The Pregnant Nude and Photographic Representation

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Notes

¹ For an account of the absent nude in the Chinese art tradition, see Jullien, The Impossible Nude: Chinese Art and Western Aesthetics.

² See Hay 42.

³ Social and official reaction to the nude model incident of 1926.

⁴ For more information on the 1988 exhibition, see Kraus’ chapter “Normalizing Nudity.”

⁵ Yu Hong was the only female artist participating in the exhibition. Her figure painting of the female nude differs from her male colleagues’ in terms of composition and gesture.

⁶ In 1989, similar exhibitions took place in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, and Fuzhou.

⁷ On Gaudy Art, see Li Xianting, “Some More Thoughts on the Raison d’etre of Gaudy Art.”

⁸ See Chen Zhiyong.

⁹ See Hutcheon 78.

¹⁰ See Tyler 292.

FIGURE 3 Yu Hong, Twenty-eight Years Old, Being Pregnant (1994

28

), 2001, acrylic on canvas, 100 × 100 cm.

¹¹ Ibid., 293.

¹² For an interview with Yu Hong and comments on her work, see Kewen, “Yu Hong’s Narrative.”

¹³ About 1.3 million people had to migrate and settle in new locations because of the Three Gorges Dam Project.

¹⁴ See Wu Hung 53.

¹⁵ The “generation born with the revolution” refers to those born in the late 1960s and early 1970s and who came of age as China began its social-economic transformation following Mao’s death. The CR era left them with ambivalent memories and a sense of confusion regarding the new society. Jia Zhangke’s film trilogy, Xiao Wu (1997), Platform (2000), and Unknown Pleasure (2002), captures the mood of anxiety and uncertainty.

¹⁶ Sandra Matthews and Laura Wexler’s Pregnant Pictures (London; New York: Routledge, 2000) is a pioneering work on the subject of pregnancy and its photographic representations.

¹⁷ The masculinized female body image is common in propaganda posters from the Cultural Revolution era. Poster images of tractor girls are available online at Chinese Posters, Propaganda, Politics, History, Art: http://www.iisg.nl/landsberger/ttg.html

¹⁸ The genre of revolutionary model opera, a product of the Cultural Revolution era, often employs a principal female lead to articulate the theatrical narrative as well as political rhetoric. Designed to enact ideological discourse rather than gender difference, the heroine’s sexual identity is obscured by the politicized, masculine persona.

¹⁹ See Meng Yue 118–36.

²⁰ See Mullin 27–44.

²¹ See Betterton, “Maternal Bodies in Visual Culture.”

²² Friedman 51.

²³ Cui Xiuwen’s creative process begins with a photo shoot of her young model. The model’s image had been viewed as Cui’s visual signature until her recent work, Spiritual Realm (2010), which features bodies from real life engaged in spiritual pursuits.

FIGURE 5 Cui Xiuwen, Angel No. 5 (

5), 2006, photograph.

²⁴ See Mitchell 52.

²⁵ See Wells 199.

²⁶ See Lister 255.

²⁷ See Cui Shuqin 20–80.

²⁸ See Wu Hung and Christopher Phillips 11.

FIGURE 9 Feng Jiali/Tang Xiaomei, New: Pregnancy is Art (

), 1999–2009, photograph.

²⁹ In her “Wubian de chayi Yonghend de nuxing (Forever Different and Eternal Female),” Feng Jiali delivers strong comments on conceptual art and gender difference.

³⁰ Ibid.

³¹ For a discussion of Susan Hiller’s photographs and texts in Ten Months (1977–1999), see Betterton 80–100.

³² See Betterton 85.

³³ See W.J.T. Mitchell 59.

³⁴ See Betterton 82.

³⁵ For responses to Feng Jiali’s Pregnancy is Art and other works involving the female nude, see Guo Dalong’s blog, “The Naked Feminism.”

³⁶ See Allara 6–31.

³⁷ See Bowers 20–21.

³⁸ See Betterton 89.