Table of Contents
Introduction
Art, practice and performance 1
Art, politics, and performance 7
Art, discourse and performance 9
Performance Art and Its Constraints
Historical discourses on performance art in Europe and North America 12
Discourses on performance art in Asia 18
The role of subjectivity in art practices in Asia 22
Historical discourses on action, performance, and body art 28
Mappings for further research on performance and body art 32
Social-Political Actions and Early Group Performances in China, 1979-1986
Man is the aim, man is the center 34
Early signs of performance art in China 38
The role of the Stars in collective action and public protest 40
Public actions and social display 47
Abstraction, expressionist- vs. non- expressionist art, and theatrical performance 55
Performance Art and the Role of the Body in Behavioral Action in China, 1986-1989
Close group collaboration of the 'lived body' and 'behavioral action' performances 65
The role of performance in the new discourse of modern art in China 71
Performance art at the 1989 'China Modern Art Exhibition' 77
Shattered discourses on performance art in China 93
Performance and the Role ofthe Mediated Subject in Art 1990-2000
Performance beyond action 95
Performance, the body, and experimental art production in China during the 1990's 102
Physical endurance and the role of the abject body in performance art 114
The mediated subject of the acting body in art 122
Performance in New Media, 1997-2004
Discourses on new media 128
Body and performance in new media 130
Transmediality ['Kua meiti'] and the transcendence of disciplines in new media in China 132
Discourses on video art and documentations of the 'real' in China 133
Popular paradigms for Chinese new media practice 136
Towards a discourse on performance 'in' new media in China 142
Positioning Experimental Art and the Art System in China
'High Culture Fever': The 'official' and 'unofficial' reviewed 151
National aesthetics and the construct of modernity in China 156
Civil Society and the discourse on experimental art in China 158
Re-positioning experimental art in China 161
Aesthetic judgment and the regeneration of 'High Culture Fever' 166
Flesh Art and the role of the body in experimental art practices in China 168
Rules Governing Public Conduct and Private Space in Performance
Body, art, taboo, and the construct of public sensibility 173
Public censorship and public conduct in performance art practices in China 177
Displacement of public space and private practice in performance 181
The social-political gratification of artistic practices in China 183
Performance, the art system and its popular distinctions in China 188
Renegotiating the public role of performance art in China 194
Further attempts to formulate a public role for performance art in China 197
Bibliography
A Selection of Primary Documentation and Secondary Sources Cited and Consulted 201
Appendices 223
A Selected Chronology of Performance Art Practices and Related Events in China, 1979-1989 225
A Selected Chronology of Performance Art Practices and Related Events in China, 1990-1999 237
A Selected Chronology of Performance Art Practices and Related Events in China, 2000-2004 267
A Preliminary Outline Featuring Types of Performance Art Practices in China, 1979-2004 294
Selected List of Artists Cited 291
Selection of Chinese Concepts Cited and Their Definition in the Experimental Art Scene 300
Index 302
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