logic, 237 oot-seeking artists 寻根, 158
ost-Sense Sensibility, 343 47, 42 Post- osen uist, ames, 175
Sensibility Spree e hibition, 429 Present u in, 115
Progress, 237 Things, 343 Washroom, 23 uan udong 阮旭东, Contemplati e
Yaojiayuan Archaeology Pit No. 1, 341 aintings, 30 33
iu hi ie and Wu Mei hun, istorted
Bodies and elusion, 270, 271 73, 34 San ran is o Museum of Modern Art, 425
u Leilei 曲磊磊, 11 Train of Thought, 13 We Sartre, ean- aul, 51, 55, 83, 158
Don’t Want Laws Like This, 13 410 S ar Art 伤痕美术, 19 23, 47, 53, 2, 118, 158,
ueens Museum of Art, 424, 42 409
ueensland Art allery, 420, 423, 427 S hneider, E khard, 3 0, 425, 427
S hopenhauer, Arthur, 51, 108 Song Ling 宋陵, 85 8 , 88, 414 Human Tube,
448
S ienti e olution, 2 84 White Tube, 84

Second Young Artists Exhibition, 5 Song Yonghong 宋永红, 155, 158, 1 0, 1 1
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self-identity, 185 92, 195 97 Tranquil nvironment, 1 0

