wang-official art in contemporary china.pdf

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CONFRONTATION AND COMPLICITY: RETHINKING OFFICIAL ARTIN CONTEMPORARY CHINA

BY

MEIQIN WANG

BA, Fujian Teachers University, 1998

MA, China Academy of Arts, 2002

DISSERTATION

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements forthe degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Art History

in the Graduate School of

Binghamton University

State University of New York

2007


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UMI Number: 3273581

3273581

2007

Copyright 2007 by

Wang, Meiqin

UMI Microform

Copyright

All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against

unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

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by ProQuest Information and Learning Company.


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Copyright by Meiqin Wang 2007

All rights reserved


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Accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for

The degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Art History

In the Graduate School of

Binghamton University

State University of New York

2007

June 5, 2007

Nancy UmDepartment of Art HistoryBinghamton University

Aruna DSouza, Department of Art History, Binghamton University

Pamela Smart, Anthropology Department, Binghamton University


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Abstract

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Chinese state has evidently changed

its stance towards contemporary art within a society that is marked by rapid

marketization and the resulting extensive social transformations. The government has put

considerable effort, both human and financial resources, into supporting and promoting

Chinese contemporary art, which historically was unofficial and underground. At the

same time it has invested greatly into presenting contemporary Chinese official art by

introducing new art institutions, widely practiced in the international art world, including

the international biennial and individual curatorship. This dissertation endeavors to

articulate the above mentioned changes in relation to changing unofficial art, changing

Chinese society, and changing Chinese politics. I argue that the new direction that

Chinese official art has taken since the beginning of the twenty-first century has, to a

great extent, epitomized the Chinese governments newly conceived cultural policies and

multiple administrative approaches towards art and its modified vision of the function of

art in Chinese society as it actively responds to the ongoing transnational and external

processes in the age of globalization.

In this study, I utilize a few important official art exhibitions as a framing mechanism

through which I examine the shifting institutional context and representation of Chinese

official art since the late 1990s. In particular, I investigate two important exhibitions in

2003: the first Chinese Pavilion of the Venice Biennale (Chinese Pavilion) and the First

Beijing International Art Biennale (Beijing Biennale) respectively authorized by the


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Ministry of Culture and the Chinese Artists Association. Both exhibitions endeavored to

present authentic contemporary Chinese art and Chinese values, but did so in almost

opposite ways, in terms of the curatorial methods, the theme, content, and the types of

works exhibited. Through highlighting different roles played by governmental,

institutional, and individual agencies in the staging of these exhibitions, the dissertation

explores the recently emerged internal divisions within the scope of Chinese official art

and the intricate collaborative relations between official and unofficial art.


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For my mother Xie Suying and my husband Zeng Naifang


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Acknowledgements

My principal thanks and appreciation to Nancy Um for persevering with me as my

advisor throughout the time it took me to complete this dissertation. During the course,

she provided invaluable guidance and advice in shaping my critical perspective,

encouraged me to develop independent thinking and analytical skills, and greatly assisted

me with critical writing. Without her constant supervision, this dissertation would not be

possible. Not only was she readily available for me, as she so generously is for all of her

students, but she always read and responded to the drafts of each chapter of my

dissertation more quickly than I could have hoped. The members of my dissertation

committee, Professor Aruna DSouza in art history, and Professor Pamela Smart in

Anthropology, have generously given their time and individual expertise to better my

work. Their role in critiquing at different stages of my writing provided invaluable

criticism for enriching this dissertation and for my future projects. I thank them for their

contribution and their good-natured support. Professor Nicholas Kaldis, who specializes

in Chinese language and literature, was a keen outside reader and critic of this

dissertation. I am grateful to his incisive and detailed comments and important

grammatical corrections in the last stage of revising my dissertation. My landlady and

friend Mary Helen Chapman, a music teacher, deserves special thanks for being the first

reader of all my rough writings and for her voluntary help with proofreading and editing

of every single page of my dissertation. Of course, despite all the assistance provided by

Professor Nancy Um and others, I alone remain responsible for the content of my writing,

including any errors or omissions which may unwittingly remain.


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I must acknowledge as well many people on the faculty and staff of the Art History

Department at Binghamton who assisted and encouraged me in various ways during my

doctoral study. I am especially grateful to Professor John Tagg, Barbara Abou-EL-Haj,

and Tom McDonough for their continuous support in my getting department funding and

a Dissertation Years Award, which enabled me to study at this university and to complete

my dissertation. I am also thankful to a former professor Abidin Kusno, from whom I

have learned so much in critical thinking as an independent and open-minded scholar at

the beginning of my study in Binghamton. I would like to acknowledge Meng-Shi Chen,

Ann Chu, Jeremy Culler, Deniz Karakas, Kivanc Kilinc, Raed Altal, Selen Ugur, Shriya

Sridharan, Victoria Scott as well the many other friends, colleagues, and librarians who

assisted, advised, and supported my study and my life over the years. I especially thank

Hong Kal, a former art history graduate student from Binghamton for sharing

conversations and ideas that greatly inspired me in choosing my research topic. Christine

Bianco, another former colleague, deserves special thanks for helping me with my

English writing and for her friendship. I-Fang Wu, a librarian working in the university,

guided and helped me in settling down at Binghamton and enriched my entire life here. I

thank her for all her warmth and kindness. I also want to thank Yang Weishuai, a current

doctoral student in computer science. He and I began graduate school in the same year at

Binghamton and he became a best friend who has been helping me with all my computer

problems for these years.

My thanks must also go to the many Chinese scholars and artists who have helped me

building up a close contact with the Chinese art world. I would like to make special


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mention of Professor Wang Yong, my former advisor when I was a masters student in the

China Academy of Arts and one of the curators of the Beijing Biennale and the first

Chinese Pavilion. With his encouragement and support, I was able to set my heart for

pursuing a higher degree in the United States. He has continued giving me advice and

support for all these years, both mentally and practically. He generously provided me

with a copy of the exhibition catalogue of the Beijing Biennale and many other important

texts and allowed me to conduct several interviews with him during the past couple of

years. He also provided contact information and recommendations so that I could conduct

interviews with many people who were involved in the Beijing Biennale and the Chinese

Pavilion. With his recommendation, I visited the Beijing International Art Biennale

Office and with the kindness of the office director Tao Qin and a staff member Feng yan,

I obtained a copy of precious official documents and other materials related to the Beijing

Biennale.

I also need to express my gratitude and deep appreciation to Professor Gao Minglu who

kindly invited me to work with him as a curator associate in 2005 for his large exhibition

The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art, which provided me with a great

opportunity to build up many first-hand experiences and to contact many artists that were

important in my dissertation. In addition, he and his wife Sun Jin also are also very

warm-hearted people who made me feel so welcomed in their home both in the United

States and in China. I also have to thank an expatriate artist Zhu Wei who resides in New

York City for his generosity and warm support in providing me with contact information

for many active art professionals in China. He and his family gave me the best welcome


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with nice food and accommodations whenever I visited New York City. For the same

reason, I am grateful to art critic Jia Fangzhou, who not only tried his best to introduce

me to as many critics, curators, and cultural officials in China as he could, which

facilitated me greatly in conducting my research, but also generously presented me with a

valuable set of books edited by him in Chinese art criticism. I appreciate his

extraordinary kindness and enthusiasm in nurturing my expertise on the structure of the

Chinese art world. I am also thankful to curator and critic Feng Boyi for his enthusiastic

help in connecting me with many Chinese contemporary artists and his generosity in

giving me a copy of privately published and circulated books on Chinese contemporary

art.

I must also thank many Chinese artists, scholars, and friends for their support and help in

various ways during my research in China. In particular I thank Chen Qiulin, Guo

Xiaoyan, Huang Du, Lin Hao, Liu Jinyi, Shui Tianzhong, Sun HongJian, Sun Weimin,

Wang Duanting, Wang Huangsheng, Wang Nanming, Xu Bing, Yang Fudong, Yin Kun,

Yu Jiantao, Zhan Wang, Zhao Quanli, Zheng Pin, and Zhuo Fan for their support and

patience in allowing me to conduct interviews or conversation with them. I especially

thank artists Liu Jianhua and Lu Zhengzhong for their generosity of not only spending

time with me in interviews but for allowing me to download and use their personal

diaries.

