How the valorization of artistic and political dissidence has contributed to the rise of
Chinese contemporary art in the West. Interest in Chinese contemporary art increased
dramatically in the West shortly after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Sparked by political
sympathy and the mediatized response to the event Western curators critics and art
historians were quick to view the new art as an expression of dissident resistance to the
Chinese regime. In this book Marie Leduc proposes that this attribution of political
dissidence is not only the result of latent Cold War perceptions about China but also
indicative of the art world's demand for artistically and politically provocative work a demand
that mirrors the valorization of free expression in liberal democracies. Focusing on nine
Chinese artists Wang Du Wang Keping Huang Yong Ping Yang Jiechang Chen Zhen Yan Pei-Ming
Shen Yuan Ru Xiaofan and Du Zhenjun who migrated to Paris in and around 1989 Leduc explores
how their work was recognized before and after the Tiananmen Square incident. Drawing on
personal interviews with the artists and curators and through an analysis of important
exhibitions events reviews and curatorial texts she demonstrates how these and other
Chinese artists have been celebrated both for their artistic dissidence their formal
innovations and introduction of new media and concepts and for their political dissidence how
their work challenges political values in both China and the West. As Leduc concludes the rise
of Chinese contemporary art in the West highlights the significance of artistic and political
dissidence in the production of contemporary art and the often-unrecognized relationship
between contemporary art and liberal democracy.
