Queer Cosmopolitan China

This presentation examines queer visions of cosmopolitan cities by Chinese and Chinese-American artists: Ren Hang in Beijing, Simon Leung in Guangzhou, and Jon Wang in Hong Kong. Employing the strategies of fashion photography to circulate internationally and resist censorship in mainland China, Ren Hang pictured gender fluidity, sexual ambiguity, and non-heteronormative pleasures rarely visible in contemporary China. Simon Leung’s video installation Squatting Project/Guangzhou subverts notions of fixed identity through appropriation, contaminated translation, and reflections on the gender and class performativity of Ruan Lingyu – a beloved, tragically demised 1930s Chinese starlet. Jon Wang’s video art piece, From Its Mouth Came a River of High-end Residential Appliances, reflects on Hong Kong as feng shui capital, the slippery, transnational movements of feng shui philosophy, and the artist’s own transgender and transcultural identities. I analyze these case studies vis-à-vis scholarship on gender performativity and queer theory, especially as developed by Judith Butler and Amelia Jones, and queer Chinese visual and cultural studies, recently illuminated by scholars including Maud Lavin, Jing Jamie Zhao, and Ling Yang. Integrating Aihwa Ong’s theories of “overseas Chinese” culture and “worlding cities,” my investigations grapple with the loaded relations between the diverse cities of Beijing, Hong Kong, and Guangzhou and their distinct cosmopolitan formations (through histories of imperialism, colonialism, and post-Mao economic reforms). I propose that the queer content, structures, and theories within Ren Hang, Simon Leung, and Jon Wang’s urban depictions critically expand perceptions of cosmopolitan China and contemporary Chinese art.