From the Masses to the Masses: Visual Practices in China since the Cultural Revolution

60 years ago in May, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was officially launched under the guiding principles issued by the Central Session of the Chinese Communist Party culminating, despite its top-down directive, in a bottom-up mass movement across the country. Two key events heralded the Cultural Revolution nationwide: the popularisation of the big-character poster (dazibao) and the emergence of the Red Guards. This symposium marks these two anniversaries by re-examining the role of ‘mass-art’ in the contemporary context. 

Jointly organised by Westminster's Contemporary China Centre and Birmingham City University's Centre for Contemporary Visual Arts Asia, this one-day symposium brings together a group of international scholars and is open to the public.

Image credit: University of Westminster Visual Arts Project 

Title of image: The more you study, the brighter you will be 

Programme

10.30am -11.00 am Welcome Address Professor Gerda Wielander (University of Westminster) and Professor Joshua Jiang (Birmingham City University)

PANEL ONE: 11.00-12.30 pm. Labouring Bodies Chair: Professor Gerda Wielander

11.00-11.15am Zhining Ding (Courtauld Institute of Art) ‘Re-Writing the Syntax of the Foolish Old Man: Visual Practices and Subjective Reconstruction in China’

11.15am-11.30am Han Shuying (Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts China/Birmingham City University) ‘From Outcry to Construction: Popular Art in the Revolutionary Woodcut Movement and the Art-Led Rural Reconstruction’

11.30-11.45am Dr. Isabel Wolte (University of Vienna) ‘From Poster to Film: Barefoot Doctors and the Role of the Film Studio’

11.45am-12.00pm Zhongping Mao (University College London) ‘From Modelling to Mass Practice: Co-Producing the Three Gorges Dam Image after the Cultural Revolution’

12.00pm -12.30pm Panel Discussion and audience Q+A

Lunch: 12.30pm-1.30pm (wide variety of eateries located in the vicinity)

PANEL TWO 1.30pm to 3.00pm Masses as Producers Chair: Dr. Federica Mirra (University of Macerata/Birmingham City University).

1.30pm to 1.45pm Dr. Mi Zhou (University of St. Andrews) ‘The Contemporary Afterlives of Cultural Revolution Era Vernacular Photography in the Old Photo Serial'

1.45-2.00pm Kimberly Lee (Wereldmuseum, Leiden) ‘From Wall to Archive: Mass Art and Moral Education in the Chinese Posters of the Early Reform Era’

2.00pm-2.15pm Dr. Shao Jiang (University of Oxford) ‘Wall Posters and Satirical Image-Texts: Rethinking Mass Art as Mass Authorship in China, 1966–1989'

2.15pm to 2.30pm Dr. Yanhua Zhou (Kennesaw State University/Sichuan Fine Arts Institute) ‘Institutionalised Participation and the Precarious Masses: Reconfiguring Socially Engaged Art under the “Rural Revitalization” in Contemporary China’

2.30pm to 3.00pm Panel Discussion and audience Q+A

Coffee break 3.00-3.30pm

PANEL THREE 3.30pm to 5.00pm Cross-Cultural Resonances of Mass Art Chair: Dr. Lauren Walden.

3.30pm-3.45pm Laura Maria Cinquini (University of Turin) ‘Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, a Mass-Art for them all: Popular Glass and Mirror Paintings in the Early People's Republic of China’

3.45-4.00pm Dr. Daniela C. Zhang (Comenius University, Bratislava) ‘Pop, Ink, and the Refusal of Seriousness: Artistic Strategies after Experimental Ink in Contemporary China’

4.00pm-4.15pm Rucheng Yang (Birmingham City University) ‘Citywalk as Mass Visual Practice: From Embodied Looking to Urban Micro-Generation in China’

4.15pm-4.30pm Dianna Su (Beijing Normal University) A Curated "Encounter": The Misreading of Huxian Peasant Painting in Studio International (1975)'

4.30pm-5.00pm Panel Discussion and audience Q+A

5.00pm -5.30pm Roundtable Discussion with Professor Joshua Jiang and Professor Gerda Wielander followed by Closing Remarks

5.30pm-6.30pm Drinks Reception