ART 334 - Modern and Contemporary Chinese Art

This course focuses on twentieth- to twenty-first-century Chinese visual culture and will be organized loosely around four phases of art production during the past hundred or so years. It begins with the major transition from the imperial Qing dynasty to the tumultuous Republican period in 1911, paying close attention to discussions on Western and Chinese artistic practices that arose at this critical political junction. We then turn to art production under Mao Zedong beginning in 1942, with his famous Talks on Literature and Art presented in Yan’an, in which art became an integral part of his social and political platforms. From there, we examine the visual objects produced during and shortly after the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976. Finally, the rapid pace of China’s economic growth has also greatly affected its visual material. In the last half of the semester, we will seek to critically examine the process in which China has become one of the most exciting geographic regions for thinking about contemporary art, and the ways in which artists have chosen to depict and negotiate their changing realities.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group I
Prerequisite(s): ART 201 or both semesters of HUM 231 and HUM 232.
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.).
Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts.
Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).