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30.01.11

Call for Essays

Call for Essays on Contemporary Chinese Art and Criticality
A Special Guest-Edited Edition of the Peer-Reviewed Intellect Journal Contemporary Art Practice

Dr. Paul Gladston, Associate Professor of Critical Theory and Visual Culture, the University of Nottingham

Dr. Katie Hill, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Chinese Art and Curator of the Chinese Poster Collection, the University of Westminster

The relationship between contemporary Chinese visual art and criticality is a highly problematic one. In producing and exhibiting their work internationally, contemporary Chinese artists not only have to negotiate often strongly contrasting restrictions on freedom of critical expression within and outside the People’s Republic of China (PRC), but also differences between China and other parts of the world in established cultural understanding about the potential function of art as public critique. This special edition of the peer-reviewed journal Contemporary Art Practice will seek to address issues relating to the relationship between contemporary Chinese art and criticality, taking into account as wide a range of differing cultural and intellectual perspectives as possible. Potential contributors are invited to address specific questions relating to the critical significance of contemporary Chinese art as well as to the differing cultural, social, economic and political conditions within which art is produced and received both inside the PRC and internationally.

Possible topics include, but are by no means limited to the following:

  • The nature of political suppression within the PRC and how artists seek to construct a critical art discourse within that context;
  • Cultural resistance in China to Western(ised) conceptions of artistic criticality;
  • The public impact of a critical contemporary Chinese art both within and outside the PRC;
  • The relationship between aesthetics and criticality in relation to contemporary Chinese art;
  • The relationship between contemporary Chinese art and the possible construction of a civil society within the PRC;
  • The openness of contemporary Chinese art to contrasting interpretations of its critical function within differing cultural, social, economic and political settings;
  • The problematic effects of cultural translation on an understanding of the relationship between contemporary Chinese art and criticality.

The editors invite abstracts of original essays and reviews that address the theme of Contemporary Chinese Art and Criticality. Abstracts should be between 250 and 500 words and should be submitted in electronic form to paul.gladston@nottingham.ac.uk by 31st March 2011. Abstracts submitted after that date will not be considered. Invitations to submit full essays or reviews, including style guidelines, will be sent out by 21st April 2011.Completed essays or reviews should be submitted no later than 31st August 2011.

All abstracts should be presented in either English or Mandarin Chinese. Essays and reviews may be presented in Mandarin Chinese by agreement with the editors for subsequent translation into English.
Please note: the editors welcome contributions from artists, curators, critics, doctoral students and post-doctoral fellows as well as from established academics.

For further information, please contact
Paul Gladston at paul.gladston@nottingham.ac.uk
and/or
Katie Hill at hill.cai@gmail.com