Editors’ Note After a two-year hiatus, Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art is making a return. Many of our readers and writers have expressed how much they miss this important publication, the first independent English-language journal on contemporary Chinese art that now has a more than twenty-year history. Our small and dedicated team is exploring […]

Period: 2018-12-28 ~ 2019-03-01 Venue: Guangdong Times Museum Times Museum is glad to announce the open call for From a History of Exhibitions Towards a Future of Exhibition-Making—The Third Assembly: Exhibition-Making Practices in China and Southeast Asia after 2000. Papers can be submitted by researchers who look at what it means to investigate exhibition histories […]

Yishu is delighted to take part in the inaugural Booked: Tai Kwun Contemporary’s Hong Kong Art Book Fair from January 11-13, 2019. The inaugural Booked: Tai Kwun Contemporary’s Hong Kong Art Book Fair brings together over 60 art book publishers, artists and exhibitors from Hong Kong, the region and the world for the first time, […]

Editor’s Note In Yishu 89, Maya Kóvskaya explored the work of Xu Bing and its relationship to language, in particular the visuality that is inherent to calligraphy. He is not the only Chinese artist who incorporates language into visual art. Yuling Zhong’s essay in Yishu 90 examines the work of five contemporary artists and how […]

Yishu has followed the work of Xu Bing for many years and from many different perspectives. His work is diverse and he takes a socially responsible approach. Maya Kóvskaya adds to the discourse on his work by bringing up issues of how language, nature, and culture function in his projects and how he plays with […]

Editor’s Note Over the years, Yishu has paid considerable attention to artists who are working outside the main urban centres and in more rural locales. Lu Mingjun opens Yishu 88 with a text that considers artists who work in different regions of mainland China within the context of what he refers to as the “frontier,” […]

Editor’s Note In its seventeen years of publishing, Yishu has frequently presented special features on women artists. Yishu 87 continues this legacy and offers texts by Eliza Gluckman and Phoebe Wong, who employ a conversational methodology in their research on the lives of women artists in Hong Kong; Margarida Saraiva, who considers how museums in […]

Yishu Editor-in-Chief Keith Wallace was invited to participate in Art Basel Hong Kong’s programme of conversations. This session focused on Art Criticism and Critical Writing: Where to Now? and was moderated by Hera Chan, Independent Curator and Critic, Hong Kong. He joined other conversation participants from publications focusing on contemporary Asian art: Elaine W. Ng, […]

Editor’s Note Yishu 86 is honoured to present essays by Mia yu and Wang Nanming, recipients of the Seventh yishu awards for Critical Writing on Contemporary Chinese art. These awards represent Yishu’s endeavour to celebrate and support an activity that all too often receives little recognition. Mia yu has contributed an essay about artists who, […]

Editor’s Note Yishu 85 opens with an essay by Susanna Ferrell and Britta Erickson on the early work of Yang Jiechang, one of contemporary Chinese art’s most important artists and among the first to exhibit outside of China. The multi-year series of nearly all-black paintings, titled 100 Layers of Ink, embodies a complex deliberation of […]

Editor’s Note Mainland China’s museum and gallery scene has evolved rapidly over the past decade. Yishu 84 opens with two essays examining Shanghai, a city that is taking strategic approaches in its recognition of culture as an essential component of a vibrant urban experience. John Clark focuses on the influence the Shanghai Biennale has had […]

Editor’s Note Yishu 83 marks our fourth collaboration with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and its Samsung Senior Curator, Asian Art, and Senior Advisor, Global Arts, Alexandra Munroe. As part of these collaborations, Yishu has published presentations given by leading scholars at the Guggenheim Museum’s Asian Art Council. These meetings and discussions are […]

Editor’s Note Yishu has an extensive history, since 2003, of reviewing the work of artists of Chinese descent at the Venice Biennale. In this issue, Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker examines the exhibition at the China Pavilion, which brought together individual works as well as collaborations between folk artists and contemporary artists. She probes the challenges of […]

Editor’s Note Over the years, Yishu has published a number of thematic issues addressing topics that have currency in the minds of artists, critics, art historians, and curators. In some cases, the topics have been geographical, ideological, or historical in nature and have involved collaborations with institutions such as the Asia Art Archive, the Guggenheim […]

Launched by Artron Art Group, the 11th Annual Award of Art China is one of China’s most influential art awards focusing on academic and artistic achievement. Its ceremony was held at the Palace Museum in Beijing on May 23rd, 2017. The rotating president of the AAC Judging Committee this year was Zheng Shengtian and the […]

Editor’s Note Over the turn of the twenty-first century, the movement of migrant workers from rural areas to urban ones in mainland China took place on a scale unmatched anywhere else on earth. That this subject has made its way into China’s visual art is addressed by Wu Hung and Madeline Eschenburg in Yishu 80. […]

Editor’s Note Yishu 79 opens with features on two artists, Lee Kit and Zhou Bin, whose work reflects idiosyncratic approaches and eludes easy labels. Both artists do, however, explore aspects of the everyday and have an interest in the crossover between art and life. Godfre Leung points out how Lee Kit has been preoccupied with […]

Editor’s Note Yishu 78 presents a diverse selection of texts beginning with a feature on Lee Mingwei, an artist whom we last covered in 2002. Rachel Ng looks at his work from the perspective of cultural identity in a world of globalization and, in addition, how his work is positioned with respect to relational aesthetics. […]

Editor’s Note Yishu 77 has two distinct highlights. One is the announcement of and publishing of texts by recipients of the Yishu Awards for Critical Writing and Curating on Contemporary Chinese Art. With the generous financial support of Cc Foundation, Shanghai, and JNBY, China, we have expanded the awards to recognize five individuals (an increase […]

Editor’s Note Performance art has a strong legacy in southwest China, particularly in the city of Chengdu. Sophia Kidd, who previously contributed two texts on performance art in this region (Yishu 44, Yishu 55), updates us on an art medium that has shifted emphasis over the years but continues to maintain its presence and has […]