In a groundbreaking approach to avant-garde Chinese art, the 1999 exhibition "Transience: Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the Twentieth Century" established a historical framework for current artistic production in China. Organized by the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago, the show and its catalog highlighted the diverse responses of twenty-two artists to Chinas recent history and current social transformation. These detailed essays on the artists and their works are now available in a revised edition of the exhibition catalog. Written by Wu Hung, a leading authority and the curator of the exhibit, Transience explores contemporary Chinese art through the themes of demystification, ruins, and transience, and represents an original perspective in the continuing discussion on Chinese experimental art.

Transience: Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the Twentieth Century

Arts & Photography

Hung, Wu

History & Criticism

University of Chicago Press

In the first exploration of Chinese paintings as both material productsand pictorial representations, The Double Screen shows how thecollaboration and tension between material form and image gives life toa painting. A Chinese painting is often reduced to the image it bears;its material form is dismissed; its intimate connection with socialactivities and cultural conventions neglected.A screen occupies a space and divides it, supplies an ideal surface forpainting, and has been a favorite pictorial image in Chinese art sinceantiquity. Wu Hung undertakes a comprehensive analysis of the screen,which can be an object, an art medium, a pictorial motif, or all threeat once. With its diverse roles, the screen has provided Chinesepainters with endless opportunities to reinvent their art.The Double Screen provides a powerful non-Western perspective onissues from portraiture and pictorial narrative to voyeurism,masquerade, and political rhetoric. It will be invaluable to anyoneinterested in the history of art and Asian studies.

The Double Screen: Medium and Representation in Chinese Painting

In the first exploration of Chinese paintings as both material products and pictorial representations, The Double Screen shows how the collaboration and tension between material form and image gives life to a painting. A Chinese painting is often reduced to the image it bears; its material form is dismissed; its intimate connection with social activities and cultural conventions neglected. A screen occupies a space and divides it, supplies an ideal surface for painting, and has been a favorite pictorial image in Chinese art since antiquity. Wu Hung undertakes a comprehensive analysis of the screen, which can be an object, an art medium, a pictorial motif, or all three at once. With its diverse roles, the screen has provided Chinese painters with endless opportunities to reinvent their art. The Double Screen provides a powerful non-Western perspective on issues from portraiture and pictorial narrative to voyeurism, masquerade, and political rhetoric. It will be invaluable to anyone interested in the history of art and Asian studies.

In 1949, Beijing still retained nearly all of its time-honored character and magnificence. But when Chairman Mao rejected the proposal to build a new capital for the People's Republic of China and decided to stay in the ancient city, he initiated a long struggle to transform Beijing into a shining beacon of socialism. So began the remaking of the city into a modern metropolis rife with monuments, public squares, exhibition halls, and government offices. Wu Hung grew up in Beijing and experienced much of the city's makeover firsthand. In this lavishly illustrated work, he offers a vivid, often personal account of the struggle over Beijing's reinvention, drawing particular attention to Tiananmen Square—the most sacred space in the People's Republic of China. Remaking Beijing considers the square's transformation from a restricted imperial domain into a public arena for political expression, from an epic symbol of socialism into a holy relic of the Maoist regime, and from an official and monumental complex into a site for unofficial and antigovernment demonstrations. Wu Hung also explores how Tiananmen Square has become a touchstone for official art in modern China—as the site for Mao's monumental portrait, as the location of museums narrating revolutionary history, and as the grounds for extravagant National Day parades celebrating the revolutionary masses. He then shows how in recent years the square has inspired artists working without state sponsorship to create paintings, photographs, and even performances that reflect the spirit of the 1989 uprisings and pose a forceful challenge to official artworks and the sociopolitical system that supports them. Remaking Beijing will reward anyone interested in modern Chinese history, society, and art, or, more generally, in how urban renewal becomes intertwined with cultural and national politics.

Remaking Beijing: Tiananmen Square and the Creation of a Political Space

History

Asia

In 1949, Beijing still retained nearly all of its time-honored character and magnificence. But when Chairman Mao rejected the proposal to build a new capital for the People's Republic of China and decided to stay in the ancient city, he initiated a long struggle to transform Beijing into a shining beacon of socialism. So began the remaking of the city into a modern metropolis rife with monuments, public squares, exhibition halls, and government offices. Wu Hung grew up in Beijing and experienced much of the city's makeover firsthand. In this lavishly illustrated work, he offers a vivid, often personal account of the struggle over Beijing's reinvention, drawing particular attention to Tiananmen Square—the most sacred space in the People's Republic of China. Remaking Beijing considers the square's transformation from a restricted imperial domain into a public arena for political expression, from an epic symbol of socialism into a holy relic of the Maoist regime, and from an official and monumental complex into a site for unofficial and antigovernment demonstrations. Wu Hung also explores how Tiananmen Square has become a touchstone for official art in modern China—as the site for Mao's monumental portrait, as the location of museums narrating revolutionary history, and as the grounds for extravagant National Day parades celebrating the revolutionary masses. He then shows how in recent years the square has inspired artists working without state sponsorship to create paintings, photographs, and even performances that reflect the spirit of the 1989 uprisings and pose a forceful challenge to official artworks and the sociopolitical system that supports them. Remaking Beijing will reward anyone interested in modern Chinese history, society, and art, or, more generally, in how urban renewal becomes intertwined with cultural and national politics.

