Please see canvas for the further information on Assessments. 

DETAILED SCHEDULE OF READINGS AND LECTURES

WEEK 1: March 1 2021

Introduction to Modern East Asian art: Key Themes and Issues

• Locating and framing the Modern in East Asia
• Outlining themes, concepts and approaches
• Assessments and requirements
• Class activity and discussion

In this introductory lecture, we will discuss broadly the concepts of Asian modernity in relation to Western hegemony. Here, we will consider some new ways of looking at and doing art, the socio-political conditions that underpin such developments, as well as the rise of modern art institutions that were instrumental to the transfer, adaptation and institutionalisation of particular modernist styles. How have such developments affected the production and reception of art in East Asia?

Prescribed reading

. Clark, John. “Open and Closed discourses of Modernity in Asian Art”, in Clark, John, ed. Modernity in Asian Art (Sydney: Wild Peony Press, 1993), 1-17.

. Vinograd, Richard. “Cultural spaces and the problem of a visual modernity in the cities of Late Ming Chiang-nan,” in Papers from the Third International Conference on Sinology, History Section (Taipei: Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, 2002): 327-60.

Background reading

. Brown, Rebecca and Hutton, Deborah, eds. “Revisiting “Asian Art” in A Companion to Asian Art and Architecture (Chichester, England: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 1-20.

. Clark, John. Modern Asian Art (Sydney: Craftsman House, 1998).

. Clark, John, ed. Modernity in Asian Art (Sydney: Wild Peony Press, 1993).

. Clunas, Craig, Art in China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)

. Croizier, Ralph. “When was Modern Chinese Art? A Short History of Chinese Modernism,” in Writing Modern Chinese Art Historiographic Explorations, ed. Josh Yiu (Seattle: Seattle Art Museum, 2009), 24-34.

. Desai, Vishakha N., ed., Asian Art History in the Twenty-First Century (Williamstown, Massachusetts: Sterling and Francine Clark Institute, 2007).

. Mason, Penelope. History of Japanese Art (New York: Prentice Hall, 1993).

. Thorp, Robert and Vinograd, Richard. Chinese Art and Culture (New York: Abrams, 2001).

. Wang, Hu. “Imagining Asia: A Genealogical Analysis,” in Yasuko Furuichi, ed., Asia in Transition: Representation and Identity (Tokyo: The Japan Foundation Asia Centre, 2002), 245-263.

. Kim, Youngna, Modern and contemporary art in Korea: tradition, modernity and identity (Elizabeth, NJ: Hollym, 2005).

. Jackson, Anna and Jaffer, Amin, eds. Encounters: the Meeting of Asia and Europe 1500-1800, (London: V&A Publications, 2004)

. Jackie Menzies, ed. Modern boy, modern girl: Modernity in Japanese art 1910-1935 (Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1998).

Other useful resources

For a more complete bibliography which includes a comprehensive by-country entries for all the countries, see: http://sydney.edu.au/arts/art_history_film/documents/MCAA_bib_2011.pdf

*Please note that there is no tutorial this week.

WEEK 2: MARCH 8 2021

The City as Spectacle: New technologies, New ways of seeing

This lecture will consider some of the pictorial techniques that came to East Asia from Europe in the Early Modern period. It will briefly compare the developments in burgeoning cities and port cities of both early modern China and Japan whilst considering the responses and subsequent integration of ostensibly “new” techniques and technologies into existing pictorial practices.

Prescribed reading

. Wang, Cheng-hua. “Prints in Sino-European Artistic Interactions of the Early Modern Period,” Face to face. The transcendence of the arts in China and beyond: Historical Perspectives, ed. Rui Oliveria Lopes (Lisbon: Artistic Studies Research Centre, Faculty of Fine Arts University of Lisbon, 2014), 424-457.

. Screech, Timon. “The Meaning of Western Perspective in Edo popular Culture,” Archives of Asian Art 47 (1994): 58-69.

Background reading

. Kleutghen, Kristina. Imperial Illusions: Crossing Pictorial Boundaries in the Qing Palaces (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2014).

. Little, Stephen. “The Lure of the West: European Elements in the Art of the Floating World,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 22:1 (1996): 74-96.

. McDermott, Joseph. “Chinese Lenses and Chinese Art,” Kaikodo Journal 19 (Spring 2001): 9-29.

. Purtle, Jennifer. “Scopic Frames: Devices for Seeing China c. 1640,” Art History 33 (February 2010): 54-73.

