Outline

Academic unit	Art History
Credit points	6
Prerequisites ?	12 credit points at 2000 level in Art History or 12 credit points at 2000 level in Asian Studies or (6 credit points at 2000 level in Art History and (CASF1001 and CASF1002))
Corequisites ?	None
Prohibitions ?	ARHT2646
Assumed knowledge ?	None
Available to study abroad and exchange students	No

Coordinator	Yvonne Low, yvonne.low@sydney.edu.au
Lecturer(s)	Yvonne Low, yvonne.low@sydney.edu.au

Details
Criteria

Type	Description	Weight	Due	Length
Tutorial quiz	Short Quizzes Short quiz	30%	Multiple weeks	10 mins (equiv. 1200 words)
Outcomes assessed:
Presentation	Presentation Presentation on nominated topic	30%	Multiple weeks	1300 words
Outcomes assessed:
Assignment	Research essay Catalogue essay	40%	Week 13 Due date: 01 Jun 2025 at 23:00	2000 words
Outcomes assessed:
= restricted AI ?

Assessment summary

Short quizzes x 6 (30%; equivalent to 1200wds)

There are a total of 6 quizzes each weighing 5% and taking no more than 15 minutes to complete. It will take place in person during your allocated tutorial time. Please note that you can only complete the quizzes during the tutorial, and not prior. Please refer to the Unit Schedule for the quiz dates.

Tutorial Presentation (30%; equivalent to 1300wds); varies

Students may choose to present individually or in pairs. Individual presentations should not be longer than 15 mins, and joint presentations not longer than 20 mins. Students will be given the opportunity in the first tutorial to nominate the topic of presentation. They may then start researching on an artist/art work/movement of their choice, and as they do so to refer closely and critically to at least ONE of the prescribed readings. The objective of the presentation is to propose possible research trajectories in which the presentation would culminate in questions or a set of problems for further discussion.

The presentation should be accompanied by images. Images may be drawn from lecture and/or assigned readings. Details and requirements will be given in the first tutorial. Sign-up for presentations will take place in the first tutorial and a schedule will be published shortly thereafter; the course convenor and tutor reserve the right to reassign students to assure even distribution of presenters.

Final Research Essay (2000 words; 40%)

The Final Essay is designed for students to develop extensive research skills and experience in writing critically and theoretically informed art historical discourses on Asian art. It will give students the opportunity to hone their analytical skills and develop their ability to examine the historical development of styles, techniques and practices of Asian art, whilst paying attention to the various contexts critically.

Task: You will put together a catalogue essay on a real or imagined Asian art show for either AGNSW or CCWM centred on their collections. In this essay, you must include (1) a literature review (2) formal analysis of select works, and (3) an argument. A good research essay of this length should contain a bibliography of at least 10-15 references made up of books and journal articles. Please note that this is a formal piece of writing which means that you need to adhere to all formatting and referencing requirements. Further details will be provided on Canvas.

Assessment criteria

The University awards common result grades, set out in the Coursework Policy 2014 (Schedule 1).

As a general guide, a High distinction indicates work of an exceptional standard, a Distinction a very high standard, a credit a good standard, and a pass an acceptable standard.

Result name	Mark range	Description
High distinction	85 - 100
Distinction	75 - 84
Credit	65 - 74
Pass	50 - 64
Fail	0 - 49	When you don’t meet the learning outcomes of the unit to a satisfactory standard.

For more information see sydney.edu.au/students/guide-to-grades

For more information see guide to grades.

Use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and automated writing tools

Except for supervised exams or in-semester tests, you may use generative AI and automated writing tools in assessments unless expressly prohibited by your unit coordinator.

For exams and in-semester tests, the use of AI and automated writing tools is not allowed unless expressly permitted in the assessment instructions.

The icons in the assessment table above indicate whether AI is allowed – whether full AI, or only some AI (the latter is referred to as “AI restricted”). If no icon is shown, AI use is not permitted at all for the task. Refer to Canvas for full instructions on assessment tasks for this unit.

Your final submission must be your own, original work. You must acknowledge any use of automated writing tools or generative AI, and any material generated that you include in your final submission must be properly referenced. You may be required to submit generative AI inputs and outputs that you used during your assessment process, or drafts of your original work. Inappropriate use of generative AI is considered a breach of the Academic Integrity Policy and penalties may apply.

The Current Students website provides information on artificial intelligence in assessments. For help on how to correctly acknowledge the use of AI, please refer to the  AI in Education Canvas site.

Late submission

In accordance with University policy, these penalties apply when written work is submitted after 11:59pm on the due date:

Deduction of 5% of the maximum mark for each calendar day after the due date.
After ten calendar days late, a mark of zero will be awarded.

