VIS127GS
Summer Session I, 2012
Issues in Modern and Contemporary Chinese Art
Prof. Kuiyi Shen
Department of Visual Arts
E-mail: [email protected]
Course Description
This course will explore the ways in which Chinese artists of the 20th century have defined
modernity and their tradition against the complex background of China’s history. A key issue for
modern Chinese art is the degree to which Chinese artists have chosen to adopt Western
conventions and the extent to which they have rejected them. Equally legitimate positions have
been taken by artists whose work actively opposes the legacy of the past and by those who
pursue innovations based upon their particular understandings of the Chinese tradition. Through
examining art works in different media, including oil painting, graphic design, woodblock prints,
traditional ink and color painting, and recent installation and video art, along with theoretical
writing, bibliographical and institutional data, and other documentary materials, we will
investigate the most compelling of the multiple realities that Chinese artists have constructed for
themselves.
Textbook:
Julia Andrews and Kuiyi Shen: A Century in Crisis: Modernity and Tradition in the Art of
Twentieth Century China. New York: Guggenheim Museum and Abrams, 1998
Course Requirement: complete reading assignments and write summaries, participation in class
discussion, and one term paper (10 pages)
Tentative Schedule:
Week 1:
Issues in Modern and Contemporary Chinese Art
Art at the Crossroads: the Shanghai School and Lingnan School
Reading: Articles in A Century in Crisis: Introduction (Andrews and Spence);
Innovations in Chinese Painting (Shan)
Reform and National Essence: The Debates about Art in the Early Republican Period
Reading: Articles in A Century in Crisis: Innovations in Chinese Painting (Chiu, Xue,
Shen 80-95, Kao 146-161); Sullivan 5-35, 52-57.
Week 2:
China’s Seduction by the West: Modern Chinese Oil Painting in the1920s and 1930s
Reading: A Century in Crisis: Shen 172-180; Sullivan, 36-51, 58-67.
China Roars: The Rise and Fall of the Avant-Garde Woodcut Movement;
Reading: A Century in Crisis: Andrews 181-192, Andrews & Shen 213-225; Sullivan,
52-57, 80-87, 91-125.
Week 3:
Commercial Art and China’s Modernization
Reading: A Century in Crisis: 228-237; Andrews P & P: Chpt. 2-5; Sullivan, 129-150.
The Victory of Socialist Realism: Oil Painting and the New Guohua, 1950-1965
Reading: A Century in Crisis: 278-289; Andrews P & P: Chpt. 6-7; Sullivan, 151-158,
215-224.
Week 4:
Idol and Ideal: Art in the Cultural Revolution and Post-Mao Era
Reading will be assigned in class.
Reopening to the West: The New Wave Movement, 1984-1989
Reading will be assigned in class.
Week 5:
The New Cosmopolitan Era: Art in the 1990s and 2000s
Reading will be assigned in class
In-class Oral Presentations
REFERENCE BOOKS:
Andrews, Julia F. Painters and Politics in the People’s Republic of China. Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1994. ND1045.A53 1994
______. Fragmented Memory: Chinese Avant-Garde in Exile, with Gao Minglu. Exhibition
catalogue. Columbus: Wexner Center for the Arts, 1993.
Andrews, Julia F., and Kuiyi Shen. A Century in Crisis: Modernity and Tradition in the Art of
Twentieth Century China. New York: Guggenheim Museum and Abrams, 1998
N7345.A53 1998x
______. “Traditionalism as a Modern Stance: The Chinese Women’s Calligraphy and painting
Society.” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture vol.11, no.1 (Spring 1999). pp. 1-30.
Barme, Geremie, and Jon Minford. Seeds of Fire: Chinese Voices of Conscience. Newcastleupon-Tyne, 1988. PL2658.E1 S44 1988
Barnhart, Richard, et al. Three Thousand Years of Chinese Painting. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1997. ND1040.T48 1997
Brown, Claudia, and Ju-hsi Chou. Transcending Turmoil: Painting at the Close of China’s
Empire 1796-1911. Phoenix Art Museum, 1992. ND1043.5.B76 1992
Cahill, James Francis. The Painter’s Practice. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.
