Restitution of art from abroad has been a useful tool to increase the soft power of China both abroad and domestically between 2009 and 2019. The Chinese government has dedicated large resources to...Show moreRestitution of art from abroad has been a useful tool to increase the soft power of China both abroad and domestically between 2009 and 2019. The Chinese government has dedicated large resources to recover art of Chinese origin from abroad, as well as conducted various projects that used art as a tool of soft power, for instance in the South China Sea or in international law enforcement cooperation.Show less
The Chinese art and antiques market is to a large extent influenced by nationalism. In contrast to other governments, the Chinese government is not very successful in the repatriation of Chinese...Show moreThe Chinese art and antiques market is to a large extent influenced by nationalism. In contrast to other governments, the Chinese government is not very successful in the repatriation of Chinese cultural heritage. Therefore, it supports individuals to do so by rewarding those who step in. Nationalism nowadays is a very important value in Chinese society encouraged by the government. Part of that is also to encourage people to show their nationalism by means of buying art. Donors are also encouraged by the rewards they get for their donations. When an object that has been stolen from China comes up for sale it always attracts a lot of attention in China. This is especially the case when it originates from the Yuanmingyuan, a place connected to the humiliation of China. Many think the sale of stolen objects should be forbidden and if the government does not succeed in stopping the sale, people will try to buy it in order to repatriate it to China. Which can result in a bidding war in which the price reaches unrealistic heights. Individuals outside of mainland have used antiques to construct their Chinese identity and to strengthen their ties with China by among others donating stolen art. This is a way for them to show they support Chinese nationalism. Something that has had an influence on the buying behaviour of the overseas on the Chinese art and antique market. Since the beginning of the 2000s buyers from mainland China with the same purpose have entered the market. This has had an enormous influence on the Chinese art and antiques market. Thus, the Chinese art and antique market is to a large extent influenced by nationalism.Show less
Artistic freedom of expression has always been a hot topic both in the West and in the East. It is enough to think about the controversy of Richard Serra against the US government regarding the...Show moreArtistic freedom of expression has always been a hot topic both in the West and in the East. It is enough to think about the controversy of Richard Serra against the US government regarding the removal of Tilted Arc (1981) from the Federal Plaza in New York City in 1989 or the shutting down, in 2017, of the controversial Guggenheim “Art and China after 1989: Theatre of the World” exhibitions featuring abused animals. In the case of China, the issue becomes more complicated, because of what some perceive as the systematic censorship of everything that goes against the government’s narrative and criticizes it. But is this actually always the case? During my research, I encountered the book of a New York art journalist, Barbara Pollack, who for a ten-year long research focused on the Chinese contemporary art market. Here, she discussed the case of artist Wang Qingsong, arrested for pornography in 2006 and Chi Peng, an artist who made naked self-portraits having sexual intercourse in the same period but was reportedly never arrested. The author also reports of a conversation with former head of the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC), Feng Yuan, who specifies the “Four Nos” which would, according to him, always cause the censoring of art in China: “no pornography, no violence, no attacking the government or making fun of political leaders.” From this, a question spontaneously arises: “Why do some artist get censored and others do not, even while violating the Nos in similar ways?” In this research I focused on censored art in the period of the Harmonious Society Policy (2004-2014). Following from this, my research question is “Do censors’ and artists’ discourses from 2004 to 2014 suggest consistency and continuity in the enforcement of the Chinese art censorship or not?” This question’s answer will help define the state of art censorship in China in the abovementioned period, but also its development from the previous decades and into the current state. In order to research this issue, I will have to answer two sub-questions: “What elements of the artists’ and officials’ discourses could have caused the censorship?” This question is aimed at understanding what triggers censorship in controversial cases. The second one is “What elements of the artists’ and officials’ discourses could have helped them in avoiding censorship?” Thus, I will be discussing the possible triggering factors for censoring art works and the elements that saved other artworks from censorship by searching into primary and secondary documents. The case studies are censored and not censored artworks for each policy core concept exhibited in the period between 2004 and 2014. The case studies are solely regarding controversies (or the absence thereof) for artworks exhibited in Mainland China. The case studies are the following: Ren Hang’s Untitled (2012), Liu Wei’s It Looks Like a Landscape (2004) on the topic of pornography, Zhang Huan’s Giant no. 1-2-3 (2008), He Yunchang’s One Meter of Democracy (2010), for the topic of violence and Cao Fei’s RMB City: a Second Life City Planning (2007) and Zhang Dali’s Second History: Chairman Mao Reviews the Red Guards, 1966 (2005), regarding political criticism.Show less
This study focuses on two exhibitions that took place at the Benaki Museum in Athens, Greece, one of Pre-Columbian art (in 2009) and one of Chinese art (in 2016). Through the analysis of the...Show moreThis study focuses on two exhibitions that took place at the Benaki Museum in Athens, Greece, one of Pre-Columbian art (in 2009) and one of Chinese art (in 2016). Through the analysis of the history of collecting, this research unravels the history of the two rare collections, the George Gondicas collection of Pre-Columbian art and the George Eumorfopoulos collection of Chinese art, which were donated to the Benaki Museum in Greece, a country with no tradition of collecting objects from the Americas and Asia. Through interviews and discussions with the museum staff, as well as the distribution of a questionnaire to visitors, their presentation to the public in the form of temporary exhibitions is also investigated here, as well as the curators’ perspectives, and visitor’s reactions to the exhibitions. Considering the recent surge in interest in exhibitions on foreign cultures in Greece, this study provides valuable insight into the history of these collections, the problems faced by curators, and the expectations and opinions of visitors.Show less
