Output details

The Revolution Continues: New Art from China

As the sole author of the book, the researcher developed this project in conjunction with the new Saatchi Gallery inaugural show in 2008, where he was also invited to act as Academic Advisor and contribute the title of the exhibition. The researcher set out the structure of book, produced the text and selected images to illustrate the concept. The book had two aims. First, this book aimed to introduce contemporary Chinese art and its political and cultural background to Western audience, particularly in Britain and North America. Secondly, through original research, it constructed an innovative and significant perspective to re-examine contemporary Chinese art in relation to the impact of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-76). This project derived from an extensive research on contemporary Chinese art, the Visual Legacy of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in Contemporary Art, funded by an AHRC small grant (2003-04). It was shaped originally as a curatorial proposal submitted to Sir Norman Rosenthal at the Royal Academy of Art in 2007, and then transferred into a book project with the coincidence of the contemporary Chinese art exhibition being prepared at the new Saatchi Gallery.

The researcher conducted four trips to China, which had been central to undertake a variety of forms of research for the contextualisation and discussion of the visual works. These include, primarily, interviews with 31 artists for their personal visual reflection; consultation with relevant curators and researchers; and visual and comparative analysis of the images. This is the first study assessing the influence of the Cultural Revolution on contemporary art practice in China. The Revolution Continues was visited by an average of 5,200 people a day and, by the time the exhibition closed, it attracted around 525,000 people, soundly beating Sensation which was seen by 300,000 as the most popular contemporary art show in the world at the time.