. Screech, Timon. “Europe in Asia: The Impact of Western Art and Technology in Japan,” in Encounters: the Meeting of Asia and Europe 1500-1800, ed. Anna Jackson and Amin Jaffer (London: V&A Publications, 2004), 310-323.

. Screech, Timon. The Lens Within the Heart: The Western Scientific Gaze and Popular Imagery in Later Edo Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2002).

Tutorial 1: March 10 2021. Presentation topic sign-up. Please refer to Canvas for tutorial materials and discussion questions.

WEEK 3: MARCH 15 2021

The rise of Plebeian Aesthetic? Ukiyo-e prints and Tokugawa culture

This lecture examines the intellectual and cultural life of the Edo period (1603-1867). How did ukiyo-e art come to epitomize the art and culture of Edo? Who are its patrons, and how does ukiyo-e function as a form of social critique? In this brief survey, we will also consider the cultural legacy of Edo art in modern Japan.

Prescribed reading

. Yasutaka, Teruoka. “The pleasure quarters and Tokugawa culture’ in 18th Century Japan, ed. Gerstle, D. (Allen & Unwin, 1989), 3-32.

. Clark, Timothy. “Utamaro and Yoshiwara: The ‘painter of the green houses’ reconsidered” in The Passionate art of Kitagawa Utamaro, eds. Shugo Asano and Timothy Clark (Asahi Shimbun and British Museum Press, 1995) 35-46.

Background reading

. Berry, Mary Elizabeth. Japan in Print: Information and Nation in the Early Modern Period (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007).

. Carpenter, John. Hokusai and his Age: Ukiyo-e Painting, Printing, and Book Illustration in Late Edo Japan (Amsterdam: Hotei, 2005).

. Davis, Julie Nelson. Partners in Print: Artistic Collaboration and the Ukiyo-e Market (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2014).

. Guth, Christine M. “Memorial Portraits of Kabuki Actors: Fanfare in the Floating World,” Impressions 27 (2005-2006): 22-41.

. Jenkins, Donald ed. The Floating World Revisited (Portland: Portland Museum of Art, 1993).

. Jenkins, Donald. “The Roots of Ukiyo-e: Its beginnings to the mid-eighteenth century,” The Hotei Encyclopedia of Japanese Prints (Amsterdam: Hotei, 2005), pp. 47-72.

. Meech, Julia and Oliver, Jane, eds. Designed for Pleasure: The World of Edo Japan in Prints and Paintings, 1680-1860 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008).

. Ajioka, Chiaki. “Hanga – Images on the plate”, Modern boy, modern girl: Modernity in Japanese art 1910-1935, Jackie Menzies, ed. (Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1998) 115-120.

Tutorial 2: March 17 2021. Please refer to Canvas for tutorial materials and discussion questions.

WEEK 4: MARCH 22 2021

“Western-Style” painting and the Modern art movements in East Asia

This lecture surveys some of the key developments that took shape within Japan following the end of the Meiji era, and the increase in support for Western-style painting (yōga) in light of rapid westernization. It will continue with a discussion of movements within China and Korea with focus paid to the instrumental role that Japan – its artists and instutitions – plays in the interpretation and circulation of dominant concepts and techniques in East Asia.

Prescribed reading

. Haga, Tōru. “The formation of Realism in Meiji Painting: The artistic career of Takahashi Yuchi”, Tradition and Modernisation in Japanese Culture, ed. Donald H. Shively (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1971) 51-70.

. Notehelfer, F.G. “On idealism and realism in the thought of Okakura Tenshin”, Journal of Japanese Studies 16, no. 2 (1990): 309-355.   

Background reading

. Rosenfield, John. "Western Style Painting in the Early Meiji Period," in Tradition and Modernisation in Japanese Culture, ed. Donald H. Shively (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1971) 181-219.

. Kim, Youngna. “Urban Space and Visual Culture: The transformation of Seoul in the Twentieth Century”, in A Companion to Asian Art and Architecture, eds. Rebecca Brown and Deborah Hutton (Chichester, England: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011) 153-177.

. Danzker, Jo-Anne Birnie et al. Shanghai Modern, 1919-1945 (Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany : Hatje Cantz, 2004).

. Andrews, Julia and Shen, Kuiyi. The Art of Modern China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012).

. Kee, Joan. “Contemporary Art in Early Colonial Korea: The self-portraits of Ko Hui-dong”, Art History 36, no. 2 (2013): 392-417.

