published_or_final_version / Humanities / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

林嵐. / 論文 (藝術碩士)--香港中文大學, 1999. / 參考文獻 (leaves [1-3] (3rd group)) / 附中英文摘要. / Lin Lan. / Lun wen (yi shu shuo shi)-- Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 1999. / Can kao wen xian (leaves [1-3] (3rd group)) / Fu Zhong Ying wen zhai yao. / 前言 --- p.1 / Chapter 第一章 --- 中國文字的特色 --- p.2 / Chapter 第一節 --- 漢字的美學價値 --- p.3 / 漢字的形、音、義 / 豐富的靈感泉源 / 文字的特殊美學觀 / Chapter 第二節 --- 漢字的權力象徵意義 --- p.6 / Chapter 第二章 --- 中國文字與藝術 --- p.10 / Chapter 第一節 --- 文字與文人畫 --- p.10 / 文字與書法 / 書法與中國畫 / Chapter 第二節 --- 文字與現代藝術創作 --- p.12 / Chapter 第三章 --- 當代中國藝術家的文字情結 --- p.16 / Chapter 第一節 --- 借用中國書法的形式或形態爲主題的藝術家 --- p.16 / 趙無極 / 王己千 / Chapter 第二節 --- 以文字作文化符號思考的藝術家 --- p.18 / 吳山專 / 谷文達 / 徐冰 / Chapter 第三節 --- 保持文字功能性的藝術家 --- p.22 / 侯俊明 / 郭孟浩 / 結語 --- p.25 / 附錄一：參考書目及雜誌 / 附錄二：圖錄 / 附錄三：圖片來源

This thesis explores some issues related to directed change in Chinese literature and art from 1930 to 1955. The focus is on the performing arts. The main issues of concern are changes in the social organisation of literary and artistic activity, and changes in the conscious model of literature and art held by those leading these social changes. Fieldwork was done in China during the period 1974 to 1977. Since the main concern of the thesis is with an earlier period, extensive library research was done in China, the United States, and Canada. The formative period of the modern transformation of Chinese literature and art was examined by research into the changes of the Kiangsi Soviet, Yenan, and National Consolidation periods. Theoretical concepts derived from the works of Clifford Geertz on ideology, Eric Wolf on peasant political movements, Antonio Gramsci on intellectuals and hegemony, and Raymond Williams on the arts in society were synthesised to form an approach which could illuminate these problems. In this work literature and art were consistently analysed as modes of social activity rather than as purely aesthetic phenomena. The development within leading circles in China of an approach to literature and art based upon recognition of its social and political aspects and a concern with effecting change in these areas is examined, beginning with the rudimentary formulation of ideas:-on this subject in the early 1930's. The effort to transform literature and art by way of carrying out planned and organised alterations in the social practice of literary and artistic activities on the part of both professionals and amateurs is examined in detail. These efforts were found to be theoretically provocative and to have shown some signs of success, particularly in the middle and late 1940's. A partial revision of these policies is noted in the early 1950's, and some possible reasons for that are suggested. / Arts, Faculty of / Sociology, Department of / Graduate

My dissertation investigates the concepts and techniques of “copying” and appropriation in contemporary Chinese art, which, despite its phenomenal growth, has seldom been credited as original. Critics either condemn the Chinese artists’ willingness to appropriate from others as a lack of individuality, or declare it as a peculiarly “Chinese” quality. This paper, instead, argues that the Chinese artists deliberately adopt such “copying” as a visual strategy, in order to reexamine the traditions they “borrowed”, to reflect on their own cultural status in the modern world, and to challenge the conventional concept of originality--namely, to show that originality is not created by irreducible individuality or mystified inspiration, but by the author’s choice as well as manipulation of contexts. This strategy, I argue, is essential to the proper evaluation and interpretation of contemporary Chinese artworks. The first two chapters of my dissertation focus on laying out the context from which this art grows. I review how the ideas, styles and institutional structures of western modern art were imitated, questioned and redefined by the Chinese artists, from 1978 to the present; I then examine the conceptual complexity of originality and “copying” in the theories of modernism, postmodernism, postcolonialism and in traditional Chinese art. The next two chapters focus on, respectively, calligraphy and photography in contemporary Chinese art, both of which contain the paradox between originality and “copying” in their very nature. The works of four artists, Xu Bing, Qiu Zhijie, Hong Hao and Zhao Bandi, are discussed in details. Xu's site-specific reproduction of “pseudo characters” manage to engage its targeted audiences, psychologically and physically; Qiu's obsessive yet futile copying of a canon of calligraphy returns the act of writing to its essence--a physical pursuit of one's spiritual state of being; Hong's photographic emulation of an ancient masterpiece suggests that painting may excel photography in its ability to portray a grand cityscape; Zhao’s simulacrum of pop culture paradigms enables him to evade political censorship, and to have an substantial yet ironic impact in a broader public sphere. Each of these works has made a unique contribution to the redefinition of artistic originality. / text