Contemporary Chinese Art: A Critical History

(Paperback)

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The market for contemporary Chinese art is one of the fastest-growing internationally, attracting buyers from all over the world, including, increasingly, from within China itself. There are thriving artistic communities in major cities throughout China, most notably Beijing's world famous 798 Art Zone. Meanwhile, the arrest and secret detention in 2011 of artist Ai Weiwei focused attention on China's politics and issues of state control. This book sheds light on the development of Chinese art since Deng Xiaoping's policy of 'Opening and Reform' was confirmed in 1978, putting the art into context within China and internationally. Paul Gladston provides a critical mapping of ideas and practices that have shaped contemporary Chinese art, showing how they bind the art - as a consequence of artistic complicity and/or resistance - to structures of power and state not just within but also outside China.

Reviews

"Contemporary Chinese Art is an emerging field for academic research and writing. Although much has already been written on the subject particularly in non-academic contexts, there is a need for more searching scholarly analysis and the construction of related critical discourses. Gladston's book provides a vividly critical account of contemporary Chinese art's development over the last four decades while situating it carefully in relation to its wider socio-political contexts. Gladston discusses key events in the overall history of modern and contemporary Chinese art based on five years of research in China. He also signposts important possibilities for the further development of contemporary Chinese art. This is a vital book for future excursions in the field of contemporary Chinese art research."--Wang Chunchen, Central Academy of Fine Arts
"Gladston's Contemporary Chinese Art proposes a story of Chinese art through ideas, investigating how artists, theorists, and curators have engaged with the 'dominant discursive formations' around them over time. . . . [an] admirable intellectual history." -- "Leap"
"The leading Chinese artist Wang Guangyi says that Gladston's Contemporary Chinese Art: A Critical History has an 'enchanting epic quality.' The scale and rigour of Gladston's approach means that Wang's assessment is largely justified: the book is divided into four sections, with an opening chapter expertly putting Chinese art in context by examining cultural exchanges between China and the West from Antiquity to the mid-twentieth century."
-- "Art Newspaper"

Author Bio

Paul Gladston is Associate Professor of Culture, Film and Media and Director of the Centre for Contemporary East-Asian Cultural Studies at the University of Nottingham, UK. He is editor of the Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art.