01.06.2023Underground Art During Mao’s Cultural Revolution

Lecturer

Assoc. Prof. Aihe Wang (University of Hong Kong)

Date and Time

June 01, 2023, 2 - 3:45 pm

Venue

University of Zurich, Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies, Room ZUB 416, Zürichbergstrasse 4, 8032 Zürich

Content

This lecture focuses on underground art and artists’ collectives during China’s Cultural Revolution. Centered on the  Wuming (No Name) painting group active in the 1970s, it explores the interconnections between art practice and community formation, and between the artists’ individual subjectivity and the group dynamics of their collective. As a history, it formed a fresh critique and innovative response to China’s radical revolutionary modernity. As an artists’ community, it facilitated transformation of a militant society, giving birth of a modernist art and modern subjectivity. And as art, it discloses an alternative modernism, bridging western modernism and Chinese aesthetics. This lecture re-evaluates the conventional narratives of modern art history in a global and comparative context.

Aihe Wang is Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong. She is currently working on her book on underground art during China’s cultural revolution. This project began in 2013 with her membership at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and has been supported by The French National Research Agency (ANR) and Hong Kong Research Grants Council (RGC) Joint Research Scheme. Her representative works include Cosmology and Political Culture in Early China and Wuming (No Name) Painting Catalogue. Her recent articles on modern China are published in Society, China Perspectives, Twenty-First Century, and Modern Chinese History.

Contact

Sujie Jin

Organisation

Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies - Chinese Studies