Indigenous Art and Contemporary China

How does art respond to and act in the world? How is its ability to act both constrained and made possible by who makes it, and who receives it? This course pursues these questions in the context of Chinese history, considering cultural "others" (frontier, indigenous, and/or ethnic minority peoples), their artistic practices, and representations of the aforesaid in mainstream Chinese culture. We will trace how this "other" art has been, and continues to be, a medium for debates over the nature of Chinese-ness, Chinese modernity, and history. At the same time, the course will consider how such art raises issues relevant beyond China: of indigeneity, ethnicity, and race in Asia; of the nature and uses of art; and of the specific power of cultural representations.