Richard Vine & Zhang Hongtu - An Art Book
FREE - Doors open at 5:30 p.m.
Recently updated and expanded, New China New Art is an essential reference book that critically surveys 150 of the most influential contemporary Chinese artists. Richard Vine, author of New China New Art and renowned expert on contemporary Chinese art, discusses the major developments in the Chinese art world today. He presents artists and works featured in the book and discusses significant themes with fellow artist Zhang Hongtu. Selected artwork from the book are projected during the discussion.
The rapid economic and cultural transformation of China during the past thirty years has created an art scene of unparalleled energy and global impact. Throwing off restrictions on subject matter, embracing a new freedom to experiment, but also preserving and expressing Chinese identity on a monumental scale, the new Chinese art has enjoyed an astonishing surge of commercial and critical success. With chapters organized by medium, including painting, sculpture and installation, photography, and performance, the book New China New Art focuses on works by the most significant contemporary Chinese artists and offers a comprehensive critical assessment of one of the most dynamic art scenes in the world today. A preface placing the art in the context of the whirlwind changes in the country’s social and political environment and a concluding critical appraisal make this book an authoritative and exciting introduction to art of the new China.
Copies of the book are available for purchase and signing at the event.
Yue Minjun, Tatoo, 1994. Oil on canvas, 78 x 56 cm. Courtesy the artist, Max Protetch Gallery, New York, and Alexander Ochs Galleries, Berlin/Beijing.
Jia Aili, The Wasteland No. 1, 2007. Oil on canvas, 267 x 200 cm. Courtesy the artist.
Richard Vine is a senior editor at Art in America, where he writes frequently on contemporary art in Asia and elsewhere. He holds a Ph.D. in literature from the University of Chicago and has served as editor-in-chief of the Chicago Review and of Dialogue: An Art Journal. He has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the American Conservatory of Music, the University of Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, the New School for Social Research, and New York University. His articles have appeared in various journals, including Salmagundi, the Georgia Review, Tema Celeste, Modern Poetry Studies, and the New Criterion, and in numerous art catalogues and critical compendiums. His book-length study, Odd Nerdrum: Paintings, Sketches, and Drawings, was published by Gyldendal/D.A.P. in 2001. New China, New Art, his book surveying art in China from 1976 to the present, was released by Prestel Publishing in fall 2008. It was reissued in an updated and expanded edition in fall 2011.
Zhang Hongtu is a Chinese artist currently living and working in New York. He left China in 1982 to find greater freedom to create his work. His “Mao” series, a group of works which focused on the ubiquitous images of Chairman Mao, was created in the United States. Zhang’s oeuvre includes a Soy Sauce Calligraphy series; a Landscape Painting series and re-mastered altered creations based on ancient Chinese works of art as well as famed masterpieces of painting in the Western tradition. Zhang has exhibited extensively, with shows at the Princeton University Art Museum, the Guangzhou Triennial, the Havana Biennial, PS1 New York and the New Museum in New York.
In its third season the program series An Art Book, initiated and organized by Arezoo Moseni, is a celebration of the essential importance and beauty of art books. The events showcase book presentations and discussions by world renowned artists, critics, curators, historians and writers.