Reading Response to “Envisioning the Third World”

Response to this reading– Yang Wang, “Envisioning the Third World: Modern Art and Diplomacy in Maoist China,” ArtMargins 8:2 (June 2019): 31-54.

This article by Yang WANG examines China’s international outreach during the Cold War through travel by artists and artistic exchange. It is a relatively new area of exploration for scholarship focusing on this time period in Chinese art history. I’m interested to discuss in class what you think about taking this non-Western point of view when studying modernism in art. Please post your reflections on this article in general and also address one or more of the following questions:

Do the paintings produced by Shi Lu and Zhao Wangyun qualify as “modern art” to you? Why or why not?

Should we study efforts to “localize” modern art? How does studying this localization impact your understanding of what modern art is?

What, in your opinion, qualifies as “ethnic” or “native” art? How is it different from “national” art?

Below are two excerpts from the article that I think are particularly important–

“This praise of ‘ethnic’ specificity reveals the artist’s recognition that China’s path to modernity—via socialism—must be built on its indigenous heritage in order for it to retain its identity and ultimately succeed in a new, postcolonial world.” (p. 50)

“Because most Chinese artists of this period were state actors, their perceived lack of artistic autonomy has hindered the recognition of 20th-century Chinese art as embodying significant artistic value. Moreover, with its accommodation of the traditional medium of ink and its preference for realism, art in the People’s Republic of China may seem like an inchoate adaptation of Soviet precedents, or a conservative holdout in the context of global modernism as defined by postwar American abstraction. However, when evaluated on their own terms—in the context of China’s sociopolitical conditions and transnational aspirations in the early stages of the Cold War—proponents of Maoist-era ink painting emerge as full-fledged participants in an under-recognized global effort among self-identified members of the third world to localize modern art through indigeneity.” (pp. 53-54)

The post Reading Response to “Envisioning the Third World” Response to this reading– Yang appeared first on PapersSpot.