se ual ontent, restri tions on, 11 Song Yongping 宋永平, 57, 179, 180, 415
ShanghA T allery, 427, 428 Sotheby s, New York, 399
Shanghai Art Museum, 330, 414, 41 , 423, Southern Artists Salon 南方艺术家沙龙, 51,
425, 427, 428, 430, 431 414 First Experimental Exhibition, 97 Pl. 13
Shanghai Biennale: ifth, 432 irst 199 , Southwest Art esear h roup 西南艺术研究
423 ourth, 430 Se ond, 425 Third, see 群体, 51, 415
2000 Shanghai Biennale Si th, 435 3 Spring Tide e hibition, 47
Shanxi Modern Art Exhibition, 57, 58, 0, 1 Stars Art Exhibitions, , 7 10, 9, 11 13, 47, 120,
Shao a hen 邵大箴, 4 , 115, 124, 409, 412, 409, 410, 414
417 Stars Art So iety 星星, 7, 19, 11 , 129, 410,
Shao Hong, 299 414, 417
Shao Zhenpeng 邵振鹏, Made in China, 203 Stella, rank, 293
Shen Changwen, 115 Street ideo roup, 232
Shen ian hong, 223 Su Li un, 127
Shen, uiyi, 3 0 Su Shi, 293
Shen Ling 申玲, 155, 15 , 195 Sui ianguo 隋建国, 422, 42 , 428 Earthly
Shen in 沈勤, 95n3 Force, 154 Pl. 18
Shen iaotong, 158 Sun in, 127
Sheng Tianhong 盛天泓, 343 Sun Liang 孙良, 419, 420
Sheng Tianye 盛天晔, 343 Sun Ping 孙平, 179 Issuing Shares, 178 Miss
Sherman, Cindy, 225 Avant-Garde Art, 203 Miss Fashion, 203
Shi Benming 施本铭, 58 Miss Service, 203
Shi Chong 石冲, 313, 433 Sun inmian, 320 21
Shi Hui 施慧, 41 , 420, 425 Sun Yuan 孙原, 344 45, 34 , 428 Honey, 271,
Shi iu 石久, n New Space and the ond 272
So iety, 83 89 Sun Zhenhua 孙振华, 322, 429, 432
Shi Lei 石磊, 175 Prenatal Education — Suo ei, 124
Pavarotti Who orgot the Song Lyrics, 178 Supermarket e hibition, 279, 334, 337 38,
Shi ing 石青, 272, 345 4 345, 42
Shi Yasong, 299 300 Suriko , asily, Boyarynya Morozova, 22
Shi Yong 施勇, 235, 425, 427 Surrealism, 39, 57, 3, 5, 85
Shu un 舒群, 405 - -: 0 series, 1 4 Symposium on Implementing the Central
Absolute Principle No. 1, 80 Complete Committee of the CCP’s ‘Outline for Civic
Colle tion of World Art series, 173 Cui Morality , 429
Jian, 173 E planation of the Northern Art S eemann, Harald, 35 , 3 1, 3 9, 370, 371,
roup, 79 82 374 75, 377, 424, 425, 42 , 428
Shui Tian hong 水天中, 42, 4 , 414, 421, 429
Si huan ine Arts Institute, 411, 423, 428, 43 Tang Cheng, 342
Sigg, li, 425, 435, 43 Tang a heng, 121
Silent Energy e hibition, 3 5 Tang yansty, 102
Sisyphus, myth of, 95n2, 132 Tang emei, 115
Si Announ ements, 8 Tang ingnian 唐庆年, 115
Sixth National Fine Arts Exhibition, 35, 47, 48, Tang Song 唐宋, and performan e art, 119,
53 54, 85, 412 121, 12
Smerling, Walter, 359 Tao Yongbai 陶咏白, 417, 422, 429 Toward a
Smith, aren, 3 0, 433 ero to In nity, emale Initiati e, 194 97
224 2 Theater of the Absurd, 12
So ial o umentation, 222 23 Third lenary Session, 21, 72 73, 409
So iety of Young Artists, 55, 8 Three Men Studio, 198
Solomon, Andrew, 421 Tiananmen S uare, 113, 220, 3 3, 417
Song ong 宋冬, 182, 237, 340, 422, 425, 428, Tilson, oe, Is This Che Guevara , 177
431, 434, 43 Look, 237 One More Lesson, Today Art Museum, 398, 431, 434
Do You Want to Play With Me?, 183 Shut Tom. om, 428
Up and Listen to Me, 235 SONGDONG Art Tomonobu, Imami hi, 100
Travel Agency, 337 Stamping Water, 224 Pl. Tong Biao 佟飚, 423 The Afternoon of August
33 ncovering, 235 30th, 237 Watched Sleep, 233
449
Tong ian, The Lands ape of China s 1 8 71 and Visual Polity, 40 We
Modern Art Mo ement, 78 arti ipants of the 85 Art Mo ement,
Trace of Existence e hibition, 338 42, 78 79 and Zhuhai Symposium, 49
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INDEX
343 44, 424 Wang Hao 王浩, 155, 15
Trend of Art Thought 美术思潮, The, 35, 48, Wang Hu 王虎, 155
114, 310, 411, 412 Wang Huangsheng 王璜生, 404, 430, 431
Turner, Caroline, 358 Wang Hua iang 王华祥, 155, 15
Twenty-First Century e hibition, 1 n2 Wang ianwei 汪建伟, 182 83, 237, 422, 423,
Two Hundreds, 45 424, 428, 433 Circulation — Sowing and
Harvesting, 182 83, 244 45, 244, 341
ni ersity of Buffalo Art alleries, 431, 433 Import <-> Export, 243 Incident — Process,
pri er Art allery, 333 34, 42 State, 243 Membrane, 340 41 Model, 245
urban destru tion and onstru tion, 205 13 Production, 245 4 Reproduction, 242 43
Si ideo Works, 242 4
an i k, Hans, 422, 42 Wang in 王晋, 198, 421, 424, 42 , 431 Ice 96
an ogh, in ent, 291, 292, 30 Central Plains, 215 1 , 215 Red Dust,
ela ue , iego odrigue , Aesop, 27 224 25 Red Train Tracks, 224 To Marry a
eni e Biennale, 1 7, 234, 2 3, 347, 349, 3 1, Mule, 225, 335
3 8, 371, 374, 397, 402, 412, 420, 422, Wang insong 王劲松, 155, 15 , 158, 1 1, 1 2,
42 , 428, 431, 433 198, 421, 424 Big Chorus, 1 1 Big igong,
Venice’s Rent Collection Courtyard, 35 , 3 9, 1 1 Standard Family, 217, 217, 224
369, 371 72, 374, 377 78, 42 Wang iong, 119
erostko, oman, 412 Wang iping 王纪平, 57
ideo art, 232 48, 340, 341, 343, 345 Wang eping 王克平, 11, 12, 41 The Backbone
aestheti alue of, 233 Art and Historical of Society, 12 Long, Long Life, 12 Silence, 12
Consciousness, 237 Demonstration of Video Pl. 1
Art 97 China, 237 Documents of Video Art, Wang Lan 王兰: General Store, 40
237 funding, 23 Image and Phenomena Wang Lin 王林, 4 , 124, 343, 412, 417, 431, 433
e hibition, 235, 23 37 international li a Is Not the Sa ior of Chinese Art,
festi als, 237 38 postprodu tion, 237 3 8
standards for, 237 Wang Luyan 王鲁炎, 3 5, 418, 419, 423
ideo game images, 178 Wang Meng, Living in Seclusion in the
iola, Bill, Buried Secrets, 234 Qingbian Mountains, 107
Wang Ming ian 王明贤, 115, 415, 42
Wang Birong, 115 Wang Nanming 王南溟, 321 on art markets,
Wang Chuan 王川, 19, 413 E pe ting Her to 353 54
Walk on the Main oad, 29 30 Farewell, Wang i, 299, 300, 301
Narrow Trail, 29, 31 Hanging Coffins, 58 Wang iang 王强, 85, 88, 414 Adagio of
Wang alun, 209 12 Symphony No. 5, Second Movement, 84,
Wang eren 王德仁, 117, 121, 123 85 Amateur Painter, 84
Wang u 王度, 51, 248, 414, 415, 432 Toward Wang ingsong 王庆松, 425, 427 The Thinker,
a hysi al State of Contemporary Art 202 Thousand Hand Buddha, 202
Itself, 97 Wang uiting, 127
Wang ong in 王功新, 224, 341, 401, 423, 428, Wang Shuo, 1 0, 1 1
433 Baby Talk, 237 Myth Powder No. 1, 237 Wang Wei 王卫, 272 1 30th of a Second
Shepherd, 339 Sky of Brooklyn, 234, Pl. 36 Underwater, 343 Pl. 41
Wang uangyi 王广义, 51, 125, 154, 297, 418, Wang iangming 王向明 and ing Lili, Longing
420, 421, 423, 424, 433 and Archives, 405 for Peace, 38, 5
Black Rationality, 1 9 Death of Marat, 12 Wang iaohong, 211
Great Criticism — odak, 1 4, 1 7 71, 173, Wang iao ian 王小箭, 4 , 412, 415
177 Pl. 22 Mao Zedong, 158, 1 4, 1 7, 1 9, Wang Ya hong 王亚中, 179
170, 172, 17 Mass- rodu ed Holy Child Wang Youshen 王友身, 155, 418, 419, 420
series, 173 Masterpie es Co ered by Wang Yigang 王易罡, 42 , 429
Industrial ui k- rying aint series, 173 Wang Yubei 王玉北, 180
Post-Classical — Return of the Great Sorrow, Wang Yun, 182 83
78 Pl. 9 ost-Classi al series, 1 8 on Wang Yuping 王玉平, 155, 15
purging humanist enthusiasm ( 清理人文热 Wang hen 王振, 115
情 ), 123, 1 4, 1 9 Red Rationality, 1 9 and Wang hiping, 7
Rent Collection Courtyard, 3 8 Solidi ed Wang iwei 王子卫, 177, 415, 421 Mao
Ar ti egion series, 1 8 as utopian, edong series, 172
Warhol, Andy, 1 5, 1 8, 170, 175, 2 8 9, Wu Mei hun and iu hi ie, The ise and
450
293, 3 e elopment of ideo Art and the

