Twenty years of experimental art from a globalized China
Published on the occasion of the largest exhibition of contemporary art from China ever mounted in North America, organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World explores recent experimental art from 1989 to 2008, arguably the most transformative period of modern Chinese and recent world history.
Featuring over 150 iconic and lesser-known artworks by more than 70 artists and collectives, this catalog offers an interpretative survey of Chinese experimental art framed by the geopolitical dynamics attending the end of the Cold War, the spread of globalization and the rise of China. Critical essays explore how Chinese artists have been both agents and skeptics of China’s arrival as a global presence, while an extensive entry section offers detailed analysis on works made in a broad range of experimental mediums, including film and video, ink, installation, land art and performance, as well as painting and photography. 
Featured artists include Ai Weiwei, Big Tail Elephant Group, Cai Guo-Qiang, Cao Fei, Chen Zhen, Chen Chieh-jen, Ding Yi, Geng Jianyi, Huang Yong Ping, Kan Xuan, Rem Koolhaas/OMA, Libreria Borges, Liu Wei, Liu Xiaodong, New Measurement Group, Ou Ning, Ellen Pau, Qiu Zhijie, Shen Yuan, Song Dong, Wang Guangyi, Wang Jianwei, Yan Lei, Yang Jiechang, Yu Hong, Xijing Men, Xu Bing, Zeng Fanzhi, Zhang Peili, Zhang Hongtu, Zhang Xiaogang and Zhou Tiehai. An appendix includes a selected history of contemporary art exhibitions in China, artist biographies and a bibliography.

Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World

Arts & Photography

Hanru, Hou

Munroe, Alexandra

Tinari, Philip

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Guggenheim Museum Publications

In One Hand Clapping, five artists from Greater China―Cao Fei, Duan Jianyu, Lin Yilin, Wong Ping and Samson Young―explore the ways in which globalization affects our understanding of the future. From a film shot at the industrial facilities of mainland China to a virtual reality intervention into the Guggenheim's iconic rotunda and musical compositions for imaginary instruments that defy the laws of physics, these works examine our systems of exchange, communication and production, and engage creatively with the future as a form of poetic revolution. Essays by the exhibition's organizers, Xiaoyu Weng and Hou Hanru, are joined by a theoretical text on technology and culture by the philosopher Yuk Hui, selected poems by millennial poets and sections presenting materials related to the commissioning process for each of the artists.

One Hand Clapping

Wong, Nicholas

Hui, Yuk

Weng, Xiaoyu

History & Criticism

This first monograph to look back over Huang Yong Ping's work to date finally brings the full range of his accomplishments to an international audience. As a contemporary artist in China working with diverse traditions and new and ancient media, Huang has built an artistic universe comprised of provocative installations that challenge the viewer to reconsider everything from the idea of art to national identity to recent history. He was once one of the leading figures of the Xiamen Dada movement--a collective of artists working to create a new Chinese cultural identity by bridging trends in Western modernism with Chinese traditions of Zen and Taoism. He continues to confront established definitions of history and aesthetics with sculptures and installations that draw on the legacies of Joseph Beuys, Arte Povera, and John Cage as well as traditional Chinese art and philosophy, juxtaposing traditional objects, iconic images, and modern references. House of Oracles echoes that blend by binding photographs, essays, and striking sketchbook pages, which are presented with translations of the artist's calligraphy, in a matte soft cover with two facing spines--it opens with the plates on one side and the essays and artist writings on the other.

House of Oracles: A Huang Yong Ping Retrospective

Walker Art Center

Lin Tianmiao / Repères 157: Est-Ce Permis?Est-Ce Possible?

GALERIE LELONG

"My work has moved away from the idea of a painting as an object," Michael Lin (born 1964) observes. "I'm more interested in creating a painting as a space to occupy." Lin makes painted installations that reconfigure institutional spaces with designs appropriated from Taiwanese textiles. This publication is the first comprehensive overview of his work.

Michael Lin

BOURRIAUD, NICOLAS

Grenville, Bruce

Reference

Hatje Cantz

An icon in his native city, Tsang Tsou Choi (1921–2007) covered the streets of Hong Kong with his graffiti for over 35 years, using a brush and ink to proclaim himself “the King of Kowloon”--heir to an imaginary birthright that fueled a lifetime of artistic output. With his signature style, Tsang wrote himself into the collective memory of a generation caught between British and Chinese rule, leaving behind an oeuvre that includes countless outdoor projects (the majority now extant only in photographs), myriad works on paper, board and cloth, as well as painted objects. This milestone publication documents Tsang’s influential art and enduring legacy. With over 100 reproductions, a foreword by Hans-Ulrich Obrist and critical essays by Hou Hanru, Ou Ning and others, The King of Kowloon is the first comprehensive survey of Tsang’s complex and fascinating artistic output.

The King of Kowloon: The Art of Tsang Tsou Choi

Ning, Ou

Damiani

Perhaps China's most internationally acclaimed architect, Yung Ho Chang is particularly concerned with architecture's role in expressing and reflecting the indigenous culture. He advocates the wide use of bamboo as a building material in Chinese urban design, as put forth in his Bamboo City, exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2000, but while he focuses attention on the changes taking place in Beijing, he is mindful of the globalizing context in which the city is developing. In the past decade, Chang and his Atelier FCJZ (fei chang jan zhu, or "unusual architecture"), which he founded in the early 1990s as Beijing's first private architectural firm, have created a wide range of intellectually provocative urban projects in China that continue to receive acclaim.

Yung Ho Chang: Atelier Feichang Jianzhu--A Chinese Practice

Xing, Ruan

Architecture

Map Book Publishers

For the past 20 years, Chinese artist Sheng Qi has been creating remarkable works of art in diverse media, approximately 100 of which are showcased here in full color. A prevalent theme in his work has been the study of the body: of body language and its culture. (When he left Beijing in 1989, he cut the little finger off of his left hand and buried it in a flower pot.) Since returning to China after completing his artistic studies in London, he has been selected to participate in the Nippon International Performance Festival, and the recent International Center of Photography exhibition, Between Past and Future, where his photographic work was selected for the cover of the exhibition catalogue. He is also one of the few artists in China to concern himself with AIDS and to become involved in local awareness campaigns.

Sheng Qi: Madness, Appropriation

Keidan, Lois

Du, Huang

Ming'an, Wang

Individual Artists

Blue Kingfisher

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