Approaching Autonomy: Post-socialist Conceptualism in Chinese Art

This book explores works by key artists who shaped conceptualism in post-Mao China. Drawing from understudied archival materials and qualitative research, it analyzes artistic struggles for autonomy, re-evaluating Robert Rauschenberg’s 1985 exhibition in Beijing and Chinese artists’ exploration of appropriation, affect, dehumanization, and collective practice since the 1980s. A continuous development can be found in the politics and aesthetics of post-socialism, which has struggled to define its space for expression, from the 1980s until today.