(In)Direct Speech. 'Chineseness' in Contemporary Art Discourse and Practice. Art Market, Curatorial Practices and Creative Processes and Launch of the International Research Network for Modern and Contemporary Chinese Art

The international symposium (In)Direct Speech. 'Chineseness' in Contemporary Art Discourse and Practice. Art Market, Curatorial Practices and Creative Processes seeks to critically address constructions of "Chineseness" that are apparent in three often entangled spaces of the art world across the globe: in the art market's institutions, in the exhibition halls, and in the artist's studio. Art historians, curators, and artists are invited to engage with the following key questions and to explicitly address pertinent socio-cultural, economic, and art historiographical aspects.

• How does the market’s labelling power shape canonization and how do economic categories and criteria direct processes of cultural identification that lead to discursive as well as institutional in-/exclusion of specific artworks and their makers?
• How do notions of "Chineseness" inform the curatorial practice and thereby support or defy the writing of a distinct "Chinese" art history? What kinds of taxonomies govern the choice of artworks and displays of contemporary “Chinese” art outside and inside the People’s Republic of China? How do curators realize the frequent claim to represent "China" when they present contemporary artworks created in China? What concepts of "tradition" and "contemporaneity" do they use and how do they explain them?
• How do Chinese and non-Chinese artists engage with notions of "Chineseness"? How do they relate to cultural "traditions" and link an (imagined) past with the present and future in their artistic practices? How do they negotiate desires of cultural belonging with political and/or economic aspects of claiming or discarding a specific cultural identity in their individual approaches? What are the rationales driving the cultural essentialism or relativism of their positions in turn?

Taken together, the international and interdisciplinary symposium will discuss the "voice(s)" of "Chinese" contemporary art in a global context and examine what kind of "China-images" they project. The participants will engage with cases of "indirect speech", in which Chinese as well as non-Chinese artists, cite "China" as a motif or address it by explicitly using (pre-modern) techniques associated with Chinese culture, such as ink and rice paper or Chinese characters. They will also address cases of "direct speech" by artists, curators and art dealers, who proclaim cultural and artistic uniqueness, critical attitudes towards the "Westernization" of aesthetic standards, or - on the contrary - try to forge a place for their works in the global art discourse by avoiding cultural distinctions. The symposium thus aims to make visible the historicity of "Chineseness" as discursive and practical construct and to analyse how agents and institutions contribute to its changes during the last three decades.

The symposium creates an opportunity for scholars, curators, artists and other professionals working on contemporary Chinese art to discuss their projects, recent research, and the latest trends of the growing field. Its programme includes the launch of the "International Research Network for Modern and Contemporary Chinese Art", which will be based on a suitable academic social media platform that ensures easy accessibility, global outreach and a secured space for the sharing of professional information as well as in-group discussions. It will particularly address the career needs of junior scholars with non-permanent institutional affiliations and a lack of funding to support their often expensive research travels, enabling them to quickly and internationally gather helpful information together with the support of senior researchers. It is planned to be institutionally affiliated to a university - probably Heidelberg University - to ensure a sustainable, non-commercial and democratic administration by chosen representatives of its scholarly members.

Each participant will have 30 minutes to present his/her paper/project followed by 15 minutes for discussion. In addition to the listed speakers below, the organizers will choose at least four additional speakers among applicants, who respond to this Call for Papers, based on how well the suggested papers fit into the overall programme. Unfortunately, funding of travel costs and accommodation cannot be provided.
The symposium will be conducted in English. Presenters are required to submit an abstract (max. 500 words), paper title, and a short biographical note (3-4 sentences) . Rui Oliveira Lopes (rui.o.lopes[at]gmail.com) and Franziska Koch (koch[at]asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de)