Journal of Curatorial Studies, 4:1 (2015)
Special Issue: China: Exhibitions and Display Culture

Edited by Jennifer Fisher and Jim Drobnick

http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-issue,id=2843/

The burgeoning museum construction in China makes it a timely topic for a special thematic issue of the Journal of Curatorial Studies. 'China: Exhibitions and Display Culture' draws from the ambitious and unprecedented program of building thousands of heritage, historical, commemorative, private and ethnographic museums, among other types, over the past twenty-five years. The fact that the majority of these museums are state-funded, ideologically-oriented, and dedicated toward promoting an officially-sanctioned pedagogy may make an analysis seem straightforward, but the number and range of museums show surprising diversity in the approaches to display strategies and effects. During the same time period, contemporary Chinese art has equally blossomed, both within China and internationally, as the globalization of the art market and the surge in biennials launched Chinese artists into exhibitions worldwide. The six articles in this special issue examine China from three angles: museums as proponents of state ideology, China-based exhibitions in the international context, and displays of contemporary art within China itself.


Articles

Paul Gladston (University of Nottingham)
"International Curatorial Practice and the Problematic De-Territorialization of the 'Identity' Show: Deconstructing the Third Guangzhou Triennial, Farewell to Post-Colonialism"

Melanie Pocock (Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore)
"Terms of Encounter: The '85 New Wave and France, Magiciens de la terre and Chine demain pour hier"

Sophie MacIntyre (Australian National University)
"The Art of Diplomacy: The Role of Exhibitions in the Development of Taiwan-China Relations"

Lisa Keränen (University of Colorado Denver), Patrick Shaou-Whea Dodge (University of Colorado Denver) and Donovan Conley (University of Nevada, Las Vegas)
"Modernizing Traditions on the Roof of the World: Displaying 'Liberation' and 'Occupation' in Three Tibet Museums"

Katiana Le Mentec (Centre for Modern and Contemporary Chinese Studies)
"Chongqing Museums after the Upheaval: Exhibitions in the Wake of the Three Gorges Dam Migrations"

Edward Sanderson (Independent Critic and Curator, Beijing)
"Interventionist Curatorial and Display Practices in Beijing"


This issue of the Journal of Curatorial Studies also features exhibition reviews of Sam Durant's Proposal for White and Indian Dead Monument Transpositions, Washington, DC at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Fiona Tan's Inventory at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others; a website review of video art on Youtube, Vimeo and Dailymotion; book reviews of Exhibition as Social Intervention: 'Culture in Action' 1993 (Joshua Decter and Helmut Draxler), New Collecting: Exhibiting and Audiences after New Media Art (Beryl Graham, ed.), Show Time: The 50 Most Influential Exhibitions of Contemporary Art (Jens Hoffmann), The Multisensory Museum: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Touch, Sound, Smell, Memory and Space (Nina Levent and Alvaro Pascual-Leone, eds), The Armory Show at 100: Modernism and Revolution (Marilyn Satin Kushner and Kimberly Orcutt, eds), Curious Lessons in the Museum: The Pedagogic Potential of Artists' Interventions (Claire Robins) and Self-Organised (Stine Hebert and Anne Szefer Karlsen, eds); and a conference review on the Montreal International Symposium on Performing Arts Curation.

For more information on contributing to the Journal, contact:
Jennifer Fisher, jefishyorku.ca
Jim Drobnick, jimdisplaycult.com