Finaly my most grateful thanks go to my family. I thank my parents, Qingshui and

Suying, for their faith in me and allowing me to be as ambitious as I wanted to pursue an


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academic career. My mom was a constant source of support and her voice over phone

often made me feel happy and encouraged. I'm grateful to my sister for her understanding

of my academic pursuit and for her taking care of my mom in these years. I'm especially

thankful to my husband and best friend, Naifang, for his endless support, encouragement,

quiet patience and steadfast love. His tolerance of my occasional unstable moods is a

testament in itself his untiring devotion and love.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract iv

Acknowledgements vii

List of Figures xiv

I INTRODUCTION 1

1. The Starting Point 6

2. Main Objectives and the Methodology 17

3. Literature Review 25

4. The Shape of the Dissertation 35

II OPERATING TRADITIONAL OFFICIAL ART 39

1. Introduction 39

2. CAA: The Nationalized Art Institution 41

3. A Case Study: the Ninth National Art Work Exhibition 534. Conclusion 69

III THE ART WORLD OF POST-DENG CHINA 72

1. Introduction 72

2. Marketization, Culture Industry, and Art 76

3. Globalization, Exhibitions, and Transnational Art 89

4. Cultural Nationalism and Pulling Back Chinese Contemporary Art 99

5. Conclusion 113

IV MAKING INTERNATIONAL APPEAL 117

1. Introduction 117


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2. A Brief Historical Review 119

3. The First Chinese Pavilion 132

4. The Officialization of Contemporary Art 146

5. The New Cultural Arena 158

6. Conclusion 172

V FORMING CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS 177

1. Introduction 177

2. The Show and the Award Winners 180

3. The Nationalistic Proposal 192

5. The Reality of Chinese Characteristics 2136. Conclusion 226

VI CONCLUSION: CONFRONTATION AND COMPLICITY 233

1. Multiple Official Art(s) 236

2. Flexible Individuals and Flexible Administration 242

3. Opportunistic Spaces 250

4. Final Remarks 255

GLOSSARY 256

FIGURES 264

BIBLIOGRAPHY 299

I. Primary Sources 300

II. Secondary sources 332


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List of Figures

Figure 1: Zheng Li,Intellectual Family, 1999, Chinese painting, 170 x 248 cm.(Source: http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm)

265

Figure 2: Yu Changjiang, Chen Rong, Qian Zongfei, & Wu Taoyi,

The Epic of the Militia, 1999, Chinese painting, 246 x 243 cm.

(Source: http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm)

265

Figure 3: Han Shuo,Hot-blooded, 1999, Chinese painting, 189 x 211 cm.


266

Figure 4: Leng Jun, Pentagram, 1999, oil on canvas 130 x 130 cm.


266

Figure 5: Wang Hongjian, Yang Guan San Die, 1998-1999, oil on canvas,

190 x 179 cm. (Source: http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm)

267

Figure 6: Qin Wenqing, Soldiers, 1997, oil on canvas, 152x204 cm.


267

Figure 7: Zheng Feng,Immortals, 1999, oil on canvas, 160 x 160 cm.(Source: http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm)

268

Figure 8: Yuan Wu,Memorial of the 1998, 1998, Chinese painting, 283 x 156 cm.(Source: http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm)

268

Figure 9: Shao Yachuan,Inspecting the dyke, 1998, oil on canvas, 267x232 cm.


269

Figure 10: Qiu Ruimin, Ma Hongdao, & Shi Qiren,Looking into the Future,

1999, oil on canvas, 168x252 cm. (Source:

http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm)

269

Figure 11: Ai Minyou & Zhang Qingtao,Inspection, 1996, oil on canvas, 359 x

227 cm. (Source: http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm)

270

Figure 12: Wang Pi, The Old Song-I Dedicate Oil to My Motherland, 1999, oil on

canvas, 168x168 cm.

(Source:http://www.dlgallery.com.cn/dalian/exhibit/ninth/ninth.chnyh.htm)

270

Figure 13: Yang Jinxing,Date, 1999, Chinese painting, 201 x 130 cm. 271


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Figure 14: Zhang Zhenggang, Space, 1999, oil on canvas, 113 x 145 cm.


271

Figure 15: Zheng Yi,Blazing Heart, 1999, oil on canvas, 176 x 162 cm.(Source: http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm) 272

Figure 16: Lin Sen, Feast, 1999, oil on canvas, 170 x 110 cm.(Source: http://www.rbzarts.com/rbzhtml/NO9/no9.htm)

272

Figure 17: He Yunchang,Making An Appointment-Golden Sunshine, 1998, oil oncanvas, 225x174 cm. (Source:


273

Figure 18: Cao Jigang,Mountain As Ocean, 1999, oil on canvas, 225x177cm.


273

Figure 19: Wu Jingchu,The Unyielding Character of Plum Blossoms, 1999,Chinese painting, 230 x 158 cm. (Source:


274

Figure 20: the billboard on the road to Song Zhuang that is entitled Welcome to

[Song Village] Chinese Contemporary Artist Community. (Source:

photographed by Yu Jiantao (an independent artist resides in SongZhuang))

275

Figure 21: Xu Bing, Tobacco project: shanghai, 2004, installation. (Source:photographed by the author) 276

Figure 22: Wang Guangyi, Great Castigation Series: Coca-Cola, 1992, oil on

canvas, 200 x 200 cm. (Source: Doran, Valerie C., ed. China's New art,

Post-1989. 1993)

277

Figure 23: Yu Youhan, The Waving Mao, 1990, acrylic on canvas, 145 x 130 cm.

(Source: Doran, Valerie C., ed. China's New art, Post-1989. 1993)

277

Figure 24: Fang Lijun, Series II, No. 2, 1992, oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm.

(Source: Gao, Minglu, ed. Inside/Out: New Chinese Art.SanFrancisco: San Francisco Museum of ModernArt.1998)

278

Figure 25: Liu Wei, The Revolutionary Family: Dad in front of A Poster of Zhu

De, 1990, oil on canvas, 100 x 100 cm. (Source: Doran, Valerie C., ed.China's New art, Post-1989. 1993)

278

Figure 26: Cai Guoqiang,Rent Collection Courtyard, 1999, installation. 279


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(Source: http://www.caiguoqiang.com/project_detail.php?id=33&iid=0)

Figure 27: Ye Yushan with a team of sculptors from the Sichuan Academy of Fine

Arts. Detail of the Rend Collection Courtyard, 1965, clay in life-size.

(Source:http://www.morningsun.org/stages/rent_courtyard_intro.html)

279

Figure 28: Sun Weimin,Nuanyang[warm sunlight], 1996, 180x190 cm, oil on

canvas. (Source:Ershi Shiji Zhongguo you hua [Chinese Oil Painting

of the Twentieth Century], eds. Art Department of the Culture Ministryof the PRC & Chinese Oil Painting Society. 2001)

280

Figure 29: Liu Xiaodong, Weigui[get out of line], 1996, 180x230 cm, oil oncanvas. (Source:Ershi Shiji Zhongguo you hua [Chinese Oil Painting

of the Twentieth Century], eds. Art Department of the Culture Ministry

of the PRC & Chinese Oil Painting Society. 2001)

280

Figure 30: Shen Ling,Life's companion, 1996, oil on canvas. (Source:Ershi ShijiZhongguo you hua [Chinese Oil Painting of the Twentieth Century],

eds. Art Department of the Culture Ministry of the PRC & Chinese OilPainting Society. 2001)

281

Figure 31: Chen Yifei, Father and Son, Tibet, 1995, oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm.(Source: http://www.marlboroughfineart.com/artists/view.asp?id=29)

281

Figure 32: Wang Shu,Between Dismantle and Construct, 2003, installation.(Source: http://cn.cl2000.com/subject/wnssnz/chzp/zp.shtml)

282

Figure 33: Zhan Wang, Urban Landscape, 2003, installation.(Source: http://cn.cl2000.com/subject/wnssnz/chzp/zp.shtml) 282

Figure 34: Yang Fudong, three stills fromHeaven Heaven, Jasmine Jasmine,

2002, video. (Source:

http://cn.cl2000.com/subject/wnssnz/chzp/zp.shtml)

283

Figure 35: Lu Shengzhong,Landscape Study, 2003, installation.

(Source: from the artist)

283

Figure 36: Liu Jianhua,Daily-Fragile, 2003, installation.

(Source: http://cn.cl2000.com/subject/wnssnz/chzp/zp.shtml)

284

Figure 37: Lu Shengzhong, PropitiousOmen Descending, installation.

(Source: http://arts.tom.com/zhanlan/lsztw/index.php)

284

Figure 38: Wang Yingsheng, Strolling II, 2001, Chinese painting, 200 x 270 cm.