Academic integrity

The Current Student website provides information on academic integrity and the resources available to all students. The University expects students and staff to act ethically and honestly and will treat all allegations of academic integrity breaches seriously.

We use similarity detection software to detect potential instances of plagiarism or other forms of academic integrity breach. If such matches indicate evidence of plagiarism or other forms of academic integrity breaches, your teacher is required to report your work for further investigation.

WK	Topic	Learning activity
Week 01	Introduction to Asian Modernities	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 02	The city as spectacle: new technologies, new ways of seeing	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 02	Week 1 Discussion and Tutorial topic sign-up	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 03	The rise of Plebeian aesthetic? Ukiyo-e prints and Tokugawa culture	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 03	OBL Workshop - Fisher Library	Workshop (1 hr)
Week 04	“Western-style” painting and the modern art movements in East Asia	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 04	Quiz 1 on Week 3 and Presentations	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 05	Nationalism and the function of traditions: art and identity in East Asia	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 05	Quiz 2 on Week 4 and Presentations	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 06	The modern nude: what is truly at stake?	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 06	Quiz 3 on Week 5 and Presentations	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 07	Paintings of the Motherland: Chinese artists and the Nanyang Modern	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 07	Quiz 4 on Week 6 and Presentations	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 08	Realism and the Socialist spirit: Art and reform	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 08	OBL Workshop: Print viewing at Chau Chak Wing Museum	Workshop (1 hr)
Week 09	From Collectivism to Individualism: Postwar Avant-Garde in Japan and South Korea	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 09	Quiz 5 on Week 9 (Exhibition Viewing)	Field trip (1 hr)
Week 10	Art and Internationalism: China and Qianwei art after the Revolution	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 10	Presentations	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 11	“Holding up Half the Sky”: Women artists and Collectives in East Asia	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 11	Quiz 6 on Week 10 and Presentations	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 12	Blockbuster Exhibitions: Showing Cao Fei and Yayoi Kusama	Field trip (2 hr)
Week 12	Consultation and Writing Workshop	Tutorial (1 hr)
Week 13	Coda: Exhibiting and Collecting “Contemporary Asian Art”	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 13	Consultations and (make-up) Presentations	Tutorial (1 hr)

Attendance and class requirements

Attendance: According to Faculty Board Resolutions, students in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences are expected to attend 90% of their classes. If you attend less than 50% of classes, regardless of the reasons, you may be referred to the Examiner’s Board. The Examiner’s Board will decide whether you should pass or fail the unit of study if your attendance falls below this threshold.
Lecture recording: Most lectures (in recording-equipped venues) will be recorded and may be made available to students on canvas. However, you should not rely on lecture recording to substitute your classroom learning experience.
Preparation: Students should commit to spend approximately three hours’ preparation time (reading, studying, homework, essays, etc.) for every hour of scheduled instruction.

Study commitment

Typically, there is a minimum expectation of 1.5-2 hours of student effort per week per credit point for units of study offered over a full semester. For a 6 credit point unit, this equates to roughly 120-150 hours of student effort in total.

Required readings

WEEK 1: February 27 2025

Introduction to Asian Modernities: 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 institutionalization 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).

. Clark, John. The Asian Modern (Singapore: National Gallery Singapore, 2021).

. 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).

*Please note that there is no tutorial this week.

WEEK 2: MARCH 6 2025

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

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

. 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.

. 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. “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: Presentation topic sign-up. Please refer to Canvas for details.

WEEK 3: MARCH 13 2025

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

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

. 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

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

. 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).

. 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 13 2025. Print viewing workshop at Fisher Library. Please refer to Canvas for details.

WEEK 4: MARCH 20 2025

“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 institutions – 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 20 2025. Please refer to Canvas for details.

WEEK 5: MARCH 27 2025

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 details.

WEEK 6: APRIL 3 2025

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 3 2025. Please refer to Canvas for details.

WEEK 7: APRIL 10 2025

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

. 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.

. Low, Yvonne. “In search of the uncontroversial nude: Liu Kang’s modernist pursuit in Nanyang” World Art 14, no. 2 (2024): 181-208.

Background 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.

. [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.

Tutorial 6: April 10 2025. Please refer to Canvas for details.

WEEK 8: APRIL 17 2025

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.

10-11PM Guest lecture by Emeritus John Clark: Realism and the Socialist Spirit in China and Taiwan

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).

. 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 17 2025. Please refer to Canvas for details.

MID-SEMESTER BREAK 18-25 APRIL 2025

WEEK 9: MAY 1 2025

From Collectivism to Individualism: Postwar Avant-Garde in Japan and South Korea

This lecture will explore the art worlds of Japan and Korea in so-called recovery modes, as they enter into a new social paradigm, and where they re-engage with the West and the broader international world. It begins with postwar Japan in the 50s-70s focusing on a new generation of artists keen to recover the momentum that characterized Japanese culture, and then followed by South Korea in the 70s, a country just broken free from military dictatorship. As the countries recuperate their culture from the various traumatic events, a shift in mentality could be discernable – namely, a questioning of the nature of art, and the role of the artist within the broader matrix of an international art-world system.

