AVANT-GARDE/GONE A Critical Account of Chinese Contemporary Art, 2012-2022

Abstract

This dissertation examines the Chinese avant-garde, focusing on anti-establishment art practices that have emerged mainly since 2012, deploying an understanding of censorship, anecdotal and so-called unverified facts, translated language, information asymmetry, misinformation and self-colonisation as critical categories. It investigates anti-establishment art and discourse, their social impact and consequences in the context of seemingly booming markets and dynamic institutions manipulated by increasingly oppressive politics and ideology. Politically, the totalitarian regime aptly cultivates art and culture for its use so that even the avant-garde has become mainstream. Commercially oriented, avant-garde art in China is referred to as a brand of new art – dangdai yishu, contemporary art – to suit the taste of a few so-called “modern citizens”, demonstrating their Euromerican middle-class taste in a socialist China.

Avant-Garde/Gone: A Critical Account of Chinese Contemporary Art, 2012-2022 marks a departure from the rather formulaic serious writing on and for Chinese contemporary or avant-garde art, especially the production of standardised, strategical and translated texts. In my research, some evidence exists only temporarily because of censorship and self-censorship mechanisms, and some could never be accessed inside China. In most cases, unofficial records such as anecdotes, gossip, as well as private and insider talks are officially deemed “bullshit”, “untrustworthy”, or “unverified”. Yet, the fact is that, in China today, even authentic and verifiable data has a particular nature that requires questioning and problematising. In addition to standardly published primary and secondary sources, I employ informal data to place my argument into a new perspective.