. Pejcochova, Michaela. “Exhibitions of Chinese Painting in Europe in the Interwar-period: The role of Liu Haisu as Artistic Ambassador” in The reception of Asian Art across Cultures, ed. Michelle Huang (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014) 179-199.

Tutorial 3: March 23 2021. Please refer to Canvas for tutorial materials and discussion questions.

WEEK 5: MARCH 29 2021

Nationalism and the function of Traditions: Art and Identity in East Asia

This lecture examines the propagation for a return to tradition and the emergence of a pan-Asian alliance within Asia. It will explore the development of various local art movements in light of nationalist sentiments, and with attention paid to the influence of nihonga (Japanese-style) and so called “Eastern spirituality” to other countries. This lecture will briefly compare the various ways in which artists in Japan, China and Korea have developed endogenous discourses in art.

Prescribed reading

. [Chapter 5] Szostak, John. Painting circles: Tschida Bakusen and Nihonga Collectives in early twentieth Century Japan (Leiden: Brill, 2013).

. Fong, Wen. “The Modern Chinese Art Debate”, Artibus Asiae 53, no.1 (1993): 290-305.

. Fong, Wen C. “Three great traditionalists”, in Between two cultures (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001), 137-204.

Background reading

. Clark, John. “Modern Art in China: An Art Historical Review” in Modernities of Chinese Art, (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 5-17.

. McCausland, Shane. “Nihonga meets Gu Kaizhi: A Japanese copy of a Chinese painting in the British Museum”, The Art Bulletin 87, no. 4 (Dec 2005), ppp. 688-713.

. Andrews, Julia and Shen, Kuyi, A century in crisis: modernity and tradition in the art of twentieth-century China (New York : Guggenheim Museum, 1998).

. Cheng, Hua Wang. “In the name of the nation: Song Painting and Artistic Discourse in early Twentieth-Century China” in A Companion to Asian Art and Architecture, eds. Rebecca Brown and Deborah Hutton (Chichester, England: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011) 537-560.

. Rosenfield, J.M. “Nihonga and its response to ‘the scorching drought of modern vulgarity’” in Birth and Rebirth in Japanese Art, ed. Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere (Leiden: Hotei Publishing, 2001) 163-197.

. Kim, Youngna. “The achievements and limitations of Ko Yu-Seop, a Luminary in Korean Art History”, Archives of Asian Art 60 (2010): 79-87.

. Kungnip Hyŏndae Misulgwan, 100 masterpieces of modern Korean paintings, 1900-1960 (Sŏul : Ŏl kwa Al, 2002).

Tutorial 4: March 31 2021. Please refer to Canvas for tutorial materials and discussion questions.

WEEK 6: APRIL 12 2021

The Modern Nude: What is truly at stake?

This lecture examines the practice of the nude in Japan and China, and the debates and controversies that centre around this genre. Though firmly entrenched in the western academic tradition, the practice of nude painting is arguably involved in the process of cultural assimilation very much part of a country’s modernization. How are such paintings produced and received in East Asia? In what way has East Asian artists joined ranks with European artists over the subordinated figure of women?

Prescribed reading

. Volk, Alicia. “Nude Beauty: A Modernist Critique,” in Pursuit of Universalism: Yorozu Tetsugoro and Japanese Modern Art (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010) 43-74.

. Norman Bryson. “Westernizing bodies: Women, art and power in Meiji Yoga” in Gender and power in the Japanese visual field, eds. Joshua S. Mostow, Norman Bryson, Marybeth Graybill (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003) 89-118.

Background reading

. Volk, Alicia. “Yorozu Tetsugoro and Taisho-Period Creative Prints: When the Japanese Print became Avant-garde,” Impressions, no. 26 (2004): 44-65.

. Weisenfeld, Gennifer. Mavo: Japanese artists and the avant-garde 1905-1931 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002).

. Rojas, Carlos. The naked gaze: Reflections on Chinese modernity (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2008).

. Chiang, Yee. The Chinese eye: An interpretation of Chinese painting (London: Methuen, 1960), 4th Ed.

. Mostow, Joshua S. et. al. eds. Gender and power in the Japanese visual field (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003).

. Guo, Jason, ed. Visual culture in Shanghai 1850s-1930s (Washington, D.C. : New Academia Pub., 2007).

Tutorial 5: April 14 2021. Please refer to Canvas for tutorial materials and discussion questions.

