Lectures

Over the past half-century, China has undergone extraordinary political, social, economic, and cultural transformation. Contemporary Chinese art has emerged alongside these changes, reflecting and responding to the profound shifts in Chinese society and China’s relationship with the wider world.

Drawing on images of works from the Sigg and M+ Sigg Collections, Uli Sigg will present a visual history of Chinese contemporary art from its beginnings in the 1970s to the present. The lecture will trace key moments and movements, from Socialist Realism and the independent experiments of the No Name Group and Stars Art Group, through the ’85 Art Movement and the emergence of performance and video art, to Cynical Realism and the artistic responses to globalization and consumer culture. It will continue through the years surrounding the Beijing Olympics and global financial crisis and into more recent developments in digital media and contemporary artistic practice.

Through works by several generations of artists, the lecture offers a distinctive perspective on how contemporary art has documented, questioned, and interpreted the transformation of China over the past five decades.