The socially engaged practices of artists in contemporary China

Abstract

In the past decade, Mainland China has witnessed an evident increase of artists who undertake socially engaged art and seek to optimize the power of art for social criticism or community rebuilding in their professional practices. Individual artists and artist collectives have initiated many projects to expose the injustice people suffered in a society governed by an authoritarian regime, call upon awareness of specific social problems produced under the logic of consumerist urbanization, or foster community-oriented social interactions and participations. These practices might or might not result in objects or images readily identifiable as art works and often involve processes beyond the recognizable forms of the Chinese art world. Experimental in nature and situation or locality specific in operation, the social practices of artists have closely responded to the Chinese context while also demonstrated many commonalities with the socially engaged art circulated in the global art world. This article focuses on the practices of Ai Weiwei, Wang Jiuliang and Qu Yan and explores their sociocultural implications. It suggests that the emergence of socially engaged art is part of the rising civic consciousness among the intellectual communities that targets the prevalent social and cultural problems in contemporary China.

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