Wei uang ing 魏光庆, 424 ed Wall series, Maturity of New Media Art, 232 38
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173, 174, 178 Sui ide series, 173 Thumb Wu Shan huan 吴山专, 99, 121, 248, 251, 405,
series, 173 414, 420 Big Business, 11 performan e art,
Wei ong 韦蓉, 155, 15 122 23 Red Humor — Red Characters,
Weiss, E elyn, 359 11 17, 172 Pl. 17
Wen ulin 温普林, 412, 41 Wu iao hang 吴小昌, 59
Weng en 翁奋, 273 Wu iao un 吴小军, 335
Weng en and Yan Yinhong, A Talk Between a Wu iaolin, 115
Man and a Woman, 235 Wu Ying 吴颖, 88
Werner, Chris, 359, 425 Wu uoren 吴作人, 115 foundation, 417
Wesselman, Tom, 175 Wyeth, Andrew, 19, 30 33, 39, 15 A
Western art: forbidden in Cultural e olution, Faraway Place, 31, 32 Barn Swing, 31
35 imitation of, 1 3, 31 , 347 modernist, Christina’s World, 30 31, 32
158, 1 2 op in China ompared to, 171 72,
175, 17 , 180 i ian un, 3 5
Western art theory, 48, 158, 318 ia Wei, 3 0, 425
Western Con eptual art, 154 Xia Xiaowan 夏小万, 58
Western in uen e, 1 , 19, 35, 5, 7, 99, iamen Art Museum, 95, 415
102, 118, 127, 128 30, 159, 1 3, 170, 319 20, iamen ada 厦门达达, 51, 123, 405 Burning
322, 333, 338 39 Works, 95 Haul Away the Museum, 117
Western propaganda, 3 4 5 iang Nan, 352
Western re eption of Chinese art, 357 5 iao Chen, A Strong o us on eality,
Why, 22, 31 317
Wild rass ainting So iety, 410, 411, 415 iao Lu 肖鲁, 119, 120, 12
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 55, 83 iao uan, 223
Working eople s Cultural ala e, 409, 413, iao Yu 萧昱, 271, 273, 345, 428
415 idan emo ra y Wall, 409
World Art 世界美术, 4 , 312, 314, 315, 409 ie uanghui, 223
World of Female Artists e hibition, 155, 194, in Hai hou 忻海舟, 158
31 , 418 Xinjiang Art Academy Exhibition, 75
Wu Ershan 乌尔善, 272, 273, 343, 345 Xishan Symposium, 48
Wu uangyao, 115 u Beihong, 53, 2 ink paintings, 118
Wu uan hong 吴冠中, 49, 410, 413, 419, Xu Bing 徐冰, 99, 118, 123 24, 125 2 , 131,
421 on the an ient and modern, East 132, 248, 274, 35 , 402, 405, 418, 421, 425,
and West, 1 on a beginner s path, 17 42 , 427, 428, 432, 433, 43 A Book from
on reati e omposition and daily pra ti e, the Sky A Mirror to Analyze the World —
14 15 ormalist Aestheti s in ainting in de Si cle Book , 99, 105, 123, 132,
(形式美 , 14 17, , 409 on personal 172 73, 255, 25 , 25 , 41 Pl. 14 Cultural
feelings and artisti style, 15 1 on spirit Animal, 274, 421 Looking for Something
onsonan e, 1 17 The Ancient ifferent in a uiet la e, 105 New
City of Jiaohe, 14 Pl. 2 on untitled English Calligraphy, 255, 25 , 427 n
works, 17 Words, 254 57 rchid Pavilion Preface,
Wu Hong 吴鸿, 290, 404, 43 rom 255 S uare Word Calligraphy series, 249,
System to Cir le , 307 10 255 Three Installations by Xu Bing, 358,
Wu Hung 巫鸿, 3 0, 3 1, 428, 430, 431, 432, 419 Tobacco Project, 249, 403, 432 A
433, 434, 43 E perimental E hibitions Window facing Pudong, 403 l. 50 Word
of the 1990s, 327 3 3 1, 42 , 428, 429, Play: Contemporary Art by Xu Bing, 3 1
432, 433 and Canceled: Exhibiting u Hong 徐虹, 19 Walking out of the
Experimental Art in China, 3 1, 429 and Abyss: My eminist Criti ue, 185, 193 94
Reinterpretation: A Decade of Experimental u ilin, 101
Chinese Art, 397, 430 and Transience: u in 徐进, 85 Dialogue, 84 12:00 a.m., 84
Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the u Lei 徐累, 95n3
Twentieth Century, 3 0, 42 Xu Min 许敏, 19
Wu iafeng, 124 Xu Tan 徐坦, 425, 427 New Order, 328
Wu ialin 吴家林, 223 rostitute series, 22
Wu u ai, 115 u Wenli and Liu ing et al., A Letter to the
Wu Mei hun 吴美纯, 23 , 237, 271, 343, 344, eople, 8 10
