Book: 'Avant Garde Art Groups in China, 1979-1989' by Paul Gladston
A little over three decades ago, the global perception was that China's contemporary art scene was virtually non-existent.
by Paul Gladston
University of Chicago Press
3 stars
Jingan Young
A little over three decades ago, the global perception was that China's contemporary art scene was virtually non-existent.
Its rapid ascension to billion-dollar status in the international marketplace has had an astounding effect on not only the art sold but the art being made.
Its canvases are a far cry from China's mass-produced propaganda dazibao (big character posters) under Mao Zedong. But even after his death in 1976, exhibitions featuring avant garde work remained few and far between.
A new collection of essays by Paul Gladston, director of the Centre for Contemporary East Asian Cultural Studies at the University of Nottingham, tracks the changing identity of Chinese contemporary art, spotlighting four significant groups: the Stars; the Northern Art Group; the Pond Association; and Xiamen Dada.
The book takes the form of transcribed, translated interviews with the artists between 2006 and 2010.
Why interviews? Gladston's rationale is that interviews provide the "lived experience of art-making that have the potential [even] to contradict what has been said and written". To Gladston, the artist understands the artist best.