Abstract
The body has had a prominent place in contemporary Chinese art since the founding of the PRC in 1949. Numerous artworks and thematic exhibitions have revealed the special significance of body performances in art. However, only a few publications have seriously investigated the body that binds to the politics and aesthetics of Chinese society which has crossed the boundaries of art. Therefore, this paper begins to fill the gap by bringing the binding between body and Chinese politics to the forefront. It digs deeply into the coordination between politics and aesthetics, using body theory and Rancière's theory of the politics of aesthetics as a basis for understanding. It will be divided into four periods: collectivism in the Maoist period, consumerism in the 1990s, the growing art market in the 2000s, and the post-internet era. The artists selected for the case studies of this paper, Wang Keping, Zhang Huan, Zhu Ming, Cao Fei, Lu Yang, and Miao Ying, have adopted the body as a medium that contributes to the understanding of Chinese society and politics. The objectives of this paper are first to establish the study of body performances as a viable pursuit in contemporary Chinese art history. Second, it explores multiple aspects of body expression and meaning by analyzing specific artworks. Third, it seeks to demonstrate that body performance is a force that expands the boundaries of perception and leads Chinese society in its quest for equality.
Author Information
Meng Yi, Universität zu Köln, Germany
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