The Power Institute's regular reading group, focusing on new ideas and research in art history and visual culture.
Wang Guangyi, Weather Report, 1989
"The need to see contemporary Chinese art as either countering or more than just according to China’s ideological context has led to claims that artists were interested in forging “reality free from ideology” and, in turn, encourages seeing “contemporary Chinese experience in universal terms.”
In both cases, however, the rush to identify art as operating either out of or in opposition to an established set of ideological parameters has often foreclosed further examinations of ideology and art. This is also because of the tendency to categorize art and expectations of its political functions as either overtly critiquing or obsequiously serving. In doing so, however, we miss nuances of the particular aspects of ideological concerns that were called attention to, reconstrued, and framed to make claims for art."
Readings
- Peggy Wang, "Introduction: Actors in the World" and "1. Spaces of Self- Recognition", in The Future History of Contemporary Chinese Art (2020).
The Power Institute Reading Group is open to all - to attend, just turn up!
For access to the readings, contact nicholas.croggon@sydney.edu.au