WEEK 7: APRIL 19 2021

Holding up Half the Sky: Women artists and Collectives in East Asia

This lecture focuses on the art practices of women artists broadly across China, Japan and Korea. It will examine the separation of male and female spheres of activity and the rise of women collectivities that grew out from particular elite circles. What are the contributions of women artists to the modernist projects of the respective art world? In recovering their work and contributions historically, how can we avoid committing the pitfall of segregrating women’s art?

Prescribed reading

. Andrews, Julia and Shen, Kuiyi. “Traditionalism as a Modern Stance: The Chinese Women’s Calligraphy and Painting Society”, Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 11, no. 1 (1999): 1-29.

. [Excerpt of chapters] Teo, Phyllis. Rewriting modernism: Three women artists in twentieth-century China: Pan Yuliang, Nie Ou and Yin Xiuzhen (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2016) 57-88.

Background reading

. Kim, Hong Hee. “Sex and sensibility: Women’s art and feminism in Korea”, in Asian women artists, eds. Dinah Dysart and Hannah Fink (Roseville East, NSW: Craftsman House, 1996) 24-33.

. Weidner, Marsha et. al. Views from Jade Terrace: Chinese women artists, 1300-1912 (Indianapolis, Ind: Indianapolis Museum of Art, 1988).

. Fista, Patricia. Japanese women artists, 1600-1900 (Lawrence: Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, 1988).

. Weidner, Marsha, ed., Flowering in the Shadows: Women in the history of Chinese and Japanese Painting (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990).

. Young-Key, Kim-Renaud, ed. Creative women of Korea: the Fifiteenth to the Twentieth century (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2004).

. Dysart, Dinah and Fink, Hannah, eds. Asian women artists (Roseville East, NSW: Craftsman House, 1996).

. Park, Elissa. “Negotiating the Discourse of the Modern in Art: Pan Yuliang (1895-1977) and the transnational modern”, PhD Thesis, The University of Michigan, 2013.

Tutorial 6:  April 21 2021. Please refer to Canvas for tutorial materials and discussion questions.

WEEK 8: APRIL 26 2021

“Floating Time”: Chinese and Japanese Prints in the Chau Chak Wing Museum

Further information on this object-based lecture and workshop will be provided on Canvas.

Readings

. Clark, John. “Building a collection: Chinese prints at the University of Sydney”, Floating Time: Chinese Prints, 1954-2002. (Sydney: Power Publications, 2016), 25-36.

. Inwald, Minerva. “Printmaking in the Mao Period”, Floating Time: Chinese Prints, 1954-2002. (Sydney: Power Publications, 2016), 37-52.

Tutorial 7: April 28 2021. Please refer to Canvas for tutorial materials and discussion questions.

WEEK 9: MAY 3 2021

Realism and the Socialist spirit: Art and reform

This lecture discusses how ‘Realism’ as an artistic style was re-claimed by particular individuals to serve not the needs of the elite and privileged but the everyday Commonfolk. In particular, it will look at the rise of woodblock prints, revolutionary art and painting, and folk painting in China and Korea as a response to modernity and westernization, whilst serving to articulate particular socio-political identities.

Prescribed reading

. [Chapter 4] Clark, John. “Realism and Revolutionary Chinese Painting” in Modernities of Chinese Art (Leiden: Brill, 2010) 45-60.

. Du, Weihong. “A turning point for Guohua?: Xu Beihong and transformative encounters with the socialist spirit, 1933-1953”, Twentieth-Century China 39, no.3 (2014): 216-244.

Background reading

. Kim, Kumja Paik. “Re-evaluating court and folk painting of Korea”, in A Companion to Asian Art and Architecture, eds. Rebecca Brown and Deborah Hutton (Chichester, England: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011) 339-364.

. Zheng, Jane. “Transplating Literati Painting into the Modern Art School System: ‘Guohua’ Education at the Shanghai Fine Arts College, 1924-1937”, Studies in Art Education 52, no. 1 (2010): 34-54.

. Flath, James. The cult of happiness: nianhua, art and history in rural north China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004).

. Shin, Seung-Ryul and Choi, Chongim. “The art of Minhwa: Korean folk painting as a vital force of religion, life and culture” Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education, 24 (2006): 121-133.

. Croizier, Ralph. Art and revolution in modern China: the Lingnan (Cantonese) school of painting, 1906-1951 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).

. Chiu, Melissa, ed. Art and China’s revolution (New York: Asia Society in association with Yale University Press, 2008).