345, 34 , 423, 424, 42 , 427 u iaoyan 徐晓燕, 195
u Yihui 徐一晖, 95n3, 424, 425 Art History, 201
451
E perimental Art in the 1990s, 31 23
Xu Zhen 徐震, 337 38, 401, 42 The Difficulty The Modernist ilemma, 128 32
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with Colors, Pl. 44 Yin inan 尹吉男, 315, 317 New eneration
INDEX
Xu Zhiwei 徐志伟, Yuanmingyuan Village, 288, and Close p Artists, 154, 155 57
288 Yin i 尹齐, 204
ue Yongnian, 124 Yin Shuang i 殷双喜, 211, 299, 301, 323, 412,
429, 432, 433 My utlook on Criti ism,
Yan Lei 颜磊, 423 Absolutely Safe, 237 Beijing 324 25
Haw, 233 Clear Away, 233, 234 Dissolve, Yin iu hen 尹秀珍, 185, 341, 42 , 427 Clothes
233 1500 cm, 233 Invasion, 225 2 , 234 Chest, 198 Pl. 28 Ruined Capital, 329
No. 031007, 234 323 cm , 234 Yin Yan un, 44
Yan eiming 严培明, 401, 418, 422, 427, 428, Yong He, 223
432 Yu Bogong 于伯公: Shit with a Dream, 203
Yan ing 阎萍, 195 Shit with Long Hair, 203
Yan Shan hun 严善錞, 4 , 170, 299, 412, 432, Yu Chen 余陈, 155
433 Yu Hong 喻红, 155, 158, 1 0, 180, 195, 418,
Yan Yinhong 严隐鸿, 235 419, 420
Yan an Conferen e on Literature and Art, 1 4, Yu i 余极, 175
408, 419 Yu iaofu 喻晓夫, Gently, the Children Perform
Yang udong 杨福东, 273, 343, 401, 431 The for Picasso’s Doves, 38
First Intellectual, 198 Pl. 29 Yu Youhan 余友涵, 415, 420, 421 Mao edong
Yang uo hang 杨国章, 175 Mrs. Lida series, 1 4, 173, 17
Prepares Powdered Milk for Her Grandson, Yuan Baolin 袁宝林, 124
178 Reference News, 17 Yuan uang, 327 28
Yang ie hang 杨诘苍, 248, 251, 357, 358, 3 5, Yuan e ia, 121
417, 418, 419, 432 Yuan Yaomin 袁耀敏, 195
Yang un, 422, 430 Yue Min un 岳敏君, 185, 398, 424, 42 Sky,
Yang e in 杨克勤, 195 Pl. 25
Yang Li, 299 Yung Ho Chang 张永和, 341 42
Yang Lihua, 115
Yang Sen 杨森, 343 eng Chaoying, 115
Yang Wei, 434, 43 eng an hi 曾梵志, 158, 185, 401 Mask Series
Yang iaoyan 杨小彦, 219, 299 The Cartoon No. 6, 398 Mask Series No. 8, 192 Pl. 23
eneration, 319 eng Hao 曾浩, 198
Yang u 杨旭 and hou Tiehai, Scribbles on eng iao un, 421
Newspaper, 17 eng hennan, 124, 127
Yang Yingsheng 杨迎生, 95n3 ero art group, 5 , 0, 413, 415
Yang Yong 杨勇, 22 , 272, 273 Zero xhibition, 57, 58, 413
Yang Yongshan, 210 ha Li 查立, 85 8
Yang hen hong 杨振忠, 337 38, 423, 424, Zhai Mo 翟墨, 124
425, 42 ish Tank, 237 han ian un 詹建俊, 115
Yang hilin 杨志麟, 95n3 han Wang 展望, 155, 15 , 198, 345, 34 , 422,
Yanhuang Art allery, 331, 419, 424 42 ebris Sal age S hemes, 20 7
Yasumi hi, Morishita, 293, 295 New Crash Course Art Studio, 340 New
Ye Shuanggui 叶双贵, 180 rand Cerami s Map of Bei ing o kery emolding
series, 181 lan, 207 8 Ruin Cleaning, 207
Ye Tingfang, 124, 127 Zhang Bin 张濒, 175 Model pera series, 17
Ye Yong ing 叶永青, 415, 418, 424, 43 Zhang Bo 张波, 175
Awaken in Spring from Hibernation, 57 hang ai, Exploring the Delicacy of Painting,
Pl. 8 Big Poster, 17 293
Ye Yushan, 49 hang ali 张大力, 198, 335, 401, 43
Year of China in ran e, 432 Dialogue, 209 13, 209 Pl. 31
Yearbook of Chinese Art 1949 – 1989, 48 hang efeng 张德峰, 15 Distance, 341
Yeats, William Butler, 92 Zhang Fan 张帆, 343
Yellow River Cantata, 1 4 Zhang Fuping 张复平, 91
Yi Ching, 250 hang Haier 张海儿, Self-Portrait, 223, 223
Yi an 易丹, 299, 404, 417, 420 hang Han i 张涵子, 272, 428
Yi Ying 易英, 299, 301, 343, 412, 422, 425, 429, hang Huan 张洹, 198, 224, 401, 402, 420, 428,
430, 433 The Meaning of Work Should Be 43 12 Square Meters, 214, 214 65 G,
Clear, 318 Criti ism on Chinese 185 87, 186
hang ian un 张建军, 412 Humanity and Their Zhou Changjiang 周长江, 420 Window, 39
452
Clocks, 5 hou Chunya 周春芽, 424 Black Lines, Red