ND1043.5.C35 1994
Chang, Arnold. Painting in the People’s Republic of China: The Politics of Style. Boulder:
Westview Press, 1980.
Chang, Tsong-zung, ed. The Stars: 10 Years. Hong Kong, 1989.
China Avant-Garde: Conter-Current in Art and Culture. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press,
1993. ISBN 0-19-586423-9
Chiu, Melissa, and Shengtian Zheng, eds. Art and China’s Revolution. New York: Asia Society
& Yale University Press, 2008
Clark, John, Modern Asian Art. North Rude, N.S.W., 1988.
______. ed. Modernity in Asian Art. Canberra: Wild Peony, 1993
Cohen, Joan Lebold. The New Chinese Painting, 1949-1986.New York: Abrams, 1987.
ND1045.C631987
______. Painting the Chinese Dream: Chinese Art Thirty Years after the Revolution (Painting
and Sculpture 1978-1981).Northampton, Mass., 1982.
Croizier, Ralph. Art and Revolution in Modern China: The Lingnan (Cantonese) School of
Painting, 1906-1951. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988.
ND1043.53L55 C7 1988
Doran, Valerie C. China’s New Art, Post-1989, with a Restropective from 1979-1989.
Introduction by Chang Tsong-zung, Hong Kong: Hanart T Z Gallery 1993.
Erickson, Britta. On the Edge: Contemporary Chinese Artists Encounter the West. Exh. Cat.
Stanford: Cantor Art Center, Stanford University, 2005.
______. Words without Meaning, Meaning without Words: the Art of Xu Bing. Exh.cat.
Washington, D.C.: Sackler Gallery, 2001.
Ellsworth, Robert. Later Chinese Painting and Calligraphy, 1800-1950. New York: Random
House, 1988.
Farrer, Anne. Wu Guanzhong: A Twentieth-Century Chinese Painter. London: British Museum,
1992.
Fu, Shen C. Y. And Jan Stuart. Challenging the Past: The Paintings of Chang Dai-chien.
Washington, 1991.ND1049.C4523 A4 1991
Galikowski, Maria. Art and Politics in China, 1949-1986. Hong Kong: Chinese University of
Hong Kong, 1996. N7345.G35 1998x
Gao Minglu, ed., Inside Out: New Chinese Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Asian
Society Galleries, 1998.
Goldman, Merle, ed. China’s Intellectuals and State: In Search of a New Relationship.
Cambridge, Mass., 1987. DS777.6.C46 1987
______. China’s Intellectuals: Advise and Dissent. Cambridge, Mass., 1981. DS777.6.G64
Hajek, Luber. Contemporary Chinese Painting. London: Spring Books, 1961. ND1045.H312
History of Chinese Oil Painting: from Realism to Post-Modernism. Hong Kong: Schoeni Art
Gallery Ltd., 1995. ISBN 962-7502-15-4
Kao, Mayching, ed. Twentieth-Century Chinese Painting. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1988. ND1045. T86 1988
Kraus, Richard C.. Pianos and Politics in China: Middle-Class Ambitions and the Struggle over
Western Music. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1989. ML336.5.K72 1989
Kuo, Jason Chi-sheng. ed., Visual Culture in Shanghai, 1850-1930. Washington D.C.: New
Academia Publishing, 2007.
_____. Heirs to a Great Tradition: Modern Chinese Paintings from the Tsien-hsiang-chai
Collection. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1993.
_____. Innovation with Tradition: The Painting of Huang Pin-hung. With contributions by
Richard Edwards and Tao Ho. Hong Kong, 1989.