(Source: The Album of the First Beijing International Art Biennale

[exhibition catalogue], ed., the Chinese Artists Association, 2003)

285


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Figure 39: Zhang Chenchu,Brothers and Sisters, 2001-2002, oil painting, 200 x

475 cm. (Source: The Album of the First Beijing International Art

Biennale [exhibition catalogue], ed., the Chinese Artists Association,

2003)

285

Figure 40: Guo Zhenyu and his twenty-eight handicapped students from theSpecial Education Vocational School at Shandong province, The

Chinese Roots, 1999-2003, sculpture, 400 x 2000 x 150 cm. (Source:The Album of the First Beijing International Art Biennale [exhibitioncatalogue], ed., the Chinese Artists Association, 2003)

286

Figure 41: Zheng Li,Intellectual Family-2, 2002, Chinese painting, 170 x 248cm. (Source: The Album of the First Beijing International Art Biennale


286

Figure 42: Leng Jun, Century Scenery-4, 1996, oil on canvas, 105 x 200 cm.

(Source: The Album of the First Beijing International Art Biennale[exhibition catalogue], ed., the Chinese Artists Association, 2003)

287

Figure 43: Georg Baselitz,Attacking II, 1986, oil on canvas, 250 x 200 cm.

(Source: The Album of the First Beijing International Art Biennale


287

Figure 44: Sam Francis, right: 23, oil on canvas, 1967, 58x82.5cm; left: 29, 1979,

oil on canvas, 91 x 61.5 cm. (Source: The Album of the First Beijing

International Art Biennale [exhibition catalogue], ed., the Chinese

Artists Association, 2003)

288

Figure 45: Omer Galliani,New Anatomy, 2003, 300 x 200 cm each. (Source: The

Album of the First Beijing International Art Biennale [exhibitioncatalogue], ed., the Chinese Artists Association, 2003)

288

Figure 46: Nosratollah Moslemian, Series of Untitled, 2002-2003, acrylic, left:

189 x 259 cm; right: 155 x 245 cm. (Source: The Album of the First

Beijing International Art Biennale [exhibition catalogue], ed., the

Chinese Artists Association, 2003)

289

Figure 47: Matti Kujasalo, Untitled, acrylics on canvas, 2002, 200 x 200 cm each.

(Source: The Album of the First Beijing International Art Biennale[exhibition catalogue], ed., the Chinese Artists Association, 2003)

289

Figure 48: Yuri Kalyuta,Melissa, 1997, oil on canvas, 120 x 100 cm. (Source:

The Album of the First Beijing International Art Biennale [exhibitioncatalogue], ed., the Chinese Artists Association, 2003)

290

Figure 49: Fernandez Arman,Discus Thrower, 2002, bronze sculpture, H: 180 290


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cm. (Source: The Album of the First Beijing International Art Biennale


Figure 50: Kurt Schwager, Transzendenz, 2002, marble sculpture, 140 x 130 x 40

cm.(Source: The Album of the First Beijing International Art Biennale


291

Figure 51: The logo of the first Beijing Biennale (Source: The Album of the FirstBeijing International Art Biennale [exhibition catalogue], ed., theChinese Artists Association, 2003)

291

Figure 52: Liu Liyun,Landscape scroll, 2004, sculpture/installation, 90x510x4cm. (Source:

http://www.bjbiennale.com.cn/artists/ArtistS_detail-e.asp?ArtistID=77

8)

292

Figure 53: Hu Mingzhe,Natural Traces, 2005, sculpture/installation,200x400x1.5x30 cm. (Source:

http://cn.cl2000.com/subject/2005BIAB/images/005.jpg)

292

Figure 54: The entrance of the Artist Group Reception Center of Song Zhuang.

(Source: http://www.chinasongzhuang.cn/html/2006-08/152.htm)

293

Figure 55: The archway with Song Zhuang China over the street in Xiaopu

Village of Song Zhuang.(Source: http://www.chinasongzhuang.cn/html/2006-09/226.htm)

293

Figure 56: Poster of the Fist Song Zhuang Culture and Art Festival. The bigChinese character in yellow that dominates the scene is a variation on

the character Song of Song Zhuang.(Source:

http://www.ionly.com.cn/pro/news/info3/20051024/012441.html)

294

Figure 57: Poster of the Second Song Zhaung Culture and Art Festival.(Source: http://ent.sina.com.cn/y/2006-09-08/16121237662.html)

294

Figure 58: The exterior view of the Beijing Song Zhuang TS1 Art Center.(Source:

http://club.qingdaonews.com/cachedir/41/30/52/3052861_1.htm)

295

Figure 59: The inaugural show of the Beijing Song Zhuang TS1 Art Center, with

sculptural works by Fang Lijun in front.

(Source:http://club.qingdaonews.com/cachedir/41/30/52/3052861_1.htm)

295

Figure 60: Exterior view of the Song Zhuang Art Museum. (Source: 296


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http://blog.artron.net/attachments/2006/06/15/2006615_d940ff118077f

df275b1f64855f1a414.jpg)

Figure 61: The architectural piece with the name of Shangshang Art Museum, in

Li Xiantings calligraphic script.

(Source:http://arts.tom.com/uimg/2006/11/29/peigang/pgszzz01_62421.jpg)

296

Figure 62: The exterior view of Beijing East Zone Art Center.(Source: http://www.yahqq.com/article/view.asp?id=1105)

297

Figure 63: Exterior view of Song Zhuang Private Art Museum.(Source: http://www.chinasongzhuang.cn/html/2006-08/150.htm)

297

Figure 64: The main street of the Xiaopu Village where the commercial plaza islocated. The view of artists setting up their exhibits, October 6, 2006.

(Source: http://www.chinasongzhuang.cn/html/2006-10/402.htm)

298

Figure 65: A view of a show on the main street of the Xiaopu Village where thecommercial plaza is located. The front figure was a peasant who

probably came to see the show, October 6, 2006. (Source:

http://www.chinasongzhuang.cn/html/2006-10/402.htm)

298


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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Accompanying the tremendous attention that the rapid economic growth of China has

gained at a global level since the 1980s and particularly the 1990s, Chinese art has also

emerged as a category of great interest in the international art world. Since the late 1990s,

a large number of exhibitions have been dedicated to art from China by major museums

and art galleries in Euro-American countries;1 reports and reviews on the recent

development of Chinese art have constantly appeared in western media such as Art in

1 For example, Splendors of Imperial China by Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) in 1996,

Reckoning with the Past, Contemporary Chinese Painting by Fruitmarket Gallery (Edinburgh) in

1996, China Now by Kulturprojekte ( Basel) in 1997, China: 5000 Years by Solomon

Gugenheim Museum (New York and Bilbao) in 1998, Inside Out: New Chinese Art by Asia

Society and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center (New York) in 1998, Urban Yearnings: Portraits of

Contemporary China by San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco) in 1999, China:

Fifty Years Inside the Peoples Republic by Asia Society (New York) in 1999, Living in Time by

Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum fr Gegenwart (Berlin) in 2001, Paris Pekin by Espace Pierre

Cardin (Paris) in 2002, Text & Subtext by Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Centre

(Copenhagen) in 2002, Alors, la Chine? by Pompidou Center (Paris) in 2003, China: Dawn of a

Golden Age, 200-750 by Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) in 2004, All under Heaven:

China Now! by Museum of Contemporary Art (Antwerp) and Royal Museum of Fine Arts of

Antwerp (Antwerp) in 2004, Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China

by Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago) and Smart Museum of Art (Chicago) in 2004,Dreaming of the Dragon's Nation: Contemporary Art from China by Irish Museum of Modern

Art (Dublin) in 2004, Between Past and Future by Victoria and Albert Museum (London) in 2005,

Mahjong: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection by Kunstmuseum Bern (Bern) in

2005, On the Edge: Contemporary Chinese Artists Encounter the West by Davis Museum and

Cultural Center at Wellesley College (Massachusetts) in 2006, Chinese Painting on the Eve of the

Communist Revolution by Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University (California) in 2006, andInside Out Year of the Pig 2007 by London Trocadero Centre (London) in 2007. This list is far

from complete; a few more exhibitions on Chinese art are scheduled to open this year.


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America, Art Journal, Art News, Flash Art, and The New York Times; the demand and

prices for Chinese art in the international art market have also seen spectacular increases,

particularly in recent years;2

the number of students and scholars in the West who have

taken up Chinese art as their academic research topic is swelling as well.3 In the trend to

understand China from the aspect of art, among many other disciplines and perspectives,

a good proportion of energy has been devoted to Chinese unofficial art, including

avant-garde art in the 1980s and underground/contemporary art in the 1990s, which only

started to make its presence felt in the international art world in the early 1990s.

