Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Rochester. Program in Visual and Cultural Studies, 2012.
This dissertation examines the meaning of publicness and its relationship to
contemporary art through an analysis of four Chinese art projects. The four projects
are Moving Rainbow (1998-2001) by Xiong Wenyun, Village Self-Governance
Documentary Project (2005) by Wu Wenguang, Karibu Islands (2008) by myself,
and Nian (2010) by Ai Weiwei. I demonstrate that these projects share a number of
things in common: (1) the artists and participants acted as citizens and demanded
citizens’ rights; (2) they organized discursive arenas outside the state; (3) they defined
issues of common concern; (4) they mobilized both rational-critical and affective
expressions, and utilized a wide range of media; (5) they fostered stranger relations;
(6) they strove for visibility; (7) they focused on contemporary common action. These
traits together constitute publicness. Publicness not only served as a goal for these
projects, but also constituted a form through which these projects came into being. I
argue that the pursuit of publicness has been one of the critical forces motivating the
development of Chinese contemporary art. In the struggle against totalitarianism,
Chinese artists have combined public and counterpublic strategies and contributed to
larger social movements striving for freedom and justice.
