Overview

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.

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9781780232690

Table of Contents

Reviews

Under Gladston's pen, the complex and sometimes tortuous development of Chinese contemporary art has an enchanting epic quality. --Wang Guangyi, artist Drawing on five years of research in China, Gladston has penned a study of contemporary Chinese art that does far more that run through leading artists and their works. He discusses familiar figures such as Ai Weiwei, as well as lesser-known artists, in the context of Chinese and international politics, examining the sometimes fraught relationship between artists and the state since 'Opening and Reform' in 1978. --Apollo Magazine Gladston's narrative is focused on tracing discursive formations that have shaped contemporary Chinese art. In doing so, he offers interventions into and rigorous analysis of existing accounts. --Revue Critique D'art 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

Under Gladston's pen, the complex and sometimes tortuous development of Chinese contemporary art has an enchanting epic quality. --Wang Guangyi, artist

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

Author Information

Paul Gladston is the inaugural Judith Neilson Chair Professor of Contemporary Art at the University of New South Wales, Sydney and a Distinguished Affiliate Fellow of the UK-China Humanities Alliance, Tsinghua University, Beijing. He was founding principal editor of the Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art. He has written extensively on contemporary Chinese art and culture and is the author of Contemporary Chinese Art, Aesthetic Modernity and Zhang Peili (2019), and co-editor of Visual Culture Wars at the Borders of Contemporary China (2021).

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