Unofficial art, a general term coined to describe art produced without sponsorship from

state-funded institutions and, by extension, without merely echoing official ideology, has

become an entry point for many scholars in the West to seek an understanding of the new

cultural scene in China. It allows them to compare the differences between cultural

production under Maoist Communist ideology and under socialist market ideology, or

even capitalism as some would prefer to call the latter, promoted by Chinas second

2 For recent report on the record breaking sale prices of Chinese art at the international art market,

see Carol Vogel, Sothebys Bets on a Windfall for Todays Chinese Art, The New York Times,

Mar 29, 2006; David Ebony, Chinese Contemporary Art Prices Skyrocket, Art in America, vol.

94 iss. 5 (May 2006): 45; Simon Elegant, The Great China Sale,Time Magazine, Nov 19, 2006;

Carol Vogel, China Celebrates the Year of the Art Market, The New York Times, Dec 24, 2006;

David Barboza, In Chinas New Revolution, Arts Greets Capitalism,The New York Times, Jan 4,2007; and Jonathan Napack, An Art Market with Chinese Characteristics, Yishu=Journal of

Contemporary Chinese Art, Spring Issue (Mar 2007): 16-18; and Katya Kazakina, Zhang

Xiaogang and Yue Minjun Lead Sotheby's Asian Art Sale, Bloomberg News, Mar 22, 2007.


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leader Deng Xiaoping and continued by his successors.

For quite a while, Chinese unofficial art has been at the center of newly obtained interest

in Chinese art from reporters, critics, and scholars outside of China; Chinese official art,

on the other hand, has been largely neglected as if there were nothing new worthy of

discussion. When it is actually mentioned, it has been described as conservative, static,

and not responding to contemporary life and has usually been associated with cultural

authorities and the Chinese Communist Party, against which the energetic, dissident and

rebellious unofficial art positions itself.4 I would not argue that this interpretation of the

relationship between Chinese official art and unofficial art has no historical basis at all.

On the contrary, it carries certain validity in analyzing the Chinese art world in the 1980s.

However, things have changed in China since the 1990s and this politically charged

binary formula between official art and unofficial art, which constitutes the foundation

upon which most interpretation about contemporary art from China evolves outside of

4 For examples, see Andrew Solomon, Their Irony, Humor (and art) Can Save China, The New

York Times Magazine, Dec 19, 1993 and Lynn MacRitchie, Report from Beijing: Precarious Paths

on the Mainland,Art in America(Mar 1994): 51-57. Also, as late as 1999, the senior Chinese art

historian John Clark, in his 1999 catalogue essay for the exhibition Beyond Exile, applied

self-enclosed to describe Chinese official art world and commented: Official art concerned itself

with the aesthetics of the well-made, a performative, academic and ultimately vacuous definition ofartistic achievement devoid of the contemporary contestation or at least engagement with the

frictions of the modernizing lived world of Chinese which would give it meaning. He then

presented his great appreciation of art made by a few unofficial Chinese artists (he called them

modern artists) that showed a very serious concern for art and its critical relation to social life.

John Clark, Beyond Exile, inModern Chinese Art Foundation Catalogue(Provincie Bestuur van

Oost-Vlaanderen, Belgium, 1999). John Clark, however, was soon going to publish an in-depth and

updated essay on the Chinese art world that shed light on the changing nature of Chinese unofficial

art; see note 10.


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China, has greatly lost its applicability. Hou Hanru, an art critic and curator who

originates from China, has pointed out that in the West there is not only a lack of

knowledge and understanding of contemporary art of China, but that current studies

about it had not been able to avoid the Western clich that modern Chinese art is tainted

by ideological preoccupations and that in China the official establishment maintains a

monolithic approach in art production.5 His critique certainly was directed at the kind of

reviews on contemporary Chinese art in which official art was often formulated as an

integrated entity whose modality and appearance were clearly defined and determined by

the political authorities while unofficial art was described as a dissident art or avant-garde

art that embodied a different political agenda and free creative inspiration.6

In the past couple of years, however, there has been a much deeper and revised

understanding of Chinese unofficial art in the West, as the further opening of China and the

convenience of global communication and transnational travel enable much closer

observations. Some critics and reporters have started to question the outwardly anti-official

political nature of Chinese unofficial art and to explore its hidden intentions;7some have

5 Hou Hanru, Entropy, Chinese Artists, Western Art Institutions: A New Internationalism, in

Global Visions: Towards a New Internationalism in the Visual Arts, Jean Fisher (ed.)(London: Kala Press, 1994), 79-88.

6 In his seminal study of the avant-garde, Ralph Croizier discussed this western preoccupied

fascination of Chinese avant-garde art in the early 1990s. See Ralph Croizier, The Avant-garde

and the Democracy Movement: Reflections on Late Communism in the USSR and China,

Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 51 no. 3 (1999): 483-513.

7 For example, in her review of the exhibition New Art in China, Post-1989, Susan Platt questioned:


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also discussed the relaxed governmental attitude towards contemporary art practice and the

resulting flourishing of the art scene;8 they have also discovered the market-driven nature

of much contemporary art produced by young Chinese artists who now have maneuvered

their art as one kind of business.9Nonetheless, not much energy has been invested in the

consideration of Chinese official art, a category that itself has undergone no less dramatic

and complex transformation than unofficial art from China.10

This dissertation is

dedicated to the study of official art in contemporary China, in relation to changing

unofficial art, changing Chinese society, and changing Chinese politics. I believe that the

new direction that Chinese official art has taken since the beginning of the twenty-first

century has, to a great extent, epitomized the Chinese governments newly conceived

cultural policies and multiple administrative approaches towards art and its modified

vision of the function of art in Chinese society in the age of globalization.

Is the work that has been exported for New Art in China, with the epithet Post-1989 actually a

protest against the government? Or is it nothing but a game, a game that the Chinese artists are

playing for a place in the international art worldthe same game that all artists play? See Susan

Platt, New Art in China, Post-1989,Art Papers, vol. 22 no. 2 (Mar/Apr 1998): 37.

8 A few examples here: Meg Maggio, Bullish In Beijing, China Review Magazine, iss. 26,

October, 2003. (Accessed May 8, 2005);, Craig Simons,

Amid Ghosts of the Red Guard, The Avant-garde Now Blooms, The New York Times, Sep 1, 2004;

Jonathan Napack. Young Beijing,Art in America,vol. 92 iss. 6 (Jun/Jul 2004): 142-145.

9 For this point, see Jonathan Napack: An Art Market with Chinese Characteristics,

Yishu=Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art,Spring Issue (Mar 2007): 16-18. Also see CharlotteHiggins, Is Chinese Art Kicking Butt or Kissing It?, The Guardian, Nov 9, 2004 and Simon

Elegant, The Great China Sale,Time Magazine, Nov 19, 2006.

10 A notable exception is John Clarks essay analyzing the transformation of the Chinese art system

in the 1990s and discussing the blurring tendency of the boundary between official art and

unofficial art. See John Clark, System and Style in the Practice of Chinese Contemporary Art: The

Disappearing Exterior?, Yishu=Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, vol. 1 no. 2 (Summer

2002): 13-31.


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1. The Starting Point

In order to understand the complex development/transformation of contemporary official

Chinese art in recent years, it is necessary to take a quick look at the basic structure and

main dynamics of the Chinese art world since the late 1970s, which consisted of the

dominant official art and the growing unofficial art. As it is well-known, during Mao

Zedongs reign from 1949 to 1976, there was scarcely any dissenting voice in the entire

Chinese art scene. The dominant ideological guideline for artistic creation was the social

realist doctrine formulated in Maos 1942 Yanan Talks on Literature and Arts and

elaborated by certain art administrators after 1949.11

However, different voices began to

be brought into the Chinese art scene when a relaxed social and political environment

precipitated as a result of Deng Xiaopings Reform and Open-door Policy in 1978.12

11 For the talk delivered by Mao Zedong, see Mao Zedong,Zai Yanan Wenyi Zuotanhui shang de

Jianghua [Talks on the Conference of Literature and Arts at Yanan] (Yanan: Liberation

Publishing House, 1943); a few scholars have done extensive analysis in their book-length study in

examining Mao Zedong art theory and its application in the Chinese art world, including Julia

Frances Andrews, Painters and Politics in the People's Republic of China, 1949-1979 (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1994); Arnold Chang, Painting in the People's Republic of China:

the Politics of Style(Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1980); Maria Galikowski,ArtandPoliticsin

China, 1949-1984(Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1998); and Ellen Johnston Laing, The

Winking Owl: Art in the People's Republic of China. Berkeley (University of California Press,

1988).

