The localisation of Western cultures in the PRC

Western aesthetics, as well as literary and philosophical studies and theories, had a significant influence on the development of contemporary artistic production in China, especially during the 1980s. In China, a shared scholarly viewpoint exists that the

‘modernisation’ of Chinese art began between the end of the 1970s and the beginning of 1980s (Gao 2006; Lu 2013；Lv 2013). This period was characterised by the passion of students, young artists, and scholars who held positive attitudes towards Western cultures. These young scholars believed that learning from the West was a practical and efficient way to achieve reform and modernisation in Chinese society (Lu 2013).

Specifically, two years after the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), the Communist Party of China (CPC) criticised some of the polarising policies of the Cultural Revolutio n

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(such as the personality cult⁴ ) and shifted the primary task of the CPC from class conflict to economic, cultural, and social reforms (China Daily 1978). In this historic a l and political context, Chinese society temporarily encountered the ‘most tolerant cultural policies’ of the party since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949 (Li 1993). During that time, a significant amount of Western literature that had been banned during the Cultural Revolution was translated and introduced into China. In line with the guiding ideology of the movement, namely the ‘emancipated mind’ and ‘seek[ing] truth from facts’, a society-wide cultural debate took place in the 1980s (China Daily 1978). Some scholars have described this trend as a ‘Great Cultural Discussion’, ‘Cultural Fever’, and the ‘most contextual factor for China’s avant-garde art’ (Zhou 2015: 11; see also Li 1993). At that time, it was common for Chinese avant-garde artists to challenge the social and aesthetic orthodoxies and monotonous authority-sanctioned art forms (socialist realism) through their works, which were based on Western aesthetic, philosophical and literary theories and methods of art production, more often than not (Lu 2013；Lv 2013). The two representative art events, or movements, of this period are the First Stars Exhibition (1979) and the beginning of the ‘85 New Wave’ movement.

4 In the Third Plenary Session of Eleventh Central Committee (1978), the plenum critically discusses the ‘two whatevers’ statement (namely as ‘we will resolutely uphold whatever policy decisions Chairman Mao made, and unswervingly follow whatever instructions Chairman Mao gave’) and put forward the ‘Seeking truth from fact’

principle, which refers to pragmatism.

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Many scholars consider the first Stars Exhibition5 to be the starting point of the

‘progressive liberalisation of visual art within the PRC’ (Gladston 2014: 36). As Lu (2013) notes, the exhibition exerted a profound influence on the development of contemporary Chinese art due to its avant-garde nature. For Lu, the artists involved in the exhibition represented a revolutionary determination to pursue ‘freely and independently artistic expression’ by extricating themselves from the restrictions of the ideology of the CPC (Ibid: 43). According to figures released by the People’s Daily (1979), the exhibition received more than 8000 visitors on its last exhibiting day.

Although the exhibition, as the first officially approved contemporary Chinese art exhibition, attracted considerable public attention, it did not alter the dominant conventional art forms and aesthetic principles (i.e., the appreciation of beauty in traditional forms) in the exhibiting spaces. The legitimated art form (socialist realism6) and the conservative aesthetic and moral values (e.g. artwork should have educationa l values) were still dominating the public spaces (Lu 2013: 43).

Facing social instability – the youth political movement in the early 1980s – caused by the cultural conflict between domestic and western cultural and social ideologies (e.g.

5 The first Stars exhibition was held in 1979. The curators of the exhibition (Ma Desheng and Huang Rui) invited 23 artists (including Ai Weiwei, Wang Keping, Qu Leilei and others) to display their works at the gates of the park next to the National Art Museum of China. The exhibition represented the artists’ aspiration to challenge the established ideology and to autonomously and independently express their artistic concepts (Lu 2013).

6 Socialist realism: a form of realism that was originally developed in the Soviet Union from 1920s to 1960s (Sayer 2012). After May 2000, many young artists who experienced the Cultural Revolution started to shift their attention from portraying an ‘optimistic view of society’ and ‘politic aesthetic’ to a critical review of the miserable life of the young intellects during the movement. Called scar art and rural realism, the Chinese artists who followed these two art trends tended to create artworks in a realist style.

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socialism versus democracy), the CPC temporarily adjusted its attitude towards Western cultures. In 1981, the CPC triggered a campaign of ‘anti-bourgeois liberalism’.

In the resolution (Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party Since the Founding of the People's Republic of China) of the 6th Plenary Session of 11th CPC Central Committee (People 2016), the party criticised the trend of bourgeois liberalism.

According to Deng (1981), head of the central military commission of the PRC from 1981 to 1989, even the leadership of the CPC and the socialist system needed to be improved; however, it should not be achieved through political liberation and anarchism.

In 1983, another political campaign (the Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign) entered the scene abruptly. Deng subsequently published another article ‘The Party's Urgent Tasks on the Organisational and Ideological Fronts’ (1983), which shed light on the negative influence of corruption on the public’s trust in CPC leadership. This campaign was re-assessed by the members of the Secretariat of the Central Committee and ended at the close of 1983. These official responses demonstrated a limited tolerance for socially critical aspects of the imported western artistic approach that was influencing Chinese artists at this time.

Another milestone in the development of Chinese contemporary art in the 1980s was the launch of the ‘85 New Wave’ movement, from 1985 to 1989. After the campaign of

‘anti-bourgeois liberalism’, the development of contemporary Chinese art recovered and reached its peak in the middle of the 1980s. Lu believes that the opening of the International Youth Art Exhibition was the beginning of the ‘85 New Wave’ and marked

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a turning point for Chinese artistic production. Organised by the Committee of International Youth, the exhibition opened in 1985. The exhibition exhibited 572 pieces of contemporary artworks. Due to the high degree of freedom the artists were granted to create and display their works, they challenged the established aesthetic norms and art forms through adopting a wide array of westernised artistic skills and concepts.

Zhang similarly refers to the opening of the Exhibition as the ‘flagship’ and ‘benchmark’

of contemporary Chinese art’s modernisation (1988: 26). Xin (1986) also highlights the importance of the ‘85 New Wave’ in her article ‘85 New Crisis’. For her, the ‘85 New Wave’ significantly promoted the development of contemporary art in the PRC.

Lv believes that the selection of conservative artworks and curatorial arrangements for the 6th National Exhibition of Fine Arts enraged contemporary Chinese artists and, thus, indirectly promoted the launch of the International Youth Art Exhibition. Within the exhibition, artists adopted an aggressive attitude towards the ‘depressed atmosphere’ of Chinese traditional art exhibition, where the legitimated art form and curatorial strategies were prevalent. Due to the artists’ support for adopting personalised aesthetic skills and learning from the ‘vocabulary’ of modern Western art, the exhibitio n transcended the homologous model represented in the 6th National Exhibition of Fine Arts. Even so, this exhibition also received significant critical attention. Many critics consider the artwork produced during the ‘85 New Wave’ as nothing more than vulgar imitations of Western modern and contemporary art (e.g., Yi 1990; Wang 2012). Shao (2011) also believes that some artists involved in the movement were lacking the

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necessary theoretical knowledge about contemporary art.

This historical detour highlights some of the influence that western aesthetic princip les, shared by some contemporary Western artists, had on contemporary Chinese artists in the 1980s. The two events (the launch of the International Youth Art Exhibition and the 6th National Exhibition of Fine Arts) are good illustrations of this argument. Within the exhibitions, the artists presented strong interests in cosmopolitanism and sought inspiration from Western modernist and post-modernist art and theories.