In this week's Art Seen, Robyn Maree Pickens looks at works on display at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, including those from a collection of contemporary Chinese art. "New Networks" is a diverse exhibition of contemporary art from mainland China that covers a 40-year period from the 1970s to the present day. Undoubtedly the curatorial intention was to showcase the range of contemporary art practices Chinese artists are pursuing in the decades following the Cultural Revolution. Chinese art is "hot" and China's contemporary art market (and the audience for Chinese art internationally) is thriving, as even a cursory flick through the pages of Art Forum reveals. "New Networks" can be situated amid the hype surrounding contemporary Chinese art, and therefore in the interconnected forces of capitalism, neoliberal globalised trade and China's rapid industrialisation that generated the very conditions for the commodification of Chinese art.

Source: Otago Daily Times February 06, 2019 15:33 UTC