Sinophone Art in the Global Cold War
Session will present: In-PersonThe concept of "Sinophone'' describes Sinitic-language cultures and communities around the world, without homogenizing a singular category of “Chineseness” as implied in the “Chinese diaspora.” This panel anchors the exploration of “Sinophone art history” in the global Cold War when geopolitical conflicts, intertwined with struggles of decolonization and nation-building, were quite visually manifested in ideological and physical battlefields around the world. By “Sinophone art history,” we interpret the Sinophone not so much through linguistic commonality but multimodal forms of art that escape, exceed, or complicate languages. We also consider, in the Sinophone context, how the apparatus of empire and coloniality, with historical contingency and contemporary relevance, might operate in different spaces, times, and forms. By situating Sinophone art within the burgeoning Global Cold War discourse, we challenge previous Cold War scholarship that privileged the agency of Western actors who mediated between institutions and resisted imposed ideologies, while making connections in the three “worlds.” Meanwhile, Sinophone actors of the same period were assumed to be either supporters of Communist China or compliances with the new authoritarian regimes. Instead, we recentralize previously marginalized areas, complicating the Sinophone Cold War experience in Art History while emphasizing the transnational and cross-cultural perspectives. Focusing on Sinophone art history, we welcome discussions that see the global Cold War as an event where transnational vectors shape artistic productions, or even a method of approaching global art history via under-discussed routes, networks, and relationality.
Field(s) of Study:
Topics: Asian Diaspora
Field: Art History
Time Period: Twentieth Century
Media: Interdisciplinary
Topics: Visual Culture
Chairs:
Jennifer Lee, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
and
Jin Wang, The Graduate Center City University of New York
Discussant:
Christine Ho
Abstract Submissions Closed