Xiandai Shufa: Brushes With Modernism

As similar to the changes that came to be called 'modernism' in the West in the nineteenth century, the nature of changing artistic traditions in the East are as far-reaching and as significant in that they also prefigure a contestation of the tradition/modernity duality. This article looks specifically at the tradition of Chinese ink painting and calligraphy and the insistence by Chinese critics that evolution - if not revolution - in these forms is occurring. Moreso the concentration here lies with modern calligraphy (xiandai shufu) and the distinguishing of calligraphy from the generalised use of Chinese characters in contemporary art.

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Backflow: Returned Chinese Artists

The decades since China's Great Proletarian Cultural revolution (1966-1976) have witnessed a tide of artists leaving China, and now returning, propelled in part by the desire to locate a healthy climate for art production. There was a time when western society provided a climate more conducive to creativity and these artists sought better living conditions and freedom of thought and expression. Now many of these artists fight a battle over the encroaching forces of materialism and globalisation and there is an increasing backflow of these artists returning to China in the light of new policies valuing creative output and generally higher living standards.

Britta Erickson

Changchun, China: to Confront or Confirm

Scarlett pays homage to the opening of an International Sculpture Park at Changchun, northern China, which bosts 315 works by numerous international and local provincial Chinese artists. Scarlett looks at this event and examines how audiences react to both controversial and more accepted and confirmed art within a society.

Ken Scarlett

The Cost of Creativity?

The fabric of the contemporary art scene in China comprises the densely woven strands of politics, economics and aesthetics specific to the immediate socio-cultural framework: a cloth that is today increasingly more sophisticated that the coarse serge of the past. A vibrant contemporary art scene which emerged in the early 1980's following years of rampant cultural destruction and rigid doctrinal control over its form and content. This article focuses on the economic viability of contemporary Chinese art, a movement that found its key members a part of the lower socio-economic class.

Karen Smith

The China Phenomenon

Binghui Huangfu and Stephanie Britton

Artrave

Artlink

Broadening the Scope

The First Beijing Biennale, held in September of 2003 somewhat echoed the Venice Biennale in it's approach to expansive venues and activities. Although Chinese Officials are realising the importance of contemporary art and its role in promoting international activities in Beijing, it is the artists themselves who have managed to expand the scope of contemporary art events in the city. Furthermore the event hosted a series of forums and international conferences to promote dialogue between Chinese experts and their international counterparts.

Thomas J. Berghuis

The Decade of the Rise of Chinese Women Artists

Socio-economic conditions and traditional ethics encourage Chinese women to maintain the ideal of harmony between genders, whilst certainly pursuing and endorsing independence. The state of women's art in China is an increasingly pluralistic art establishment within which international feminist thought has been a great source of energy but where there exists a clear opposition to the 'we don't bite' attitude. This article examines the impact of western feminist thought on a group of Chinese women artists who studied in Europe and America and the new awareness of their own feminist identities that came as a result.

Gu / Yang Zhenqing / Li

Ruth Johnstone, Glen Walls, Lisa Young and John Walker

Modelling Space RMIT Project Space & Space Room, Melbourne 30 June - 18 July 2003

Jazmina Cininas

Hothouse

Keith Murdoch Gallery State Library of Victoria 6 June - 24 August 2003

Juliette Peers

Paul Hoban

4MAL Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide 25 June - 27 July 2003

Wendy Walker

Wang Jianwei: Working on the Boundaries

New media in China is probably the most rapidly developing medium used by contemporary artists in that country. As an art form new media characterises a form of communication with an almost endless capacity to be manipulated, making it the perfect tool to express a new artistic confidence. The intent of this article is the concentration on the work of one artist Wang Jianwei, whose work typifies many of the issues being expressed nationally through contemporary art. His is a practice differentiated by the way he slides from media to media allowing the intent of the art to govern the form of expression.

Binghui Huangfu

Alors, La Chine?

Alors, La Chine? was a major exhibition of contemporary Chinese art at the centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, from 25 June to 13 October 2003. An exhibition of this kind had been planned for several years and included several research visit to China by Pompidou curators. Eventually the French government intervened when it decided that such an exhibition should be part of a planned two-year series of Franco-Chinese exchanges. Clark examines some of the political and ethical issues which surfaced as a result of this major event being held.

John Clark

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