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Abstract Header

Craft or Avant-garde? Contemporary Chinese Fiber Art at the Thirteenth Lausanne International Tapestry Biennale

Yan, Keyu
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1595538262296012

Abstract Details

2020, Master of Arts, Ohio State University, History of Art.
In 1986, Maryn Varbanov (1932-1989), a Bulgarian artist and educator, founded the Institute of Art Tapestry Varbanov at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts. One year after the institute’s establishment, institute members Gu Wenda (b. 1955), the duo Shi Hui (b. 1955) and Zhu Wei (b. 1959), and Liang Shaoji (b. 1945) showcased their works – Wisdom Comes from Tranquility (1986), Longevity (1986), and The Art of War (1986) – in the thirteenth Lausanne International Tapestry Biennale. Although these three fiber artworks greatly impacted the development of installation art in China, they are rarely mentioned in the writings on contemporary Chinese art. Against the canonical narrative of the Chinese avant-garde, this thesis aims to offer a broader perspective of the contemporary art field in 1980s China. Drawing on Julia Bryan-Wilson’s term, “fray,” which encourages the interpretation of fiber art from multiple and even contradictory directions, I argue that the three works at the focus of this thesis – Wisdom Comes from Tranquility, Longevity, and The Art of War – challenge the customary dichotomy between tradition and the avant-garde. Initially, one’s eye might be caught by the traditionalist elements of these three artworks due to their engagement with historical forms, themes, and techniques. However, they are also avant-garde in nature because they depart dramatically from the style of earlier Chinese weavings and textile works. This thesis situates these artworks within the specific Chinese art-historical framework and timeframe – the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and the “culture fever” of the 1980s – and argues that they directly or subtly engender a sense of political concern. More importantly, employing the postmodernist approach of “fray” and locating these artworks within a specific historical moment, I argue that they collectively exemplify how seemingly innocuous tradition can in fact be politically charged. In the first section, I discuss Wisdom Comes from Tranquility, the first Chinese installation artwork that combined ink art and fiber art. The artist, Gu Wenda, who was then a practitioner and instructor of traditional Chinese paintings (guohua) at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts, used his insider’s perspective to appropriate literati art and challenge its historicized value. More shocking, Gu included some of the visual elements of the big-character posters (dazibao), which were perceived as a visual index of the Cultural Revolution. In such a combination of elements, Wisdom Comes from Tranquility is both stylistically innovative and politically provocative. In contrast to Gu’s artwork, Longevity and The Art of War – which will be addressed in the second and third sections – are avant-garde on an artistic level in that they challenge some characteristics of traditionally-defined Chinese tapestries. Both Longevity and The Art of War simultaneously incorporate premodern subject matter and form and signify the context of the Cultural Revolution and the 1980s, in which tradition was reinterpreted. This thesis hopes to expand the canonized meaning of the Chinese avant-garde while redirecting scholarly attention to other mediums that have been ignored by previous scholarship on the ’85 Art New Wave and the Chinese exhibition system.
Julia Andrews (Advisor)
Lisa Florman (Committee Member)
Art History

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Yan, K. (2020). Craft or Avant-garde? Contemporary Chinese Fiber Art at the Thirteenth Lausanne International Tapestry Biennale [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1595538262296012

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Yan, Keyu. Craft or Avant-garde? Contemporary Chinese Fiber Art at the Thirteenth Lausanne International Tapestry Biennale. 2020. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1595538262296012.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Yan, Keyu. "Craft or Avant-garde? Contemporary Chinese Fiber Art at the Thirteenth Lausanne International Tapestry Biennale." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1595538262296012

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1595538262296012
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.