Nine Lives: The Birth of Avant-Garde Art in New China - Softcover

Smith, Karen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 3039390368 ISBN 13: 9783039390366

Publisher: Scalo, 2005

Synopsis

Nine Lives: The Birth of Avant-Garde Art in New China by Smith, Karen (2005) Paperback

About this title

Synopsis:

In the early 1990s, the idea of contemporary art in China simply did not compute to a foreign audience. But in 1993, ten contemporary Chinese artists debuted at the 48th Venice Biennale. They were immediately hailed as progenitors of a Chinese "avant-garde." Their brightly colored, Pop Art-inspired paintings played with socialist motifs, parodied Mao, and gave a visual expression to the feelings of disaffected Chinese youth. They were everything western audiences expected of contemporary art from the People's Republic of China. But a number of critics were rather guarded in their opinions. Was this another flash-in-the-pan phenomenon just as Soviet art had been in the 1980s? Could a Chinese avant-garde maintain a distinct identity of its own and shake off its penchant for imitation? The answer is clearly "yes". The emergence of a market for their art transformed the lives of these avant-garde pioneers from rags to riches, from outcast to hero, from social pariah to cutting-edge cool in a Chinese society adapting to a new era. They did not change but China has changed.

The ideology they once had to fight now propagates a cultural climate of laissez-faire that is tantamount to encouragement. Set against China's official program of modernization, "Nine Lives" paints a compelling picture of artists working beyond the pale of official culture, who started a new cultural revolution that is sweeping China today.

About this edition

• Publisher: Scalo
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 3039390368
• ISBN 13: 9783039390366
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 454