Contemporary Chinese Visual Culture: Tradition, Modernity, and Gl ...

able to give the reader an initial glimpse into the range of debates and observations on the subject. A great deal has been written about Chinese avant-garde art, and the range of literature on Chinese architecture is substantial. Other areas are less well served, but the biggest lacuna in the study of Chinese visual culture in the West is the Chinese perspective. This book is written by those embedded within the debates that the English-speaking world observes at a distance. It is for this reason that I hope this collection of essays can provide a fresh view of a visual culture facing the biggest changes to its practices since the Cultural Revolution.

I have chosen a broad range of voices for inclusion in this book, and it will not take the reader long to identify the differing theoretical perspectives, ideological positions, and contradictions evident in this collection. This is deliberate on my part. It is important that the reader is aware of the deep-seated Chinese cultural need for harmony (Cheng, 1999), but whilst the Maoist principle of ‘resolving contradictions’ might be a very attractive one, the need for ‘unity’ (Kau & Leung, 1992, p. 315) in addressing this or any problem in China now belongs to a philosophical world enthusiastically left behind decades ago by all but the most pro-establishment intellectuals. I have tried to reveal the complexity of Chinese views and arguments concerning globalisation and traditional visual culture rather than impose an outsider’s overview, and I have tried to balance polemic with research. I have also asked some contributors to include some background information in order to contextualise the wider issues for the reader who is unfamiliar with the debates.

My responsibility in this introduction is to briefly frame three overarching themes: Chinese modernity’s (sometimes ambivalent) relationship to tradition at the start of the twentieth century, the processes of economic reform started in the 1980s and their importance to both the eradication and rescue of traditional practices, and the ideological issue of cosmopolitanism and how it frames the older academic generation’s attitudes to globalisation. It is important to grasp the value of these points as they have been an important part of the discourse surrounding contemporary