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The Department of East Asian Art History of Freie Universität Berlin organizes the
International Graduate Conference
Negotiating Difference
Contemporary Chinese Art in the Global Context
October 22–24, 2009
The conference is realized in co-operation with the Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin
(HKW) that will host the event. It is part of the program of the 7th Asia-Pacific Weeks
Berlin.
Contemporary Chinese art has lately become a topic of in-depth academic research.
The conference Negotiating Difference examines contemporary Chinese art in a
global context and focuses on questions of methodology.
Whether considered from a discursive, institutional or object-centered perspective,
contemporary Chinese art always involves aspects of a globally informed locality and
a locally affected globality. To account for the complexity of this phenomenon, the
analysis of contemporary Chinese art requires a transcultural perspective enabling us
to question prevailing research approaches critically and to provide new answers.
This perspective is an alternative to single-sided positions that either stress the
construction of a ‘Chinese identity’ in essentialist terms or still consider Chinese art
only based on a ‘Western’ notion of art.
In contrast, Negotiating Difference proposes conceiving contemporary Chinese art as
evolving out of processes of negotiated difference.
This approach is in following with art theoretical discussions dating back to the
1970s, which have increasingly been taking contemporary artistic production into
account. Rooted in theories of postmodernism, these discussions became particularly
focused on so-called Non-Western art during the interdisciplinary ‘post-colonial turn’
of the 1980s.
Contemporary Chinese art lends itself to current art historical debates as an ideal
research since its practice, exhibition and marketing – phenomena that
developed only after the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976 – are obviously
marked by complex intertwined local and global relations.
For the first time worldwide, this conference provides a forum specifically conceived
to meet the needs of young scholars from various disciplinary backgrounds
researching in detail aspects of contemporary Chinese art.
As an international graduate conference with a workshop character Negotiating
Difference aims to further the discussion on methodological challenges, which have
surfaced with the recent, fast, and global growth of this field of research.
Participants et al.: Hans Belting, John Clark, Li-qing Dai, Gao Minglu
Head: Prof. Jeong-hee Lee-Kalisch
Conzept: Birgit Hopfener, Franziska Koch
Organisation: Dr.Juliane Noth, Ronald Kiwitt
Program (please click here for updated version)
Thursday, 22th October 2009
16:00 Welcome Address - Dr. Bernd M. Scherer (HKW), Prof. Jeong-Hee
Lee-Kalisch
Andreas Schmid: The China-Avantgarde Exhibition of 1993 in the House of
World Cultures (tbc)
Keynote Prof. John Clark (University of Sydney)
18:00 Dinner and get together
Friday, 23th October 2009
9:00 Introduction - Birgit Hopfener
I. Contemporary Chinese Art in the Transnational and Transcultural
Context.
Agents of Cultural Translation
Panel Ia Awkward Identities
9:20 Landscapes of Exclusion:
The Painting of the No Name Group and the Questions of Multiple
Modernities – Dr. Juliane Noth (Freie Universität Berlin)
9:40 Postmodernism and the Awkwardness of Contemporary Chinese Artists
– Barbara Jenni
10:00 Panel Response – Prof. Gao Minglu (University of Pittsburgh)
10:20 -10:50 Coffee Break
Panel Ib Processes of Identification
10:50 Destroy the Mirror of Representation. Negotiating Installation Art in
the ‘Third Space’– Birgit Hopfener (Freie Universität Berlin)
11:10 Cai Guoqiang’s Fireworks: Igniting a Paranational Landscape - Brianne
Cohen (University of Pittsburgh)
11:30 Panel Response – Prof. John Clark (University of Sydney)
(10 min. break)
II. The Negotiation of Tradition
12:00 At the Treshold of (In-)Visibility. The White Landscape Paintings by
Qiu Shihua – Dr. Silke von Berswordt (Situation Kunst - für Max Imdahl)
12:20 When Contemporary Art Encounters a National Treasure.