Prescribed reading

. 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.

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

Background reading

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

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

. Tatehata, Akira. "Mono-ha and Japan's crisis of the Modern", Third Text, vol. 13, no. 3 (2010): 223-236.

. Park, Sunyoung. Revisiting Minjung: New Perspectives on the Cultural History of 1980s South Korea (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2019), chapter 5.

Tutorial 8: May 1 2025 (AGNSW SITE VISIT: LEE UFAN) Please refer to Canvas for details.

WEEK 10: MAY 8 2025

Art and Internationalism: China and Qianwei art after the Revolution

This week’s lecture will turn to China, as the country re-connects with the international art world in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution. We will explore briefly the issue of postmodernity in light of artistic developments in East Asia. What is ‘post-modern’ art? 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 China, such as Political Pop.

10-11PM Guest lecture by Dr Yang Xiaoya: Avant-Garde/Gone: A critical account of Chinese Contemporary art

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.

. 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.

Background reading

. 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.

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

Tutorial 9: May 8 2025. Please refer to Canvas for details.

WEEK 11: MAY 15 2025

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

. [Exhibition catalogue] Connecting bodies: Asian Women Artists (Seoul: Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, 2023). Selected Chapters.

. 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 10: May 15 2025. Please refer to Canvas for details.

WEEK 12: MAY 22 2025

Blockbuster Exhibitions: Showing Cao Fei and Yayoi Kusama (Site Visit and Exhibition Viewing at AGNSW)

The rise of internationalism has brought greater attention to women’s issues, and increased opportunities for women to practice professionally across the world. Two prominent examples are Yayoi Kusama and Cao Fei. Their works are shown and collected at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In Week 12, we will have an on-site lecture and exhibition viewing of Cao Fei’s show: My City is Yours at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. We will explore the themes of cyber futurism and motherhood in Cao Fei’s virtual world – in to-date her largest solo exhibition in Australia.

Prescribed reading

. [Exhibition Catalogue] Cao Fei: My city is yours (Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2024) Selected Chapters.

. [Excerpts] Kusama, Yayoi. Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama. Trans. Ralph McCarthy (London: Tate Publishing, 2011 [2002]).

Tutorial 11: May 22 2025 Consultation/Project planning. Please refer to Canvas for details.

WEEK 13: MAY 29 2025

A Coda: Exhibiting 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 Practice11, 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: May 29 2025. Please refer to Canvas for details.

GQ1	Depth of disciplinary expertise Deep disciplinary expertise is the ability to integrate and rigorously apply knowledge, understanding and skills of a recognised discipline defined by scholarly activity, as well as familiarity with evolving practice of the discipline.
GQ2	Critical thinking and problem solving Critical thinking and problem solving are the questioning of ideas, evidence and assumptions in order to propose and evaluate hypotheses or alternative arguments before formulating a conclusion or a solution to an identified problem.
GQ3	Oral and written communication Effective communication, in both oral and written form, is the clear exchange of meaning in a manner that is appropriate to audience and context.
GQ4	Information and digital literacy Information and digital literacy is the ability to locate, interpret, evaluate, manage, adapt, integrate, create and convey information using appropriate resources, tools and strategies.
GQ5	Inventiveness Generating novel ideas and solutions.
GQ6	Cultural competence Cultural Competence is the ability to actively, ethically, respectfully, and successfully engage across and between cultures. In the Australian context, this includes and celebrates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, knowledge systems, and a mature understanding of contemporary issues.
GQ7	Interdisciplinary effectiveness Interdisciplinary effectiveness is the integration and synthesis of multiple viewpoints and practices, working effectively across disciplinary boundaries.
GQ8	Integrated professional, ethical, and personal identity An integrated professional, ethical and personal identity is understanding the interaction between one’s personal and professional selves in an ethical context.
GQ9	Influence Engaging others in a process, idea or vision.

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Use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and automated writing tools

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Simple extensions

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ARHT3646: The Asian Modern: Art in East Asia

Semester 1, 2025 [Normal day] - Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney

Overview

Overview

Unit details and rules

Teaching staff

Assessment

Assessment

Assessment summary

Assessment criteria

Use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and automated writing tools

Late submission

Academic integrity

Learning support

Learning support

Simple extensions

Special consideration

Using AI responsibly

Support for students

Weekly schedule

Weekly schedule

Attendance and class requirements

Study commitment

Required readings

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes

Graduate qualities

Outcome map

Responding to student feedback

Responding to student feedback

Disclaimer

On this page

Useful links