12 Reform and Open-door policy, Gaige Kaifang, was launched by Deng Xiaoping in 1978,

which aimed to reform Chinas economic system for higher productivity and to open Chinas door

to the entire world including Western capitalist countries. For more readings of the new

developments in the Chinese art and cultural world under Deng Xiaopings reform policy, seeHans Van Dijk, Painting in China after the Cultural Revolution: Style Developments and

Theoretical Debates, China Information, vol.VI, no.4 (Spring 1992):1-18; Gao Minglu, Shu Qun,

and others in their collaborated book, Zhongguo Dangdai Meishu Shi [The History of Chinese

Contemporary Art 1985-1986] (Shanghai: Shanghai Peoples Publishing House, 1991); Wang

Jing,High Culture Fever: Politics, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Deng's China (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1996), and Zhang Xudong, Chinese Modernism in the Era of

Reforms(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997).


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Various unofficial art groups emerged across the nation and they involved themselves in

agendas different from those advocated by the official art establishment. Through

questioning and challenging established models, norms, and standards, unofficial art kept

expanding the tolerance and taste of the art establishment in China and grew into an

important component of the Chinese art world.13

Simultaneously, the confrontation

between official art and unofficial art constituted a very significant characteristic that

greatly shaped the further development of art in China in the 1980s. As analyzed by many

scholars, there were relatively distinct differences between unofficial art and official art, in

terms of content, style, and the function that art was expected to perform.14

Officially

acknowledged art concentrated on traditional Chinese painting and oil painting developed

under the influence of European classical art and Soviet socialist realism. The subject

matter of official art reflected the states overall ideological requirements and stressed the

positive representation of Chinese society. Unofficial art, on the other hand, mainly

focused on experimental forms, largely derived from Western modern and contemporary

art, and aimed to subvert established aesthetic standards. In terms of the content, it tended

to address individual and social problems and challenged official ideological criteria.

13 For an extensive study of the emergence of Chinese unofficial art and its relevant activities in the1980s, see Gao Minglu, Shu Qun, and others in their collaborative book, Zhongguo Dangdai

Meishu Shi [The History of Chinese Contemporary Art 1985-1986] (Shanghai: Shanghai Peoples

Publishing House, 1991); Gao Minglu, The '85 Movement: Avant-Garde Art in the Post-Mao Era

(Ph.D. diss.Harvard University, 2000).

14 See Julia Andrews and Gao Minglu, The Avant Gardes Challenge to Official Art, D. Davis et

al (eds), Urban Spaces in Contemporary China(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995),

221-278.


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The first unofficial art group was The Stars, consisting of 23 amateur artists who were

basically self-taught instead of being trained in any art academies.15

They held their first

formal exhibition Xingxing Huazhan [Star Exhibition] in 1979 in a public park in

Beijing without official permission and became the first influential avant-garde group in

China after 1949. The exhibition presented art works that largely applied formerly

maligned Western styles such as Postimpressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, and Abstract

Expressionism,16

thus challenging both the aesthetic conventions and the political

authority of the art establishment.17 After that, many young artists and critics who were

trained in the national academies joined avant-garde art movements. These avant-garde

artists organized themselves into numerous art groups. Though their individual causes

differed, these groups shared the position of challenging the officially established art, that

is, essentially socialist realism, and of seeking new aesthetic possibilities.18

15 Chang Tsong-zung, Hui Ching-shuen, and Don J. Cohn (eds.), The Stars: 10 Years(Hong Kong:

Hanart, 1989).

16 In Maos era, these western art trends and styles were condemned as decadent Western

Capitalist art and were officially criticized.

17 A lot of writings have been devoted to The Stars and their art by scholars like Geremie Barm,

Gao Minglu, and Li Xianting. For a contemporary and earliest review of The Stars exhibition by a

young critic who would become one of the leading supporter of Chinese unofficial art, see Li

Xianting, Guanyu Xingxing Meizhan [about The Stars exhibition], Meishu [fine arts] (Mar

1980): 8-10; for retrospective accounts of The Stars activities and their significance in Chinese art

history , see Joan Cohen, The New Chinese Painting, 1949-1986 (New York, Harry Abrams, 1987);Geremie Barm, The Stars in Retrospect, in The Stars: 10 Years, 76-82; Gao Minglu, Shu Qun,

et al.,Zhongguo Dangdai Meishu Shi [The History of Chinese Contemporary Art 1985-1986]; and

Li Xianting, Major Trends in the Development of Contemporary Chinese Art, in China's New Art,

Post-1989, Valerie C. Doran (ed.) (Hong Kong: Hanart T Z Gallery, 1993), X-XXII.

18For a comprehensive understanding of the avant-garde movement in the 1980s in China, see

notes 24 and 25. Also see Lauk'ung Chan, "Ten Years of the Chinese Avantgarde: Waiting for the

Curtain to Fall," Flash Art, vol 25 (Jan/Feb, 1992): 110-14.


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With the emergence and development of unofficial art movements in the 1980s came a

political response: the Chinese political authorities applied harsh censorship in order to

curb and limit the significance of the unofficial avant-garde movement. The level of

control and the resulting oppressiveness of governmental art policies towards unofficial art

practice vacillated as the Chinese state was itself struggling to find a suitable route to

modernize China, and thus it constantly shifted its attitude from repression to co-operation

towards Chinese cultural workers (meaning all kinds of professionals who produce

certain types of culture such as art, film, literature, music, etc.).19Most well-known, of

course, was its notorious suppression of Chinese intellectuals in the Tiananmen Square

Incident in 1989 and the consequent harsh policies towards unofficially sanctioned artistic

activities.

In order to cope with the hostile political situation, unofficial artists invented new formats

and sought new possibilities to continue their activities, resulting in so-called underground

art.20

Different from avant-garde art, which sought direct confrontation with the

authorities and official art, underground art, as its name implies, proceeded with great care

to avoid inviting attention from officials. A range of artistic practices can be roughly

19For an elaborated analysis of the Chinese states vacillation of its cultural policies and their

effects in the cultural domain, see Maria Galikowski,ArtandPoliticsinChina1949-1984(Hong

Kong: Chinese University Press, 1998); Geremie Barm, In the Red: On Contemporary Chinese

Culture(New York: Columbia University Press, 1999).

20 Underground art is also understood as underground exhibitions. Both refer to Chinese

contemporary art that was prohibited to exhibit in public museums or galleries in the 1990s.


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incorporated under this term: apartment art, studio art, and underground exhibition art.21

All of these actually deal with the way contemporary artists exhibit their work. Their use of

non-officially sanctioned contemporary media, including installation, video, and

performance art predestined that they could not get a public display space for their art; and

in order to avoid authorities interference, neither could they openly publicize their

exhibitions. So these artists held experimental, short-term, and very provisional exhibitions

in some unconventional places, including artists studios, their private apartments,

warehouses and workshops on the border areas between urban and suburban districts. 22

Only audiences qualified as quan nei ren would be invited for their temporary shows.

Quan nei ren literally means people within ones social circle and refers to close

artist-friends, domestic and overseas critics and curators who are sympathetic to

contemporary art. Though faced with a hostile official attitude, the continuous

development of underground art in China actually benefited somewhat from the

governments new diplomatic policies since the 1990sno matter how much the

government and underground artists may dislike acknowledging thisas it further opened

Chinas door to the rest of the world and gradually applied a supportive attitude towards

international exchanges and mutual communications.

21 For detailed discussion on the origin, development, and major representatives of apartment art,

please see Gao Minglu, Inside and Outside Public Walls: The Living Space of the Chinese

Avant-Garde,in The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art[exhibition catalogue] (Beijing:

China Millennium Art Museum, 2005), 59-84.

22 Feng Boyi, Di Dixia ji Qita Guangyu 20 Shiji 90 Niandai Yilai de Zhongguo Qianwei

Yishu [Underground and Others: On Chinese Avant-Garde Art since the 1990s], Yishu Tansuo

[Art Exploration], iss.4 (2003): 23-26.


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Since the beginning of the new century, however, the Chinese state has taken up a new

attitude towards unofficial contemporary art and has invested considerably in exhibiting

and promoting the formerly restricted category. As the following chapters suggest, this

change of attitude has to be understood in relation to the states new cultural agenda and

global discourse in a changing social and political environment. As a result of this new

process that I call the officialization of contemporary art, the boundary between official

and unofficial art has largely been blurred. In fact, I argue in this dissertation that these

terms such as unofficial art and underground art have lost their original meaning and

significance since the mid 1990s and especially since the beginning of the new century.