hang un 张骏, April 5, 1976, 39, 41 Torso, Pl. 43
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hang angkang, 121 hou Enlai, 5, 408

Zhang Nian 张念, performan e art, 117, 431 hou ing in, 1 n2
Zhang Peili 张培力, 51, 85 8 , 87, 88, 99, 123, hou irong 周吉荣, 155
125, 12 , 154, 235 3 , 238, 413, 414, 418, Zhou Shaoli 周少立, Death Breeds New Life,
420, 423, 424, 425, 427, 433 and Archives, 40
405 Art Project No. 2, 112 13 Assignment Zhou Tiehai 周铁海, 17 , 425 Press
No. 1, 233 Best Before 8 28 1994, 240 Conference, 357
Brown Book No. 1, 112 Children’s Zhou Xiaohu 周啸虎: The Gooey Gentleman,
Playground, 233 Chinese Bodybuilding, 1 4, 248 Beautiful Cloud, 247 Children’s
1 5, 173, 177 Diary, 242 Document on Rhymes, 247 Face-Lifting Arch Veranda, 247
Hygiene, No. 3, 233, 239 Focal Distance, orm and Shadow Aren t Separated series,
23 Midsummer Swimmers, 84 Pl. 10 1989 248 Listening In on Plastic Surgery, 247
Standard Pronunciation, 1 4, 1 5, 173 Plastic Surgery Hallway, 247 Really Not vil
Opposite Space, 240 41 Pause, 84 Please Intentions, 247 The Age of Lies, 24 47
Help Yourself to Some Jazz, 84 Uncertain Travel in Desire, 248 Wax Museum, 248
Pleasure, 23 , 241 Water, 233, 238 39, 238 hou infang, 1
series, 118 Zhou Xiping 周细平, 1 5, 180 rand ortrait
hang eili and eng ianyi, Exhibition of series, 181
Recent Works, 329 hou Yan 周彦, 115 on China Avant-Garde
hang iang 张蔷, 115, 124, 412 e hibition, 114 15
hang ing 张晴, 351, 428, 430, 432 43 The hou Yubing 周玉冰, 299
Shanghai Biennale Amid Transitions, hou uoren, Water Margin, 1 5 n2
347 50 Zhu Bin 祝斌, 299
hang un 张群 and Meng Luding, In the hu adong 朱发东, 198, 224, 335, 42 State
New ra: nlightenment of Adam and ve, of E isten e, 213 14 This Person is for Sale,
35, 3 38, 5 Pl. 7 214 Zhu adong, Missing Person
hang ongfu 张荣富, Childhood Memories, Announcement, 213, 214
39 hu ia 朱加, 155, 423 orever, 234, 23 37
hang San i, 180 Zhu Ming 朱冥, 224
Zhang Xiaogang 张晓刚, 51, 90, 118, 401, 412, Zhu Mo 朱墨, 115
415, 418, 421, 422, 423, 424, 427 Big amily hu i 朱其, 423, 429
series, 185, 190 91, 192, 398 Pl. 24 hu ingsheng 朱青生, 4 , 88, 405, 412, 414,
hang iaoling, 44 45, 427 415, 428, 433, 434, 435 on the 2000
Zhang Xiaping 张夏平, 91 Shanghai Biennale, 351 52
hang Ya ie 张亚杰, Models, 202 Zhu Xikun 祝锡琨, 180
hang Yao un, 115 Zhu Xinjian 朱新建, 1 3, 1 n2
hang Yu, 300 hu Ye, Bei ing Theorists ea tions to the
hang hilin, and China Avant-Garde Art of obert aus henberg, 42 45, 43
e hibition, 119 hu Yu 朱昱, 271, 344, 345 4 , 428 Pocket
hang hiyang, 4 , 412 Theology, 279 Skin Graft, 277 8 Pl. 42
hang uying, 115, 211 hu ude 朱祖德, 101 3
hao Bandi 赵半狄, 155, 15 , 334, 427 huang Hui 庄辉, 2 9, 424, 428, 433 One
hao inghuan, ioneers of Contemporary and Thirty, 228 Shooting a Group Portrait,
Chinese Art, 38 42 227 30, 227
hao in 赵勤 and Liu ian, 203 4 I Love huhai ainting Institute, 114
McDonald’s, 203 Live Broadcast, 203 Zhuhai Symposium, 48, 49, 414
hao Tingyang, 170 ou Yue in, 319, 320
hao Wenliang 赵文量, 5 Zu Zhou 诅咒, 224
he iang A ademy of ine Arts later China uo ing, 433, 435
National A ademy of ine Arts , 55, 5 , 83,
8 , 107, 232, 408, 412, 414, 41 , 419
he iang eople s ublishing House, 429
heng uogu 郑国谷, 344, 345, 425 The Life
of Youth in Yang iang series, 22
heng Lian ie 郑连杰, performan e art series,
182
Zheng Shengtian 郑胜天, 3 0, 425, 427, 432
Additional essays as well as other portions or unabridged versions of some longer texts
PRIMARY DOCUMENTS WEB SITE

