‘Deconstructing Gao Minglu: critical reflections on contemporaneity and associated exceptionalist readings of contemporary Chinese art’

Abstract

In this article, I shall seek to offer an ethically/politically focused critique of exceptionalist accounts of the development of contemporary Chinese art. I shall begin by giving a brief overview of thinking associated with the concept of contemporaneity. I shall then go on to analyze critically an essay by the historian and curator Gao Minglu, which asserts that contemporary Chinese art is open to localized Chinese interpretative perspectives separate from those of internationally dominant postmodernist discourses. In analyzing Gao’s essay, I shall not only argue that its exceptionalist account of the significance of contemporary Chinese art relies on highly selective readings of historical ‘fact’, but also that it is theoretically contradictory/inconsistent and therefore unsustainable as a categorical truth claim. I shall then conclude by examining the ethical/political implications of Gao’s exceptionalist account of the significance of contemporary Chinese art as well as advancing some first thoughts towards a general critique of contemporaneity.

Keywords

• contemporaneity
• contemporary Chinese art
• identity
• exceptionalism
• deconstruction