As China experiences the increasing impact of marketization and globalization, and

especially the intervention of the international art world, changes are happening in both

official and unofficial camps, and the relationship between them has become more one of

complicity than of polar opposition, more of imbrication than clear division.

A new examination of art from contemporary China should involve the extensive

transformation of social mechanisms that condition both the production of official and

unofficial art. They both respond, in particular ways, to the intertwined pressures and

demands as well as opportunities coming from marketization, globalization, and the

revival of cultural nationalism, the three major movements that are steering the direction


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of China.23

As this dissertation aims to illuminate, official art can no longer maintain a

defined and unchanging status in China. It is becoming ambiguous, polymorphous, and

inclusive, in order to keep up with new developments. This is most evident in the domain

of art exhibitions, a prominent component of the art world in our time. Since 2000, there

have been many examples of state-sponsored exhibitions that increasingly include

various types of art originally banned in formal representations of Chinese official art.

Unofficial art, in the meantime, no longer carries sincere political messages that would

come from dissident artists with alternative social ideals and artistic inspiration. Indeed,

as argued by some scholars, the impetus of the market has become the foremost

motivation in Chinese unofficial art practice, whose relationship with official art in turn is

becoming less oppositional and sometimes even reciprocal.24

The same is true for unofficial arts relationship with the cultural authorities. As some

scholars have noted, since the mid 1990s, for many young artists whose essential goal is to

maximize personal gains in the thriving art market instead of attacking official art and its

ideology, unofficial art has already become a self-claimed makeover.25

In order to achieve

the status of unofficial art, some artists have purposely sought the authorities disapproval

and condemnation, with which they can paint themselves as rebellious and politically

23 See chapter three for elaboration on these issues.

24 Geremie R. Barm, Packaged Dissent, Artful Marketing, inIn The Red: On Contemporary

Chinese Culture(New York: Columbia University Press, 1999).

25 Ibid.


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dissident in order to add international credentials to their art, which without this official

condemnation might simply be read as platitudinous. For instance, in 1995, the journalist

Sang Ye interviewed one of the resident painters from the Yuan Ming Yuan Artists Village,

the first one of its kind in Beijing and probably in China, and got the following response:

I know this guy [who] was really hoping to create some kind of disturbance so

he could be picked up by the authorities. Once he set up a stall opposite the China

Art Gallery [now known as the China National Museum of Fine Arts] to exhibit

his black paintings. He wanted to confront the government, but nowadays the

authorities are as cunning as you are. When Old Ma [Desheng] and the Stars

were detained for putting on their exhibition, it was really explosive. Now here

you have this wannabe lining up his works along a wall in an alley, and theauthorities simply ignore him. They didnt want to give the kid a break. They

didnt allow him a chance to stir up any trouble or to make a name for himself.26

The changing nature of Chinese unofficial art and its relationship with the authorities has

indeed already drawn the attention of a few critics and scholars who have a keen awareness

of the transformation of Chinese society. Li Xianting, himself a leading critic-supporter of

unofficial art since the 1980s, once warned:

Foreigners [i.e. westerners] who are given to collecting, or studying, Chinese

modern art are, in many cases, inclined to pay undue attention to unofficial

artists who do not belong to state-run art organizations. Their judgment, however,

is suspect, for they tend to be attracted to anything that is unofficial, and they

are surrounded by a group boasting that they are Chinas artistic avant-garde,

although they may be far from that.27

Li here reminds us of the existence of pseudo avant-garde artists and the international

26 Sang Ye, Fringe-Dwellers: Down and out in the Yuan Ming Yuan Artists Village, trans.

Geremie R. Barm,Art AsiaPacific, no.15 (June 1997): 77.

27 Quoted from Geremie R. Barm, The Stars in Retrospect, in The Stars: 10 Years, 81.


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fascination with Chinese unofficial art. This fascination has in fact promoted the successful

careers of a great number of Chinese unofficial artists at the international marketplace in

the 1990s. Unofficial art, the term that implies a strong political message or at least

rhetoric of anti-official, dissident, and rebellious sympathies, seems to be naturally

attractive in international communities. To many international art professionals and the

general public, unofficial art from Communist China seems to automatically carry an

implication of democratic sentiment. Therefore, much has been invested in supporting and

promoting the production and circulation of Chinese unofficial art in international art

circuits, which has the effect of encouraging more artists from China to take up an

unofficial reputation. The sudden and massive presence of Chinese unofficial artists at

international exhibitions such as the Venice Biennale, the Johannesburg Biennale,

Documenta, and the Sao Paulo Biennialstarting abruptly in 1993 when fourteen artists

from Mainland China were presented at the Venice Biennalecannot be separated from

this enthusiastic international interest in unofficial art.28

Overseas fascination with

unofficial art has already created an ironic phenomenon in the Chinese art world. After

their return from the Venice Biennale in 1993, artists like Wang Guangyi and Fang Lijun,

representatives of Political Pop and Cynical Realism respectively,29

became superstar

artists and soon they began living a life no less sumptuous than those nouveau riche who

28 See chapter four for elaboration on Chinese artists participation in the 1993 Venice Biennale.

29 For detailed discussion on Political Pop and Cynical Realism and their representative artists,

see Li Xianting, Major Trends in the Development of Contemporary Chinese Art, in China's New

Art, Post-1989, Valerie C. Doran (ed.) (Hong Kong: Hanart T Z Gallery, 1993), X-XXII.


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acted quickly in the early period of Chinas economic reforms to profit financially.30

Chinese art critic Zhu Qi describes them as piously entrepreneurial artists who have

managed to become quite well-off by painting portraits of Mao Zedong and depicting

similar political parodies.31

Writing in his 1999 examination of unofficial cultural groups, Geremie Barm perceptively

described:

As economic atavism consumed the country, the relationship between officialand alternative, mainstream and marginal cultures continued their

metempsychosis. In 1995, many nonofficial artistic hopefuls, young men and

women anxious to achieve the local and international recognition that had

launched so many brilliant careers since the late 1970s, actively courted official

displeasure as part of their presale publicity. Although in the past, this strategy

had worked wonders for many artists, filmmakers, and writers of middling talent,

it was no longer necessarily effective.32

Barms insight echoes Sang Yes. The so-called unofficial or dissident art can be the

product of a premeditated scheme and has nothing necessarily to do with unofficial art. A

30 Wang Guangyi was reported to check in to five-star hotels just to experience the life of luxury;

Fang Lijun was heard to hire some less-lucky artists to replicate paintings in his typical style in

order to meet the increasing market demand for his art works. A recent update by David Barboza

reports that Wang Guangyi drives a Jaguar and owns a 10,000-square-foot luxury villa on the

outskirts of Beijing; Fang Lijun owns six restaurants in Beijing and operates a small hotel in

western Yunnan province. See David Barboza, In Chinas New Revolution, Arts GreetsCapitalism,The New York Times, Jan 4, 2007.

31 Zhu Qi, "Do Westerners Really Understand Chinese Avant-Garde Art?Post '89 Essay,"

Chinese-art.com (Electronic Journal, no longer available), vol.2, iss.3 (2001).

(Accessed July 20, 2003).

32 Geremie R. Barm, In The Red: On Contemporary Chinese Culture (New York: Columbia

University Press, 1999), 204.


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note should be added here: What those artists aim to achieve is, of course, not just the

disapproval of the authorities, but ways in which they can obtain attention from the

public and eventually from overseas art professionals. With the label of unofficial

artists they had the chance to draw interest from international critics, curators, and

dealers who were seeking alternative art in China. Thus we see two phenomena: First, as

early as the mid-1990s, some Chinese artists had already started consciously to

manipulate the technology of unofficial art to increase their personal profile; second, by

that time the authorities had already changed their policy in dealing with occasional

unauthorized cultural activities. They became skillfully tolerant, without having to always

resort to political enforcement of cancellation and public condemnation, which some

unofficial artists purposely expected to achieve.

As such, since the mid-1990s, the main drive of the Chinese art world has no longer been

geared by the opposition between official art and unofficial art, but by the dynamics of

the art market. In this market-oriented context, new kinds of artists have emerged, who

neither have any ideological issue with official art, nor have the goal to be labeled

dissident artists.33

They also prefer not to have any affiliation with official institutions.

