Spectacle As Myth - Chinese Contemporary Art (2005-2008)

This book is an interrogation of Chinese contemporary art and the particular concept of ‘Chinese modernity’, in terms of the legacy from the Communist era and China’s social fabric. It is firmly rooted in both Chinese and western historical and cultural theories and from the viewpoint of a Chinese from the diaspora. It is premised on an interrogation of the validity of imposing a western modernity on the Chinese context. The principle has been to reconstitute the idea of the Orient, in this case China, as a significant Other, not at the periphery of Western culture but with equal stature in terms of hegemony, history and heritage. The outcome would be to establish a platform for the awareness and identification of a more complex causal framework influencing global discourses that can be applied to deepening our understanding of Chinese Contemporary art.