Laing, Ellen Johnston. The Winking Owl: Art in the People’s Republic of China. Berkeley and
Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988. N7345.L35 1988
_____. An Index to Reproductions of Paintings by Twentieth-Century Chinese Artists. Asian
Studies Program, Publication no.6. Eugene: University of Oregon, 1984. Z5949.C5 L32
c.2
Lee, Leo Ou-fan. Shanghai Modern. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999 DS796.S25
L43 1999
_____, ed. Lu Xun and His Legacy. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
1985.PL2754.S5 Z7567 1985
_____. The Romantic Generation of Modern Chinese Writers. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1973. PL2277.L4 1973
Li, Chu-tsing. Trends in Modern Chinese Painting (The C.A. Drenowatz Collection). Artibus
Asiae Supplementum 36. Ascona, Switz: Artibus Asiae Publishers, 1979.
_____. Liu Kuo-sung: the Growth of a Modern Chinese Artist. Taipei: National Gallery of Art
and Museum of History, 1969. ND1049. L7739 L5
Lim, Lucy, ed. Wu Guanzhong: A Contemporary Chinese Artist. San Francisco, 1989.
______. Contemporary Chinese Painting: An Exhibition from the People’s Republic of China.
San Francisco, 1984. ISBN 0-9609784-8-8
Link, Perry, Paul Pickowitz, Rechard Mason, Popular China. 2001.
Minick. Scott, and Jiao Ping. Chinese Graphic Design in the Twentieth Century. London, 1990.
NK1068.M56 1996x
Shen, Kuiyi. Zhou Brothers: Thirty Years of Collaboration. Chicago: Elmeherst Museum &
Chicago Cultural Center, 2004.
______. Word and Meaning: Six Contemporary Chinese Artists. Baffulo: University at Baffalo
Art Gallery, 2000.
Silbergeld, Jerome. China into Film: Frame of Reference in Contemporary Chinese Cinema.
London: Reaktion Books, 1999. PN1994.S55 1999x
_____, with Gong Jisui. Contradictions: Artistic Life, the Socialist State, and the Chinese
Painter Li Huasheng. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1993. ND1049.L4765
S56 1993
_____. Mind Landscape: The Paintings of C.C. Wang. Seattle: University of Washington Press,
1987. ND1049.W18 A4 1987
Spence, Jonathan D. The Gate of Heavenly Peace: the Chinese and Their Revolution, 18951980. New York: Penguin Books, 1982. DS774.S59 1982
_____. The Search for Modern China. New York, London: W.W.Norton & Company, 1990.
DS754.S65 1990
Strassberg, Richard E., ed. I don’t Want to Play Chess with Cezanne” and Other Works:
Selections from the Chinese “New Wave” and “Avant-Garde” Art of the Eighties.
Pasadena, 1991.
Strassberg, Richard E., and Waldemar A. Nielsen. Beyond the Open Door: Contemporary
Paintings from the People’s Republic of China. Pasadena, 1987. ND1045.S87 1987x
Sullivan, Michael. Art and Artists of Twentieth Century China. Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1996. N7345.S79 1996
_____. The Meeting of Eastern and Western Art. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University
of California, 1989. N7429.S93 1997x
Sun, Shirley Hsiao-ling. Lu Hsun and the Chinese Woodcut Movement, 1929-1936. Ph.D. diss.,
Stanford University, 1974.
Weidner, Marsha. Views from Jade Terrace: Chinese Women Artists, 1300-1912. Indianapolis,
1988. N7343.5.V54 1988x
White, Julia, ed. Mahjong—Art, Film, and Changes in China. Berkeley: University of California,
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2008.
Wu Hung, Wang Huangsheng, and Feng Boyi, eds. The First Guangzhou Triennial:
Reinterpretation—A Decade of Experimental Chinese Art (1990-2000). Exh.cat.
Guangzhou: Guangdong Museum of Art, 2002.
______. ed. Chinese Art at the Crossroads: Between Past and Future, Between East and West.
Hong Kong: New Art Media, 2001.
______. Exhibiting Experimental Art in China. Exh. Cat. Chicago: Samrt Museum of Art,
University of Chicago, 2000.
______. Transience: Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the Twentieth Century, Chicago:
Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago,1999.
Wu Tung. Painting in China since the Opium Wars. Boston, 1980