Instead, they position themselves as independent artists, and endeavor to explore an

33 Here I particularly refer to the type of artists who are consciously engaged in producing what

is normally regarded and discussed as high art. The new kinds of artists I apply here do not

include the more familiar, not so new artists who produce kitsch, craftwork art, and decorative

items, marketed towards the masses and domestic or foreign tourists.


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apolitical, personalized approach to artistic expression. Many of them chose to directly

respond to the international art world and art market. The number of these kinds of artists

is increasing rapidly in China, in parallel with the countrys move in an evidently less

political but more market-oriented direction. In the meantime, there also appear artistic

practices that actually cannot be easily categorized. In some cases, a single artist can be

engaged in several types of artistic activities and simultaneously maintain two or three

identities, putting up different faces for different conditions.34

All these changes have

inaugurated a significantly different and much more complicated Chinese art scene, in

comparison to that of the 1980s and early 1990s.

2. Main Objectives and the Methodology

This study examines the changing institutional context of contemporary official Chinese

art through two momentous official art exhibitions: the first Chinese Pavilion of the

Venice Biennale (Chinese Pavilion) and the first Beijing International Art Biennale

(Beijing Biennale), respectively authorized by the Ministry of Culture and the Chinese

Artists Association in 2003. By investigating the sociopolitical and institutional context

against which the two exhibitions were mounted and the actual staging, display and

reception conditions, the study explores the complicated and intertwined relationship

between official art and unofficial art and aims to redefine conventional understanding

34 I regard this as a kind of internal complicity, which I believe to be a typical product of Chinas

current politics.


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about the conditions and modality of official art from China. In particular, I examine the

evident divisions in these state newly sponsored exhibitions in terms of curatorial

concepts and artistic production and try to articulate how the Chinese government

attempts to make use of contemporary art for its national cultural project, how the old art

establishment endeavors to update its operating system in order to maintain its dominance

over the Chinese art world, and how newly emerging artistic groups make use of recently

available resources to compete with the old mainstream and to claim an officially

sanctioned space. The main issues that this study is concerned with include the way

official art has operated since the 1980s, the function of the market economy in the

transformation of the Chinese art world, the impact of globalization on the ongoing

dialogue between official art and unofficial art, cultural nationalism and the changing

status of underground/contemporary art in the view of the cultural authority, and the new

types of relationships among official art, unofficial art, and art by those who have tried to

commence a discourse between the two since the mid 1990s.

Ultimately I want to illuminate that in China official art is still being controlled, but the

government is taking on different approaches and presenting itself with a different

appearance. The main objectives of this dissertation are to uncover these newly invented

strategies and to differentiate old and new governmental directives, to articulate the effect

of the extensive social transformation on the operating system of official art, and to analyze

the kind of art that has responded to these processes.


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I believe that this study is particularly important and timely since the majority of recent

interest and attention devoted to Chinese art has focused on diasporic and transnational

artists (many of whom are former unofficial artists), particularly a narrow range of artists

visible in the global marketplace. This often results in a view that sees movements within

the scope of official art as unchanging and non-responsive to new developments in the

contemporary world. I aim to overturn these assumptions and stress internal dynamism and

complexity. Exploring a broader array of producers, including artists, critics, curators, and

cultural officials, I examine the competing institutional and individual agendas that have

framed their relation to the domestic and international political strategy of the Chinese state.

I argue that Chinese official art is no longer a unified, self-contained domain and is no

longer isolated from the rest of the world. Rather, it has become a site of intense

competition, negotiation, and interaction of various forces with different agendas coming

from the central government, local art institutions, global market forces, and international

art communities.

Because of the nature of this project, there is no single body of established scholarship

upon which I can base my work. Especially, in relation to the Chinese Pavilion and the

Beijing Biennale, there are scarcely any systematic scholarly works that have been done

yet, both in China as well as outside of China. Neither is there a single library or archive

that I can depend on for written materials or images concerning the exhibitions of

Chinese art in which the state and the official art establishment have played a significant


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role since the late 1990s. This study seeks to begin the work that will help to shape a new

but important field of art historical study.

As a result, contact with the current Chinese art world has become my most imperative

archive. My primary sources come from many interviews I conducted with people

involved in the two exhibitions of 2003 in summer 2004 and 2005 in Beijing. I also

interviewed artists of importance in this dissertation project and obtained their personal

diaries or comments on their individual works in question and on that of other artists. I

visited art museums, galleries, artist villages, and attended various official and unofficial

exhibitions. I had conversations with a wide range of artists, critics, and curators in order

to examine their view of the exhibitions and their experience in encountering the art

market and the international art world. All existing materials, such as official documents,

press releases, catalogues, and critical writings in newspapers, magazines, and on the

internet inevitably became major resources for this dissertation. In other words, the

literature that this project depends on covers a broad range of primary materials such as

exhibition catalogues, interviews, reviews, and personal statements, the majority of which

were produced by participants who are closely engaged in the making of the Chinese

contemporary art scene.35

Thanks to internet publications, both from local sources and

35 I use Chinese contemporary art [zhongguo dangdai yishu] instead of contemporary Chinese

art, which has been widely used overseas, for the reason that Chinese contemporary art is a

common usage applied by Chinese artists, critics, and curators, in reference to contemporary art

by Chinese artists differing from contemporary art produced by other nationals such as African,

Latin American, or Western artists. On the other hand, contemporary Chinese art [dangdai


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international observers, I was able to obtain many reviews and responses from viewers

including artists, critics, and regular audience members who expressed themselves freely

in cyber space, which serves as a significant platform for critical discussion of

contemporary Chinese official art. My resources would otherwise not be so plentiful,

varied, and sometimes poignant if only regular printed publications were available.

In achieving the goals of this dissertation, I combine an analysis of the artistic products of

official art with an articulation of its institutional particularity and sociopolitical

significance in the Chinese context. I am concerned with the social mechanisms that

condition the kind of art produced, in which way and to what extent it is disseminated, and

how it is received and viewed. I believe this is a crucial perspective to understand the

transformation of the Chinese art world at this moment.

Since the early 1980s, Chinese art historians and theoreticians, haunted by the imposed

state ideology of vulgar Marxist historical approaches for decades, have understandably

taken up formalistic, psychoanalytic, semiotic, and iconographic and iconological

approaches with great enthusiasm, and happily abandoned the enforced Marxist approach.

From then on, any new attempt to address art with an explicit sociopolitical perspective

tended to be labeled as vulgar, outmoded or stereotyped. That may explain why theories

zhongguo yishu ] is used in a broader sense, referring to art created by artists at the contemporary

time and its counterparts are traditional Chinese art or modern Chinese art.


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such as formalism, structuralism and post-structuralism, postcolonial theory, and feminist

theory have been eagerly taken up by newly emerging scholars since China launched its

Reform and Open-door Policy in 1978, while there is little interest in new Marxist art

history, even that coming from the West. The fondness for new theories except Marxism,

on the one hand, is a counterbalance to the diversity missing in the past; on the other hand,

it is motivated by the desire to keep up with the new developments in art theory in the West.

In recent years writers who are engaged in new art history and art criticism have mainly

focused their efforts on how to fit Chinese phenomena into western theoretical

paradigms.36

Being aware of the new perspectives and tools that these paradigms have

provided for examining Chinese phenomena, I nonetheless want to point out a notable

negative result, which is the production of a large amount of writings that are flooded with

highly complex terms and phrases in a rush to master the newest theoretical trends in art

history and criticism.37 Much less attention has been invested in observing the social

mechanisms that motivate, regulate, and channel multifaceted flows of the contemporary

Chinese art world. This is where my dissertation can fill the gap and point to new

possibilities and perspectives for understanding the formation of the current status of the

Chinese art scene.

36 This phenomenon is very apparent in many articles published in the 1990s in a few art magazines

that position themselves as standing at the forefront of Chinese contemporary art history and art

criticism, includingJiangsu Huakan[Art Monthly in Jiangsu], Yishu Yanjiu [Art research],Meishu

Guancha[Art Observation], and others.

37 This phenomenon, unfortunately, reflects the publish or perish, imperative in academia.


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I am convinced as I carry out the research of this study that no current theory is adequate to

describe or explain the characteristic dynamism of the Chinese art world. It seems that an

empirically directed observation would be the most effective approach, based on which

conclusions can be made. My empiricism, however, is guided by my concern with the

socio-anthropological aspects of the Chinese art world, which are playing crucial roles in a

less and less politically charged contemporary China. In the art world, as in other realms,

the influence of a few major figures and their connective network can be overwhelming

and far-reaching, sometimes deciding the maintenance or change of the status quo. An

awareness of this phenomenon is an important prerequisite for an in-depth understanding

of the complex scene found in the Chinese art world. One may discover that the major

players are almost the same group of people in various ostensibly diverse and even

opposite roles. In my writing the names of some key personnel will come up again and

again, together with their affiliated institutions. In China, any discussion of the

mechanisms of the current art world cannot bypass the function of particular individuals, in

this case, a few art officials who carry double or even multiple identities. Geremie R.