The University of Chicago Press

Constructed over a millennium from the fourth to fourteenth centuries CE near Dunhuang, an ancient border town along the Silk Road in northwest China, the Mogao Caves comprise the largest, most continuously created, and best-preserved treasure trove of Buddhist art in the world. Previous overviews of the art of Dunhuang have traced the caves' unilinear history. This book examines the caves from the perspective of space, treating them as physical and historical sites that can be approached, entered, and understood sensually. It prioritizes the actual experiences of the people of the past who built and used the caves.\nFive spatial contexts provide rich material for analysis: Dunhuang as a multicultural historic place; the Mogao Cave complex as an evolving entity; the interior space of caves; interaction of the visual program with architectural space; and pictorial space within wall paintings that draws viewers into an otherworldly time. With its novel approach to this repository of religious art, Spatial Dunhuang will be a must-read for anyone interested in Buddhist art and for visitors to Dunhuang.

Spatial Dunhuang: Experiencing the Mogao Caves

University of Washington Press

From Neolithic painted petroglyphs, early paintings on silk, and landscapes by twelfth-century literati to the traditional handscrolls being produced today, Chinese painting has always had the power to enthrall. This magnificent book, written by a team of eminent international scholars, is the first to recount the history of Chinese painting over a span of some three thousand years. Drawing on museum collections, archives, and archaeological sites in China—including many resources never before available to Western scholars—as well as on collections in other countries, the authors present and analyze the very best examples of Chinese painting: more than 300 of them are reproduced here in color. Both accessible to the general reader and revelatory for the scholar, the book provides the most up-to-date and detailed history of China’s pictorial art available today. In this book the authors rewrite the history of Chinese art wherever it is found—in caves, temples, or museum collections. They begin by grounding the Western reader in Chinese traditions and practices, showing in essence how to look at a Chinese painting. They then shed light on such topics as the development of classical and narrative painting, the origins of the literati tradition, the flowering of landscape painting, and the ways the traditions of Chinese painting have been carried into the present day. The book, which concludes with a glossary of techniques and terms and a list of artists by dynasty, is an essential resource for all lovers of, or newcomers to, Chinese painting. Three Thousand Years of Chinese Painting is the inaugural volume in a new series, The Culture &amp; Civilization of China, a joint publishing venture of Yale University Press and the American Council of Learned Societies with the China International Publishing Group in Beijing. The undertaking will ultimately result in the publication of more than seventy-five volumes on the visual arts, classical literature, language, and philosophy, as well as several comprehensive reference volumes.

Three Thousand Years of Chinese Painting

BARNHART, Richard M.

Cahill, James

Xin, Yang

Chongzheng, Nie

Cahill, Professor James

Shaojun, Lang

Wu, Hung

Barnhart, Richard

Yale University Press

The first and only comprehensive survey of contemporary Chinese art, one of the most vital and expanding sectors of the global art world today
From its underground genesis during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), contemporary Chinese art has become a dynamic and hugely influential force in a globalized art world. In this first major introduction to the topic, Wu Hung provides an accessible, focused, and much-needed narrative of the development of Chinese art across all media from the 1970s to the 2000s, a time span characterized by radical social, political, and economic change in China. The book is a richly illustrated and easy-to-navigate chronological survey that considers contemporary Chinese art both in the context of China’s history and in a global arena. Wu Hung explores the emergence of contemporary art―as opposed to officially sanctioned art―in the public sphere after the Cultural Revolution; the mobilization by young artists and critics of a nationwide avant-garde movement in the mid-1980s; the re-emphasis on individual creativity in the late 1980s and the heightened spirit of experimentation of the 1990s; and the more recent identification of Chinese artists, such as Ai Weiwei, as global citizens who create works for an international audience. 425 illustrations, 353 in color

Contemporary Chinese Art

Thames&Hudson

Taoism and the Arts of China

Taoism and the Arts of China brings together a remarkable collection of art from one of China's most ancient and influential traditions. Produced to accompany the first major exhibition ever organized on the Taoist philosophy and religion, this opulent book includes more than 150 works of art from as early as the late Zhou dynasty (fifth-third century b.c.) to the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). Many of these works are paintings that show the breathtaking range of style and subject that makes the Taoist heritage so rich. Sculpture, calligraphy, rare books, textiles, and ritual objects are also represented. Like the exhibition, the book is organized thematically. It begins with the sage Laozi (to whom the Daode Jing is attributed), and moves on to explore the birth of religious Taoism and the interaction between Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. A wealth of subjects are covered: the gods of the Taoist pantheon, ritual, the boundaries and intersections between Taoism and popular religion, Taoist Immortals and Realized Beings, the role of alchemy, sacred landscape and its significance, and Taoist temples and their architecture. Taoism and the Arts of China includes an engaging series of introductory essays by scholars with a deep understanding of their subjects. Among the topics discussed are a historical introduction to Taoism, archaeological evidence for early Taoist art, and a general introduction to the functions of art in religious Taoism. Lavishly illustrated with over 150 color images, this volume affords a sweeping view of an artistic terrain that until now has received too little exposure in the West. Its publication constitutes a major advance in Western understanding of this important tradition.

Schipper, Kristofer

Little, Stephen

Steinhardt, Nancy

University of California Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hung, Wu. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Hung, Wu

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hung, Wu. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Transience: Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the Twentieth Century

The Double Screen: Medium and Representation in Chinese Painting

The Double Screen: Medium and Representation in Chinese Painting

Remaking Beijing: Tiananmen Square and the Creation of a Political Space

Remaking Beijing: Tiananmen Square and the Creation of a Political Space

Spatial Dunhuang: Experiencing the Mogao Caves

Three Thousand Years of Chinese Painting

Contemporary Chinese Art

Taoism and the Arts of China

Taoism and the Arts of China