Fan Kuan’s Travelers Within Mountains and Streams – Wang, Ching-ling
(Freie Universität Berlin)
12:40 Panel Response – Uta Rahman-Steinert (Curator, Museum für
Asiatische Kunst Berlin)
13:00-14:00 Lunch Break
III. Concepts of Body and Gender in Chinese Contemporary Art
Panel IIIa. Performing the Body
14:00 Ziran in Contemporary Chinese Art - Wang, Ruobing (University of
Oxford)
14:20 Expressions of Body and Gender in Contemporary Chinese Art - Sung,
Doris Ha-lin (York University)
14:40 Panel Response - Freie Universität, Department of Art History (tbc)
15:00-15:30 Coffee Break
Panel IIIb. Contemporary Chinese Art from a Gender(ed) Perspective
15:30 Masquerading Brides and Grooms. Three Fantasy Portraits in
Comparison to Real Studio Portraits - Eva Aggeklint (Stockholm University)
15:50 A Question of Desire: Women, Bodies and Performance Art in China –
Adele Tan (Courtauld Institute, University of London)
16:10 Panel Response – Freie Universität, Department of Art History (tbc)
16:30-17:00 Coffee Break
IV. Contemporary Chinese Art and Its Spaces of Production
17:00 A History of Realism in Chinese Art Pedagogy.
How Realism Affects Contemporary Art Production and Consumption - Lee
Ambrozy (Central Academy of Fine Arts Beijing)
17:20 Made in China: Qiu Anxiong´s “We are the World”- Wenny Teo (Tate
Modern, London)
17:40 Panel Response – Pauline Yao (Independent art critic and curator,
Beijing)
19:00 Dinner
Saturday, 24th October 2009
9:00 Introduction – Franziska Koch
V. Contemporary Chinese Art and Strategies of (Dis-)Engagement
9:20 Situating Socially Engaged Art in China - Zheng, Bo (University of
Rochester)
9:40 Strategic Disengagement. Alternative Spatial Practice and Institutional
Loci in Contemporary China - Beatrice Leanza (Goldsmith College)
10:00 Panel Response – Dr. Thomas Berghuis (University of Sydney)
10:20 -10:50 Coffee Break
VI. Curating Chinese Contemporary Art
10:50 The Perfection of the Imperfection or the Principles of Adaptation -
Davide Quadrio (durector, BizArt Shanghai/ Arthub Hong Kong)
11:10 Everyone Curates: The Ever-Contested Reality of Chinese Art - Dr.
Wang, Meiqin (California State University Northridge)
11:30 Panel Response – Dr. Francesca Dal Lago (University of Leiden)
(10 min break)
VII. Dis-Playing Contemporary Chinese Art
12:00 China and the World: The Official Re-Positioning of Chinese
Contemporary Art onto the Global Stage at the Start of the Twenty-First
Century - Dr. Thomas Berghuis (University of Sydney)
12:20 Whose Display? The Role of the Collector in the Canonization of
Contemporary Chinese Art: Uli Sigg and “Mahjong” – Franziska Koch
(Philipps-Universität Marburg)
12:40 Panel Response – Prof. Dr. Dai Li-ching (Taiwans National Changhua
University)
13:00-14:00 Lunch Break
VIII. Contemporary Chinese Art: Market and Meaning
14:00 Contemporary Chinese Art in the International Auction Market:
An Insider’s Overview and Assessment in Comparative Perspective – Joe
Martin Hill
14:20 Critical Discourses: Debating the Value of Contemporary Chinese Art
in the 1990s - Peggy Wang (University of Chicago)
14:40 Panel Response –Dr. Martina Köppel-Yang
15:00-15:30 Coffee Break
15:30 Summary and Discussion: Perspectives On Future Research
Chair: Prof. Lee-Kalisch
Hans Belting, Dai Li-ching, John Clark, Gao Minglu, Qiu Zhijie (tbc)
19:00 Dinner