are being made available on a related Web site — www.moma.org / chineseprimarydoc —
to which even more materials may be added in the future. Materials planned for the
Web site as of press time are as follows:
ADDITIONAL ARTICLES
REBUILDING ELITE ART: RECONSIDERING CHANGES IN THE STRUCTURE
OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY CHINESE ART ( )
By Lang Shaojun
DIGGING A HOLE, BUILDING A HOUSE: THE IDEO INSTALLATIONS OF

WANG GONGXIN ( )
By Barbara Pollack
CHINESE ART AND MAR ET IN THE S( )

By Wang Lin and Ye Yongqing
CHINESE CURATORS: DIRECTED BUT LAC ING A PATH ( )

By Zhang Qing
HARALD SZEEMANN TAL S TO CHINESE ARTISTS ABOUT ENICE, CCAA,

AND CURATORIAL STRATEGIES ( )
WE ARE ALL TOO SENSITI E WHEN IT COMES TO AWARDS —CAI GUO-QIANG

AND THE COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT PROBLEMS SURROUNDING VENICE’S
RENT COLLECTION COURTYARD ( )
By Zhu Qi
ABRIDGED TEXTS WITH ADDITIONAL EXCERPTS

ZERO TO INFINITY: THE NASCENCE OF PHOTOGRAPHY IN CONTEMPORARY
CHINESE ART OF THE S( )
By Karen Smith
THE RISE AND DE ELOPMENT OF IDEO ART AND THE MATURITY OF

NEW MEDIA ART ( )
“EXPERIMENTAL EXHIBITIONS” OF THE S( )

