An afternoon with Johnson Chang

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An afternoon with Johnson Chang

Date(s)
stedelijk|special eventAn afternoon with… Johnson ChangGlobal Art and Local Aesthetics – The Chinese ExampleDecember 7, 2012, 4 pm


Location: Teijin Auditorium, Stedelijk Museum
Language: English
Entrance: Visitors only pay entrance to the museum (discounts apply)
Reservations: It is necessary to make a reservation. You can make a reservation for this event by sending an e-mail to reservations@stedelijk.nl, stating your full name, e-mail address, telephone number, and the name and date of the event which you want to attend

The Stedelijk Museum and the University of Amsterdam present an afternoon with the renowned scholar and curator of the Shanghai Biennial 2012, Chang Tsong-zung (Johnson Chang). Chang will be interviewed by Johan Hartle, assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Amsterdam, about the relationship between locality and globalization from the specific point of view of contemporary Chinese art production.

The art world is considered to be a global system with universal norms. Such a claim to universality, however, is highly disputable, particularly the context of contemporary Chinese art. The contemporary Chinese art world is still, to some extent, an imported product of modernization based on Western modalities and models – willingly adapted, copied, and sometimes even out-perfomed – yet Chinese contemporary art cannot be understood in such a limiting framework. According to Chang, two parallel structures operate in tandem within the contemporary Chinese art world next to the one based on a Western model: representational political art (related to European forms of Socialist Realism) and traditional forms of arts and craft (inkbrush painting, lacquer, ceramics, and metalworks). An interpretation of Chinese contemporary art within the framework of European and American art history – and the way that has conditioned the Western art world at large – is fairly remote from Chinese cultural and political traditions, with their inherent relations between arts and crafts, to the aesthetic of the everyday, and to the increasingly forgotten cultural traditions of pre-revolutionary China.

Furthermore, the appropriation of Western art (and its histories and institutions) in a context with a different tradition brings with it a gradual discovery of aesthetic modernity and its implied standards of criticism. This allows for an ongoing critique of the discursive imperialism of Western art and modernity. Chang will address these issues during this special afternoon session, with special focus on his own curatorial and scholarly engagement with Chinese modern and contemporary art.

This event has been made possible with the support of the Amsterdam Center for Globalization Studies (ACGS).

More information about the keynote speaker:
Chang Tsong-zung (Johnson Chang) is a curator, director of Hanart TZ Gallery, guest professor of the China Art Academy, and board director of Asia Art Archive. Chang has been active in curating exhibitions since the 1980s; major exhibitions include China’s New Art Post-1989 (international tour Jan 1993 – Jan 1998), Special Exhibitions for the Sao Paulo International Biennial (1994 and 1996), Hong Kong official participations at the Sao Paulo Biennial (1996) and Venice Biennial (2001), Power of the Word (Taiwan and US tour 1999 – 2002), and the Yellow Box series of research projects about contemporary art practice and Chinese aesthetic spaces (since 2004). His recent curatorial work includes: co-curator of the Guangzhou Triennial 2008 Farewell to Post-Colonialism, Spiritual Space: A Dimension in Lacquer (Hubei Museum of Art 2009), and the West Heavens series of Indian-Chinese art and intellectual exchanges (presented on the platforms of the Shanghai Biennial 2010, Guangzhou Triennial 2011, and Shanghai Biennial 2012). Chang is co-curator of the 2012 Shanghai Biennial (October 2012 – March 2013).