Tutorial 8: May 5 2021. Please refer to Canvas for tutorial materials and discussion questions.

WEEK 10: MAY 10 2021

Paintings of the Motherland: Chinese artists and the Nanyang Modern

This lecture considers the wider impact East Asian artists have on the countries beyond their homeland. In particular, it will look at the artistic contributions of Chinese émigré artists in the Southeast Asian region, specifically Malaya (present day Singapore and Malaysia). How did modernist ideas circulate and travel to different parts of the world? How is modernity in art understood in such contexts as an extension of Chinese culture beyond nationalist boundaries? How are such artistic developments implicated by nationalist projects and desires?

Prescribed reading

. Ong, Emelia. “The Nanyang Artists: Eclectic expressions of the South Seas” in Imagining Identities: Narratives in Malaysian Art Vol 1, eds. Nur Hanim Khairuddin, Beverly Yong and T.K. Sabapathy (Kuala Lumpur: RogueArt, 2012) 59-70.

. [Primary text] Liu, Kang. “Nurturing New Life in the Gravel Bed of the River” (1960) in Re-connecting: Selected writings on Singapore art and Art criticism, eds. T.K. Sabapathy and Cheo Chai-Hiang (Singapore: Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, 2005) 49-63.

. [Secondary text] Yow, Siew Kah. “Cosmopolitanising the modernized Chinese Painting: Liu Kang on art”, and “Cultivating art in Singapore: 1937-1950” in Liu Kang: Essays on art and culture (Singapore: The National Art Gallery, 2011) 10-17 and 18-20.   

Background reading

. [Exhibition Catalogue] Xu Beihong in Nanyang (Singapore: Singapore Art Museum, 2008).

. Low, Yvonne. “Remembering Nanyang Feng ge” in Modern Art Asia Issues 1-8, ed. Majella Munro (UK: Enzoarts, 2012) 229-260.

. [Chapter 15] Clark, John. “Dilemmas of [dis-]Attachment in the Chinese Diaspora”, Modernities of Chinese Art (Leiden: Brill, 2010) 211-228.

. Mashadi, Ahmad. “De-Nationalizing Nanyang Modernity”, CArts: Asian contemporary art and culture, no. 2 (March-April 2008): 92-95.

. Sabapathy, T.K. “Traditions and Modernism: Nanyang Artists,” Architecture Journal (School of Architecture, National University of Singapore), (1985): 6-11.

. Sabapathy, T.K. “The Nanyang Artists: Some General Remarks” in Pameran Retrospektif Pelukis-pelukis Nanyang (Kuala Lumpur: National Museum of Art, 1979) 43-48.

. Chia, Jane. Georgette Chen (Singapore: Singapore Art Museum, 1997).

Tutorial 9: May 13 2021

Please refer to Canvas for tutorial materials and discussion questions.

WEEK 11: MAY 17 2021

Colonial Modernity? War and the impact of Japanese Occupation on Taiwan

This lecture examines the significant role the Japanese Occupation played in the transfer and transformation of European modernism, with attention paid to Taiwan, and for comparative purposes, Indonesia. In what way were Japanese artists the conduit of European modernism to artists in Taiwan? What is the artistic and cultural impact of Japanese colonialism in Asia?

Prescribed reading

. Clark, John. “Taiwanese Painting under the Japanese Occupation” in Modernities of Chinese Art (Leiden: Brill, 2010) 99-112.

. Liao Hsin-Tien, “The beauty of the untamed: Exploration and travel in colonial Taiwanese Landscape Painting”, Refracted Modernity: Visual culture and identity in colonial Taiwan, ed Kikuchi Yuko (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2017), 39-66.

Background reading

. Kuo, Jason C. “After the Empire: Chinese Painters of the Post-war Generation in Taiwan”, in Modernity in Asian Art, ed John Clark, 105-115.

. Lin, Yu-Chun. “On cultural impact and stylistic changes of art: The Taiwanese painters dwelling in China during the Japanese Occupation time”, Modern China Studies 19, no. 1 (2012): 141-167.

. Yen Chuan-ying, “The art movement in the 1930s in Taiwan”, in John Clark, ed. Modernity in Asian Art (Sydney: Wild Peony Press, 1993) 45-59.

. [Chapter 9] Clark, John. “Taiwanese Painting and Europe: the Indirect and Direct Relations”, in Modernities in Chinese Art (Leiden: Brill, 2010) 113-126.