Barm, the Chinese expert who himself has spent decades studying and working in China

and is deeply conversant with the fluctuating intellectual undertakings in Chinese society,

gives an illuminating description in his study of Chinese official and unofficial culture

since the early 1990s:

I was thrilled and dejected in turn as mainland culture flourished and foundered at

the whims of party leaders; I also learned more about the mechanics of

manufactured dissent than probably is good, even for a healthy cynic. To witness


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famous critics of the party reach accommodations with the authorities in private

while putting on the brave face of the dissident to foreign journalists and scholars

was also an educational experience.38

This is a telling and revealing description of the operating mechanism of Chinese society

and the complex relationship among intellectuals, the authorities, and outsiders. In the

Chinese art world, without exception, we witness the similar machinations of individual

critic-curators who manage, using only available resources, to set themselves up as

prominent figures in the avant-garde field, while at the same time maintaining allegiance to

the established structure and receiving the corresponding benefits. Marveling at the scale

of multipolar developments in the cultural domain, Barm expresses his surprise:

There is, however, no adequate nomenclature to describe the disparate range of

cultural material produced over the past twenty years, for it has grown,

metamorphosed, and developed within the orbit of an avowedly socialist state

whose gravitational pull is often all too irresistible and that has itself undergone

an extraordinary transformation. Both [official culture and unofficial culture] have

matured together and used each other, feeding each others needs and developingever new coalitions, understandings, and compromises.

39

This is exactly the dynamic condition of cultural production that I take into account and

within which the transformation of the Chinese art world is happening. With this

understanding, I go on to examine how the cultural authorities, art establishment, and

individuals accommodate new circumstances with particular strategies, how the old

definitions and boundaries have been challenged, and, at the same time, how new

38 Geremie R. Barm, In The Red: On Contemporary Chinese Culture (New York: Columbia

University Press, 1999), xiii.

39 Ibid.


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ramifications have been created within the scope of official art.

3.

Literature Review

In the process of constructing the theoretical framework for my research and writing of

this dissertation, I have been informed by a range of scholarship from different

disciplines, including art history and exhibition studies, history, political science,

anthropology, and cultural studies in various ways. Among them, the main body of

historical and critical literature that my dissertation engages can be categorized into three

groups: studies on Chinese contemporary art history, studies on Chinese cultural

nationalism and culture since the 1990s, and studies on contemporary international

exhibitions in the context of globalization. I will highlight some key figures and texts and

analyze their relevance to my study.

Chinese Contemporary Art History

Among the existing scholarship on Chinese contemporary art history, the works by a few

figures stand out in my study. Chinese scholars such as Gao Minglu, Hou Hanru, and Wu

Hung have worked extensively on Chinese contemporary art and exhibitions of it and

have contributed greatly to a rising body of literature that contains precious first-hand

observations and descriptions, informed interpretations of particular artists and their art,


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and critical reviews of the Chinese contemporary art scene.40

In particular, the work by

art historian, critic, and curator Gao Minglu on Chinese avant-garde art and contemporary

art is an important body of literature that my dissertation relies upon. Gaos close

involvement in the avant-garde movement (as a critic and an exhibition organizer) in the

1980s has allowed him to construct an authoritative study on the social, historical, and

political background of the avant-garde art movement, its development and the activities

of the groups and artists. His study on this significant movement in Chinese art history

was first presented in his booksZhongguo Dangdai Meishu Shi [The History of Chinese

Contemporary Art 1985-1986]41

[with other authors] in 1991 and the anthology

Zhongguo Qianwei Yishu[Chinese Avant-garde Art]42

in 1996 and further developed in

his PhD dissertation The 85 Movement: Avant-Garde Art in the Post-Mao Era in

2000.43

Even though the time period that I deal with in my dissertation is more than a

decade later, many issues he brought up in his early work, such as the sustained dialogue

between Chinese official art and unofficial art, the close interaction between political and

artistic currents in Chinese avant-garde practices, and the co-dependent relationship

between Chinese art and Western art, still have their currency in the contemporary

40 All these figures are active as both art critics and curators and they write in both Chinese and

English.

41 Gao Minglu, et.al.,Zhongguo Dangdai Meishu Shi [The History of Chinese Contemporary Art

1985-1986] (Shanghai: Shanghai Peoples Publishing House, 1991).

42 Gao Minglu,Zhongguo Qianwei Yishu[Chinese Avant-garde Art] (Jiangsu Fine Arts

Publishing House, 1997).

43 Gao Minglu, The '85 Movement: Avant-garde Art in the Post-Mao Era (PhD Dissertation),

Harvard University, 2000.


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Chinese art world. It is from his work that I draw language such as Chinese

Contemporary Art, Chinese unofficial art, and Chinese avant-garde art, and major

concepts regarding the perception of the avant-garde art movement as part of the

intellectual discourse of the 1980s, the differentiation between official art and unofficial

art in respect to content, style, and the basic concepts and functions of art, and the

commercialized nature of Chinese contemporary art since the early 1990s.44

Gao Minglu has continued his participation in Chinese art as it evolves and changes in

response to the shifting Chinese sociopolitical and economic context since the 1990s,

through curating exhibitions and writing about it. These more recent efforts have resulted

in two more exhibition catalogues, Inside/Out: New Chinese Art in 1998 and The Wall:

Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art in 2005, as well as many critical essays.45

His

recent work examines new developments in Chinese art in relation to current issues such

as globalization, transnationalism, and commercialization. Throughout his writings and

his continuing curatorial practice on Chinese contemporary art, Gao clearly positions

himself from the perspective of the artists through narrating as an active participant of

Chinese art. He indeed maintains close personal relationships with many Chinese

44Gao Minglu, Introduction,The '85 Movement: Avant-garde Art in the Post-Mao Era (PhD

Dissertation),Harvard University, 2000.

45 Gao Minglu, ed.,Inside/Out: New Chinese Art(San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of

Modern Art, 1998); The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art[exhibition catalogue]

(Beijing: China Millennium Art Museum, 2005).


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contemporary artists and his interpretations of their art often evolve from their personal

experiences and explanations. He invests a great deal in investigating the subjectivities of

his artists and positions them as protagonists who act with a conscious awareness and

responsibility of being a participant and creator of the history. His writing manifests his

strong interest in constructing a grand narrative of Chinese contemporary art history that

centers on artists, their experiences, and their works and his conviction that every artist

must be given his or her due historical significance. It is here that I separate myself from

his scholarship, for I apply a different approach to looking at art history. Rather than

focusing on the individual agency of artists, I chart artists and art movements within a

social and political perspective in the context of changing economic and institutional

mechanisms. I am interested in exploring how the meaning of art can be produced,

circulated, received, and changed by the context within which it is both staged and

viewed, how art is made relevant to Chinas national and global politics, and eventually

how not only artists, but a wide range of people including Chinese officials, cultural

entrepreneurs, critics, curators and audiences from China and elsewhere participate in the

making of Chinese art history.

Chinese Cultural Nationalism and Culture since the 1990s

Another important body of scholarship that my work draws upon is literature on the new

revival of Chinese nationalism since the 1990s in relation to globalization by historian

Wang Gungwu and political scientists Zheng Yongnian and Guo Yingjie, whose writings


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offer thoughtful examinations on Chinese nationalism and provide the political and social

background for understanding the Chinese states cultural discourses since the 1990s. In

particular, Guo Yingjies book Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary China: the Search

for National Identity under Reform, released in 2004, is a timely study on Chinese

cultural nationalism in contemporary China, a movement that has played and is still

playing a prominent role in the governments present domestic and international

policies.46

In this first ever book-length study on the subject, the author illuminates the

Chinese Communist Partys necessity to embrace and promote cultural nationalism as an

alternative and supplemental ideology since the Party has had to shift away from its

traditional Marxist-Maoist basis of ideology since the 1990s.47

In light of these scholars

works, I frame the Chinese states recent art-related policies and projects, including the

active support of Chinese contemporary art and the investment in international biennales,

as part of the states cultural pr

wang-official art in contemporary china.pdf

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