Experimentation in Contemporary art in China: Xu Bing and Zhang Xiaogang (original) (raw)
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Chinese Contemporary Art: where it comes from, where it goes goes
Asiadémica - Revista universitaria de estudios sobre Asia oriental, 2022
I propose a tour of Chinese contemporary art starting in the 1990s and the then very important role played by foreign taste, interpretations, and markets, as well as the succession of international exhibitions it gave rise to. The dawn of the new millennium was marked by the meteoric rise to international markets and an unprecedented opening of new museums and galleries of contemporary art in China. However, after the 2008/9 financial crisis, market interest waned, and international exhibitions slowed down. Today, despite a marked experimentalism in Chinese contemporary art, it seems to convey a renewed interest in traditional culture. Finally, I analyse the ideological interpretations to which a fairly big part of contemporary artworks by Chinese artists has been subjected to by Western critics, and the deficient understanding of the term “modernity” that has been at stake. I finish trying to figure out what the future may hold for Chinese contemporary art.
An Art Project in Archives, 2019
In 1988, Italian curator Monica Dematté, who attended by chance the Huangshan Conference, an event that led to the conception of the seminal China/Avant-Garde exhibition of 1989, wrote a special edition of Art News of China entitled “Overseas People Talk About Modern Chinese Art.” She said: “I believe that after a certain period of time, more and more artists will have a critical consciousness that allows them to face any external influence without imitation.”2 In any case, with the uproar around Tian’anmen Square and the closing the of China/Avant-Garde exhibition, 1989 was an important turning point for contemporary Chinese art in the 1990s.
Development of Contemporary Chinese Art
In this historical study, I offer two interpretive ideas. First, the development of contemporary Chinese art is shaped by the influence of modern and contemporary Western art and art theory, and determined by the Chinese response to the influence. Second, such an interpretation of the development comes from and also gives birth to my own interpretive theory, “Semiotic Structure in the Hermeneutic World.”
This magnificent installation symbolises aspects of the old and the emerging China. While the medium and technique are traditionally Chinese, the scale and intent of the work align it with contemporary artistic practice. This chapter returns to the Taoist art form, calligraphy, to examine its application in experimental contemporary installation art to thematically signify ‘continuity and change’. It also returns, back to their origins in China, an acknowledgement of the Taoist influences that contributed to the development of Western installation art. Xu Bing’s artwork, Book from the Sky (1987-1991) represents this direct, inter-cultural development. The artwork is experimental, contemporary, and as installation art, uses a Western form of expression; it is arguably a direct, and indirect outcome of the influence of Taoism.