By Wu Hung
THE RECEPTION IN THE WEST OF EXPERIMENTAL MAINLAND CHINESE ART

OF THE S( )
By Britta Erickson
CREDITS
Individual works of art appearing in this volume © Courtesy itamin Creati e Spa e: p. 392,
may be protected by copyright in the United bottom of page.
States of America or elsewhere, and may not be © Courtesy Wang ong in: pp. 385, bottom
reproduced without the permission of the rights of page 339.
holders. In reproducing the images contained in © Courtesy Wang uangyi: pp. 139, bottom
this publication, the Museum obtained the permis- of page 14 .
sion of the rights holders whenever possible. © Courtesy Wang ianwei: p. 244.
In those instances where the Museum could not © Courtesy Wang in: pp. 215, 335.
locate the rights holders, notwithstanding good © Courtesy Wang insong: p. 217.
faith efforts, it requests that any contact informa- © Courtesy Wang eping: p. 124
tion concerning such rights holders be forwarded, © Courtesy Wang Wei: p. 389, top of page.
so that they may be contacted for future editions. © Courtesy Wei uang ing: p. 174.
© Courtesy Wu Hung: pp. 355, 400, 401.
Photographs © Courtesy iao Lu: p. 121.
© Courtesy Ai Weiwei: p. 388. © Courtesy u hiwei: p. 288.
© Courtesy Chen Shao iong: p. 218. © Courtesy u Bing Studio: pp. 142, top of
© Courtesy ang Li un: p. 145, top of page. page, 255, 394.
© Courtesy eng heng ie: p. 202. © Yamamoto Tadasu, ourtesy Cai uo-
© Courtesy ao Minglu: p. 7. iang Studio: p. 391, bottom of page.
© Courtesy u e in: p. 385, top of page. © Courtesy Yang udong and ShanghA T:
© Courtesy u Wenda: pp. 142, bottom of p. 382, top of page.
page, 258, 393, bottom of page. © Courtesy Yue Min un: p. 148.
© Courtesy Hai Bo: p. 231. © Courtesy hang ali: pp. 209, 383, top of
© Courtesy Hong Hao: p. 392, top of page. page.
© Courtesy Hong Lei: p. 384, bottom © Courtesy hang Huan: p. 18 .
of page. © Courtesy hang eili: p. 83, 140, top of
© Courtesy Huang Yong ing: p. 95, 103. page, 238.
© Courtesy Huang Yong ing and uy © Courtesy hang iaogang: p. 147, bottom
Myriam llens oundation: p. 387, bottom of page.
of page. © Courtesy han Wang: p. 207.
© Courtesy Hung Liu: p. 270. © Courtesy heng Shengtian: p. 387, top
© Courtesy Li iaobin: title page. of page.
© Courtesy Lin Tianmiao: p. 380, bottom © Courtesy hou Chunya: p. 390.
of page. © Courtesy hou iaohu: p. 247.
© Courtesy Lin Yilin: p. 141, bottom of page. © Courtesy huang Hui: p. 227.
© Liu iaodong: p. 144, bottom of page. © Courtesy hu adong: p. 213.
© Courtesy L Sheng hong: p. 131. © Courtesy hu Yu: p. 389, bottom of page.
© Courtesy Ma Liuming: p. 187.
© Courtesy Mao Ton iang: o er. Text Copyrights
© Courtesy Mao uhui: p. 140, bottom © 2000 Ai Weiwei and eng Boyi: p. 354.
of page. © 1998 Cai uo- iang: p. 2 0.
© Masanobu Moriyama, ourtesy Cai uo- © 1981 Chen an ing: p. 25.
iang Studio: p. 2 4, top of page. © 2002 Chen L sheng: p. 274.
© Elio Montanari, ourtesy Cai uo- iang © 1992 Chen iao in: p. 299.
Studio: p. 3 9. © 1999: p. 207 English translation, © 2000
© Andr Morin: p. 2 4, bottom of page. a id and Alfred Smart Museum of Art:
© Courtesy eggy Wang: p. 399. pp. 343, 337 English translations.
© Courtesy in Yufen: p. 38 . © 1987 ing ang: p. 94.
© Courtesy iu hi ie: p. 189. © 198 : p. 10 , © 2003 ei awei: p. 252.
© Estate of obert aus henberg Li ensed © 1998 eng Boyi: p. 338.
by A A, New York, NY: p. 43. © 1999 ao Ling: p. 179.
© Courtesy ong ong: pp. 225 230 383, © 198 ao Minglu: pp. 52, 3.
bottom of page 393, top of page. © 199 u Chengfeng: p. 171.
© ong ong, ourtesy hang Huan: p. 214. © 1989 Hang ian and Cao iao ou: p. 121.
© Courtesy Shu un: p. 80. © 1994 Hou Hanru: pp. 249, 3 3.
© Song ong: p. 337, p. 384, top of page. © 1979 Huang ui: p. 7.
© Song ong, ourtesy of Yin iu hen: © 198 : pp. 95, 9 , © 2005 Huang Yong ing:
p. 329, bottom of page, p. 381. p. 103 English translation.
© Courtesy Sui ianguo: p. 144, top of page. © 1991: p. 291, © 199 : p. 191, © 2008 Huang
© Courtesy Sun Yuan: p. 272. huan: p. 1 7 English translation.
455
© 1988 ia ang hou: p. 100.
© 2003 Martina ppel-Yang and Time one 8:
p. 45.
|
© 2000 Leng Lin: p. 192.
© 1980: p. 11, © 198 : p. 2, © 1989: p. 11 ,
© 1992 Li ianting: p. 157.
© 1999 Liao Wen: p. 199.
© 1997 Lin Tianmiao: p. 197.
© 1989: p. 2 9 © 2000 Liu, Hung: p. 2 9.
© 1997 Liu ianhua: p. 21 .
© 1985: p. 45, © 2000 Liu iao hun: p. 377.
© 1992: pp. 290, 298, © 1993 L eng: p. 303.
© 1981 Luo hongli: p. 23.
© 1994 Ma Liuming: p. 187.
© 1987 Mao uhui: p. 89.
© 2003 MIT and Maine College of Art, by
permission of The MIT ress: p. 257.
© 2001 New Art Media Limited: pp. 353, 3 8
English translations.
© 1989 eng e: p. 127.
© 1999 i ao ian and i Li: p. 310.
© 1999: p. 271, © 2003 iu hi ie: p. 188.
© 2004 ong ong: p. 230.
© 1987 Shu un: p. 79.
© 2003 Tao Yongbai: p. 194
© 2000 Time one 8: pp. 217, 231, 24 .
© 1981 Wang Chuan: p. 29.
© 198 Wang uangyi: p. 78.
© 1997 Wang ianwei: p. 242.
© 2000 Wang in: p. 215.
© 1997 Wang insong: p. 217.
© 1993 Wang Lin: p. 3 .
© 2003 Wu Hong: p. 307.
© 1989: p. 105, © 2000 u Bing: p. 254
English translation.
© 1994 u Hong: p. 193.
© 1989 Yi Ying: p. 128.
© 1992 Yin inan: p. 155.
© 2003 Yin Shuang i: p. 324.
© 1995 Yin iu hen: p. 198.
© 1994 han Wang: p. 20 .
© 1994: p. 214, © 2000 hang Huan: p. 185.
© 2008 hang eili: pp. 112, 238.
© 2000 hang ing: p. 347.
© 1989 hou Yan: p. 114.
© 1994 hu adong: p. 213.
© 2003 hu ingsheng: p. 351.
© 2003 hu Yu and Wu Hung: p. 277.
© 1995, p. 227 © 1997 huang Hui: p. 2 .
TRUSTEES OF THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
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© 2010 The Museum of Modern Art

