Infinite social landscape: Chinese contemporary art on the global stage

Professor Yiyang Shao

China has been a land of radical changes in the past 30 years, from its economy to society, from its culture to individual life. Chinese contemporary art has become one of the most intensive and challenging parts of such a great change. Professor Yiyang Shao’s research aims to examine Chinese contemporary art in the past few decades, to explore the relationship between the work and its socio-political environment, and analyse how Chinese contemporary art engaged with its own society and shaped the cross-cultural nature of globalisation.

During the major transformation of contemporary Chinese art, the artists occupied a pivotal position between past and present, local and global, modern and traditional means of expression. Yiyang Shao’s research includes case studies of some individual artists such as Ai Weiwei, Xu Bing, Zhan Wang and Cai Guoqiang, who have been actively engaged with the socio-political problems inside China and communicated with the international art world.

As China has emerged as a major player in the global political and economic arena, Chinese contemporary visual culture has become more and more integrated with the international art world. This lecture focuses on the contemporary Chinese art practices which have aroused critical debates, reflecting on the geo-politics of cultural and economic exchange today.

Yiyang Shao is a Professor in the School of World Art, Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing and will be working at the Australian Institute of Art History under a 2013/2014 Macgeorge Fellowship.

Venue: Theatre A, Old Arts Building, University of Melbourne, Parkville

Date: Wednesday 30th Apr, 6:30–8:00pm

Bookings and further information: http://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/3902-infinite-social-landscape-chinese-contemporary-art-on-the-global-stage