The socially engaged practices of artists in contemporary China

ABSTRACT

In the past decade, Mainland China has witnessed an evident increase of artists who undertake socially engaged art and seek to optimize the power of art for social criticism or community rebuilding in their professional practices. Individual artists and artist collectives have initiated many projects to expose the injustice people suffered in a society governed by an authoritarian regime, call upon awareness of specific social problems produced under the logic of consumerist urbanization, or foster community-oriented social interactions and participations. These practices might or might not result in objects or images readily identifiable as art works and often involve processes beyond the recognizable forms of the Chinese art world. Experimental in nature and situation or locality specific in operation, the social practices of artists have closely responded to the Chinese context while also demonstrated many commonalities with the socially engaged art circulated in the global art world. This article focuses on the practices of Ai Weiwei, Wang Jiuliang and Qu Yan and explores their sociocultural implications. It suggests that the emergence of socially engaged art is part of the rising civic consciousness among the intellectual communities that targets the prevalent social and cultural problems in contemporary China.

KEYWORDS:

• Socially engaged art
• social practice
• social criticism
• civic consciousness
• citizen intellectuals

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Corrigendum

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Meiqin Wang is an Associate Professor of the Art Department at California State University, Northridge. She researches on modern and contemporary Chinese art and teaches Asian art history courses. Her dissertation and published materials focus on the recent developments of contemporary art from China and their social, political, economic and institutional implications in the context of commercialization, urbanization and globalization of the Chinese world. Her recent publication includes a book titled Urbanization and Contemporary Chinese Art (Routledge, 2016), and three journal articles ‘Advertising the Chinese Dream: Urban Billboards and Ni Weihua’s Documentary Photography’, ‘Urbanized interfaces: Visual arts in Chinese cities’ and ‘Invisible Body and the Predicaments of Existence In An Urbanizing China’. Wang’s research interests also include contemporary art of the Asian world and international exhibitions.

ORCID

Meiqin Wang http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2443-196X

Notes

1 Interview with Qu Yan, Beijing, July 8, 2015.

2 Xucun International Art Commune, http://www.xucunartcommune.com/index.php/cn/nav?id=74, accessed March 28, 2015.

3 Interview with Qu Yan.

4 Interview with Qu Yan.

5 Interview with Qu Yan.