Abstract
In this article attention will be drawn to ways in which so-called ‘qianwei’ (literally, ‘avant-garde’) Chinese art of the 1980s and early 1990s can be understood to diverge from and/or reverse positions, trajectories and intentions conventionally associated with the work of the European and North American politicized avant-gardes. It shall also be argued that those divergences and reversals are informed in part by the persistence of subjective realist approaches to artistic representation within the People’s Republic of China that not only differ in intent from the western avant-garde’s signature anti-aesthetic and anti-realist use of collage-montage , but also related postmodernist framings of contemporary art as a focus for the critical deconstruction of supposedly authoritative meanings.
An amended version of ‘Qianwei (‘Avant-garde’) Art in Reform-era China: Divergence, Reversal and the Persistence of (Subjective) Realism’, Journal of East-Asian Popular Culture 1 (1) (Winter 2014), pp. 53–73.
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Notes
- 1.
Ulmer (1985), Owens (1985a, pp. 67–86, 1985b, pp. 58–80).
- 2.
Hou (2002, pp. 54–63).
- 3.
Fei (2010 [1991/2003], pp. 252–254).
- 4.
Gao (2008a, pp. 34–43).
- 5.
Gao (2008b, pp. 133–164).
- 6.
Ibid. (p.134).
- 7.
Bhabha (1994).
- 8.
Li (2003).
- 9.
Hung and Wang (2010).
- 10.
Köppel-Yang (2003, pp. 22–23).
- 11.
Koch (2011, p. 106).
- 12.
Ibid. (p.106).
- 13.
Hung (2002).
- 14.
Minglu (2005).
- 15.
Wang (2010).
- 16.
Zheng (2012, pp. 157–170).
- 17.
See, for example, Wang, Chunchen, Art Intervenes in Society.
- 18.
See, for example, Badiou (2005), Rancière (2010).
- 19.
Bishop (2005, pp. 120–127).
- 20.
Gao, op cit., pp. 66–70.
- 21.
Poggioli (1968).
- 22.
Gao, op cit., pp. 54.
- 23.
Gladston (2008, pp. 98–104).
- 24.
Krauss (1985).
- 25.
Baudelaire (1964 [1863], pp. 12–15).
- 26.
See, for example, Frascina et al. (1994, pp. 68–80).
- 27.
Greenberg (1992 [1939], pp. 529–541).
- 28.
Frascina and Harrison (1982 [1965], pp. 5–10).
- 29.
Bürger (1974).
- 30.
Ulmer, ‘The Object of Post-criticism’.
- 31.
Bürger, Theory of the Avant-Garde.
- 32.
See Stremmel (2004).
- 33.
Benjamin (1992 [1936], pp. 512–520).
- 34.
Trotsky et al. (1992 [1938], pp. 526–529).
- 35.
Meecham and Sheldon (2005, pp. 237–264).
- 36.
Segedin (1964).
- 37.
Taylor (2005, pp. 11–12).
- 38.
Bürger, Theory of the Avant-Garde.
- 39.
See, for example, Krauss, The Originality of the Avant-Garde.
- 40.
Foster (1996).
- 41.
See, for example, Bhabha, The Location of Culture.
- 42.
Croizier (2013, pp. 254–271).
- 43.
Carol and Liu (2015).
- 44.
Gao, op cit., p. 47.
- 45.
Minglu (2007).
- 46.
Zhai (2011).
- 47.
Zhu (2010 [1985], pp. 42–55).
- 48.
Gladston (2011).
- 49.
Köppel-Yang, Semiotic Warfare, pp. 152–153.
- 50.
Bryson (1998, pp. 51–58).
- 51.
Bryson, ‘The post-ideological avant-garde’, pp. 57–58.
- 52.
Koch, ‘“China” on display’, 99.
- 53.
Huang (2010 [2008], pp. 167–171).
- 54.
Gladston (2013).
- 55.
Gladston, op cit., pp. 85–88.
- 56.
Hopfener (2013).
- 57.
See Wang (1995, pp. 13–17).
- 58.
See Waldman (1992, pp. 8–15).
- 59.
Taylor (1987).
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Gladston, P. (2016). Qianwei (‘Avant-Garde’) Art in Reform-Era China. In: Deconstructing Contemporary Chinese Art. Chinese Contemporary Art Series. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-46488-5_3
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