. Sandler, Mark, ed. The confusion era: Art and culture of Japan during the Allied Occupation, 1945-1952 (Washington, D.C.: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution in association with the University of Washington Press, Seattle and London, 1997).

.  Wardani, Farah. “The Japan Factor: Great Asianism and the Birth of Indonesian Modern Art (1942-1945)”, CAA Conference 2013: Art in Indonesia: Continuities and Change, 2013.

Tutorial 10: May 19 2021

Please refer to Canvas for tutorial materials and discussion questions.

WEEK 12: MAY 24 2021

Postwar East Asia: The crisis in painting and Postmodernity

We will explore briefly the issue of postmodernity in light of artistic developments in East Asia. What is ‘post-modern’ art in East Asia? Are these just styles that were re-cast from the West? Does postmodernism/postmodernity exist in the countries under study? Why are these terms sometimes problematic when applied to local contexts? In light of the rise in the global exchange of ideas and images in a post-war, post-industrial era, this lecture will examine the art movements that have emerged in East Asia such as Political Pop and others.

Prescribed reading

. Laing, Ellen Johnston. “Is there Post-Modern Art in the People’s Republic of China?” in Modernity in Asian Art, ed. John Clark (Sydney: Wild Peony Press, 1993) 207-221.

. Munroe, Alexandra. “To Challenge the Mid-Summer Sun: The Gutai Group,” Japanese art after 1945: scream against the sky (New York: H.N. Abrams, 1994), 19-25.

Background reading

. Morley, Simon. “Dansaekhwa,” Third Text 27, no. 2 (2013): 189-207.

. Bardaouli, Sam, and Fellrath, Till. Overcoming the modern: Dansaekhwa: the Korean monochrome movement (New York: Alexander Gray Associates, 2014).

. Chiu, Melissa. Breakout: Chinese art outside China (Milano : Charta, c2006).

. Dal Lago, Francesca. “Personal Mao: Reshaping an Icon in Contemporary Chinese Art” in Art Journal 58, no. 2 (Summer, 1999): 45-59.

. Gao, Minglu. “Post-Utopian Avant-garde art in China” in Ales Erjavec, eds., Postmodernism and the Postsocialist Condition: Politicized art under late socialism (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003) 247-284.

. Smith, Karen. Nine lives: the birth of avant-garde art in new China (New York : Distributed in North America by Prestel, [2006]).

. Tiampo, Ming. Gutai: decentering modernism (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2011).

Tutorial 11: May 26 2021

Please refer to Canvas for tutorial materials and discussion questions.

WEEK 13: MAY 31 2021

A Coda: Showing and Collecting “Contemporary Asian Art”

In this last lecture, we will briefly consider issues related to the circulation, exhibition and collection of modern and contemporary Asian art both inside and outside of Asia. Museums and galleries in the West struggle to re-consider their acquisition policies and re-think existing collection models in a bid to close the gap in their knowledge of Asian of the past century and to catch up on its present and future developments. What new roles and responsibilities do curators both inside and outside of Asian countries now face with the positioning of Asian art in the wider international art world? What are some of the political implications/agendas behind the interest and motivations of collecting modern and contemporary Asian art?

Prescribed reading

. Desai, Vishakha N. “Beyond the ‘Authentic-Exotic’: Collecting Contemporary Asian Art in the Twenty-First Century,” in Bruce Altshuler, ed., Collecting the New: Museums and Contemporary Art (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007), 103-114.

. Catching, Rebecca. “The new face of censorship: State control of the visual arts in Shanghai, 2008-2011,” Journal of Visual Art Practice 11, no.2-3 (2014): 231-249.

Background reading

. Bennett, Tony. “Exhibition, Difference and the Logic of Culture,” in Karp, Ivan et. al., eds., Museum Frictions: Public Cultures/Global Transformations (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), 46-69.

. Gao, Minglu. “Changing motivations of Chinese Contemporary Art Since the Mid 1990s,” Journal of Visual Art Practice 11, no.2-3 (2014): 209-219.

. Wang, Peggy. “Art critics as middlemen: Navigating State and Market in Contemporary Chinese Art, 1980s-1990s,” Art Journal 72, no. 1 (2014): 6-19.

. Wang, Peggy and Wu, Hung, eds. Contemporary Chinese art: primary documents. (New York; Museum of Modern Art: Duke University Press, 2010).

Tutorial 12: June 2 2021

Please refer to Canvas for tutorial materials and discussion questions.