Art History 688 - Special Topics in Asian Art

This course surveys the art of China's modern age, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century with the treaty port cultures following the second Opium War in 1860, and ending with the 2008 Olympics. Topics include urban print cultures, modern ink painting, Sino-Japanese exchanges, arts institutions, popular and mass culture, socialist state art, experimental art and exhibitions in the Reform era, and art of the diaspora. We consider recurring questions over definitions of the avant-garde, political participation and representation, modernity and tradition, nationalism and transnationalism, urbanization and globalization, and gender and identity. All readings in translation.