Post-70s Artists and the Search for the Self in China

Abstract

How have the profound economic, social, and cultural changes set in motion by the Chinese state’s policy of market liberalization since the late 1970s affected the content of art and the self-conceptions of young Chinese artists? This essay explores the relationship between art and socioeconomic change by looking at the work of young Chinese artists who have come of age since the initiation of the reforms of Deng Xiaoping. Reform-era China has seen an unprecedented explosion of opportunities for self-advancement and enrichment, while also witnessing the emergence of a range of social problems tied to greater economic instability, social inequality, and personal uncertainty. These are themes that show up again and again in the works of artists who grew up during this period of tumultuous change. The ideological contradictions inherent in the transition from a command system to a more market-driven economy are increasingly reflected in changing normative values expressed by young Chinese, and artists are no exception. While the generation that grew up during the Cultural Revolution was taught to sacrifice their personal interests for the collective good, the reverse is true today. A new “Me Generation” of young people in China’s urban centers has openly embraced the values of individualism and personal freedom.

“Art perhaps reveals the secret of life: the fact that we cannot be relieved of the real pressures of life merely by looking away from them, but only by reshaping and reexperiencing them”

—(George Simmel, cited in Davis 1973: 327).

The author wishes to thank the organizers of the “China Inside Out: Modernity and the Individual Psyche” conference, Andrew Kipnis and Tamara Jacka. She also wishes to thank Hsin-tien Liao, Andrew Kipnis, and one anonymous reviewer for their detailed feedback on earlier versions of this essay.