The Institute for Chinese Studies presents:
"Provisional Futures: Designing Spaces of Becoming in Contemporary Chinese Art"
Peggy Wang
Bowdoin College
Abstract: This talk centers on a peculiar art exhibition that took place in 1994 in the pages of the popular newspaper Beijing Youth Daily. Over the course of the year, the Art Interior Design Proposal exhibition published one image a month. This talk examines how such an exhibition contributes to ways of understanding the stakes of designing futures during this time of capitalist market reform. Situated at the intersection of real estate, advertising, design, and mass media, Art Interior Design offers a fascinating lens through which to understand ways of conceiving of “futures,” and reconsiders how temporalities in contemporary Chinese art have been perceived.
Peggy Wang [pronounced "Wong"] teaches the span of Asian art history, from the pre-modern to the contemporary era. Her research explores how meanings and histories are constructed in light of cultural globalization. She is the author of The Future History of Contemporary Chinese Art (University of Minnesota Press, 2021). In its focus on methods of interpretation and narratives of agency, this book speaks to Professor Wang's inquiries into what it means for histories of contemporary art—and Art History more generally—to be inclusive.