In the print edition of this publication, on page 121, the 1989

with the assistance of

Inside covers: Hong Hao. Selected Scriptures,

Produced by the Department of Publications,

Edited by Joseph N. Newland, Q.E.D.

This book is typeset in Linotype Syntax, Neuzon,

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Distributed by Duke University Press, Durham, N.C.

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| AFTER THE STORM

1CONTEMPORARY ART AS DOMESTIC

6 UNOFFICIAL ART GROUPS AND EXHIBITIONS

II. THE ARRIVAL OF AN AVANT-GARDE

III. FROM COLLECTIVITY TO INDIVIDUAL

100 RETHINKING THE MOVEMENT

II. EXTRINSIC PERSPECTIVES

289 ESTABLISHING AN INFRASTRUCTURE FOR

396 CODA: ENTERING THE NEW MILLENNIUM

408 CHRONICLE 1976 – 2006

437 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

456 THE TRUSTEES OF THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

• The volume is not meant to be a comprehensive archive, nor does it provide an

UNOFFICIAL ART GROUPS AND EXHIBITIONS

PREFACE TO THE FIRST NATURE, SOCIETY, AND MAN EXHIBITION

PREFACE TO THE FIRST STARS ART EXHIBITION ( XINGXING MEIZHAN )

A LETTER TO THE PEOPLE ( 1979 )

Mar h to phold the Constitution and We Want oliti al emo ra y, We Want

Bei ing, tober 1, 1979

UNOFFICIAL ART GROUPS AND EXHIBITIONS

B eginning in 1979, a heated debate took place in the mainstream journal

FORMALIST AESTHETICS IN PAINTING ( 1979 )

EMOTION, INDIVIDUALITY, FORMAL AESTHETICS ( 1979 )

NEW DIRECTIONS IN REALIST PAINTING

SOME THOUGHTS ON CREATING THE PICTURE-STORY BOOK MAPLE

CONGLIN’S THEMATIC OIL PAINTINGS ( 1970s / 1994 )

Native Soil Art

A LETTER FROM THE ARTIST OF FATHER ( FUQIN ) ( 1981 ) pl. 5

riginally published as Wo de Fuqin de uo he de lai in in Meishu [ Art 158, no. 2 1981 : 4 5.

MY SEVEN PAINTINGS ( 1981 )

photographs seem to la k a ertain power of e pression when dire ted at e eryday

Melancholy Youth and “Contemplative

EXPECTING HER TO WALK ON THE MAIN ROAD ( 1981 )

ur generation is a generation that works hard and passionately pursues a better

“CONTEMPLATIVE PAINTING” IN CHINA AND ANDREW WYETH ( 1985 )

II. THE ARRIVAL OF AN

( ZAI XINSHIDAI ) ( 1985 ) pl. 7

By Zhang Qun and Meng Luding

PIONEERS OF CONTEMPORARY CHINESE ART — A CRITIQUE OF THE

BEIJING THEORISTS’ REACTIONS TO THE ART OF ROBERT

Ge Yan esear h Institute of ine Arts : aus henberg is widely a knowledged as a

e hibition as de adent or ridi ulous, as if taking it as an irre on ilable enemy.

Lü Pintian raduate Student in Art Theory, Chinese National A ademy of Arts :

FOREWORD TO FINE ARTS IN CHINA ( 1985 )

on erning the moderni ation of traditional Chinese painting, initiated by Li iaoshan s

arti le My pinion on Contemporary Chinese ainting, published in Jiangsu Pictorial

A Semiotic Analysis Hong ong: Time one , , .

THE ’85 ART MOVEMENT ( 1986 )