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In A Grand Materialism in the New Art from China, Mary Bittner Wiseman shows that material matters in the work of Chinese artists, where the goal is to call attention to its subjects through the directness and immediacy of its material (like dust from 9/11, 1001 Chinese citizens, paintings made with gunpowder, written words) or the specificity of its sites (such as the Three Gorges Dam). Artists are working below the level of language where matter and gesture, texture and touch, instinct and intuition live. Not reduced to the words applied to them, art's subjects appear in their concrete particularity, embedded in the stories of their materials or their sites. Wiseman argues that it is global in being able to be understood by all thanks to its materials and the stories that accompany it, and the art is contemporary in having to make the case for itself that it is art. Finally, it satisfies Arthur Danto’s characterization of art as any representation that puts its subject in a new light by way of a rhetorical figure that the viewer interprets. The material art from China is the paradigm for an art that is global and contemporary.
Published | Sep 29 2020 |
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Format | Ebook (PDF) |
Edition | 1st |
Extent | 1 |
ISBN | 9781978783393 |
Imprint | Lexington Books |
Illustrations | 17 b/w photos; |
Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
“Before modernism there were important, but limited artistic contacts between China and the West. Now, however, art coming from China very often responds to the highly complex history of that country using visual thinking derived from contemporary Western art. Anyone interested in this new Chinese art will find much of value in Mary Wiseman’s book, a deft synthesis which provides useful information about both Chinese and Western aesthetics, employing many instructive case studies. Relentlessly lucid, her far-reaching ambitious analysis provides an essential starting point for any art historian or philosopher who is interested in learning about contemporary art coming from China.”
David Carrier, author, Museum Skepticism: A History of the Display of Art in Public Galleries (2006)
Mary Bittner Wiseman takes a comprehensive a approach to contemporary Chinese art, analyzing it historically, culturally, politically, and philosophically. Her interpretations are fresh and unexpected. A Grand Materialism will ignite discussion and elicit debate about the ongoing globalization and localization of the new art. The book gives us a new way to think about post-pandemic contemporary art around the world.
Wang Chunchen, Central Academy of Fine Arts
This book is available on Bloomsbury Collections where your library has access.
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