'The close relationship between contemporary art and China's sweeping transformation has encouraged writers to compile macro histories of this art, interpreting artists and artworks in collective terms and against large social and political movements. Whereas this macroscopic approach contributes to our knowledge of contemporary Chinese art by revealing shared concerns and common stimuli for art creation, it tends to ignore individual creativity and the range of artistic experiments, which make this art more than a sociopolitical endeavour.
To remedy such shortcomings is the goal of this volume. Each of its eighteen chapters focuses on an individual artist or a group of artists connected by a particular artistic project. Developing a microscopic approach, Wu, Hung, one of the most influential interpreters of contemporary Chinese art, makes artists, not collective movements, the central characters of his stories. From this perspective, if contemporary Chinese art has anything to do with social change, such change cannot remain simply an external frame, but must be internalized by individual artists as specific artistic pursuits. Wu Hung's interpretative strategy, therefore, discards the overall framework of a macro history, but forges micro narratives that emphasize different responses to common social problems.' - from back cover. 
Access level

Onsite

Location code
REF.WUH
Publication/Creation date

2009

No of pages

269

ISBN / ISSN

9789881803436

No of copies

1

Content type

monograph

Chapter headings

Reading Mu Xin: An Exile without a Past

Once Again, Painting as Model: Reflections on Cai Guo-Qiang's Gunpowder Painting

A Ghost Rebellion: Xu Bing and His Nonsense Writing

Xu Bing: Experiments in Media and Visual Technique

A Chinese Dream by Wang Jin

Zhang Dali's Dialogue: Conversation with a City

Rong Rong: Ruins as Autobiography

Photographing Deformity: Liu Zheng and His Photo Series My Countrymen

Vernacular Postmodern: The Art of Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen

Waste Not: Song Dong and Zhao Xiangyuan

Zhu Yu's Skin Graft

Zhan Wang's Artistic Experiments

From Durham to Shanghai: Xu Bing's Tobacco Project

Monumentality to Anti-Monumentality in Wenda Gu's Forest of Stone Steles - A Retranslation and Rewriting of Tang Poetry

Shen Shaomin's Artistic Path

Phantasmagoria: Photographs by Miao Xiaochun

Television in Contemporary Chinese Art: Works by Zhang Peili, Qiu Zhijie, Liu Wei, Wang Jin, and Liu Xinhua

The Three Gorges Dam and Contemporary Chinese Art: Chen Qiulin, Yunfei Ji, Liu Xiaodong, Zhuang Hui

Wu Hung on Contemporary Chinese Artists
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Wu Hung on Contemporary Chinese Artists