Major Events in Chinese Feminist Art
By Tong Yujie
In 1998, women artists Cui Xiuwen, Yuan Yaomin, Feng Jiali, and Li Hong founded Studio Siren, a Chinese feminist art group in Beijing.
In 1994, art critic Xu Hong published an article entitled “Out of the Abyss: A Letter to Women Artists and Critics” in Jiangsu Pictorial. She questioned the domination of the art world by male critics and noted that “without clear, conscious feminist modern art, modern art is incomplete.”
In 1998, “Century-Women,” curated by art critic Jia Fangzhou, presented more than 500 pieces by 78 women artists from Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and mainland China. This was the first large-scale women’s art exhibition since the founding of the People’s Republic.
In 1999, Chinese art researcher Tao Yongbai and Palace Museum researcher Li Shi co-authored Lost History: A History of Chinese Paintings by Women. By engaging with Chinese boudoir painters, courtesan painters, and New Women painters, this book began telling the history of Chinese women’s painting.
In 1999, art critic Liao Wen interviewed Lucy Pillard, Judy Chicago, and other feminist artists from the 1960s and 1970s in the United States. The records of these interviews were published in No More Nice Girls by Hebei Education Publishing in 2002. This was one of China’s earliest texts on Western feminist art criticism.
In 1999, Women’s Art: Feminism as a Method by art critic Liao Wen was published by Jilin Publishing Group.
In 2003, the Jiangsu People’s Publishing House published Xu Hong’s Women: Ideas in Fine Arts. This book presented a historical overview of art made by women in China from ancient times to the present.
In 2003, a Chinese edition of The Vagina Monologues, directed by Sun Yat-Sen University professor Ai Xiaoming, was performed at the Guangdong Museum of Art.
In 2004, the China Remin University Press published Lost and Found: Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? with essays translated by Western art scholar Li Jianqun and others. This volume was important in the dissemination of Western feminist art criticism.
In 2005, the Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House published Female Art by art critic Xu Hong.
In 2009, Yang Zi organized “Gender-Sex: The First Gender Diversity Art Exhibition” at the Songzhuang Ordinary Film Studio in Beijing.
In 2009, the Li Xianting Film Fund organized a queer flim festival at the Songzhuang Art Gallery.
In 2011, Guangxi Normal University Press published The Rhetoric of Gender and Sexuality in Feminist At in China by art. critic Tong Yuie. The book discussed gender politics, identity politics, and queer politics in Chinese feminist art.
In March 2012, German-Chinese curator Yong Xian planned feminist art exhibition The Bald Armed Girts at the Iberia Center of Contemporary Art in Beijing’s 798 Art District.
In March 2012, Tong Yujie, Yong Xian, and Di Yei co-chaired “Feminism in the World: 2012 Beijing International Critics Forum” at the Iberia Center of Contemporary Art in Beijing’s 798 Art District.
In 2012, Peng Feng curated Wang Shuping’s feminist art exhibition “Rebuilding Utopia,” held at the Enjoy Museum of Art in Beeling and the Duolun Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai.
In 2012, several female university students in Guangzhou organized a performance in which they “occupied” a male public toilet to show the imbalance between men’s and women’s facilities.
In 2013, Tong Yujie curated “Sexology Report on the Xi’an Textile City Art District,” a queer Performance Art event at Textile City Art District, Xi’an.
In 2015, “30 Years of Chinese Feminist Art: Shennongjia Critics Forum” was held at the Xiyuan Hotel in Shennongjia, Hubei. The conference participants engaged in a wide-ranging yet deep theoretical discussion centered on three topics: “Thirty Years of Chinese Feminist Art,” “Western Feminist Thought and Art by Chinese Women,” and “The Diverse Expressions of Chinese Feminist Art from an International Perspective.”
In 2015, “If You are Safe and Sound: Contemporary Feminist Art,” curated by Li Dan, was held at the Crossroads Centre Beijing and the Austrian Embassy.
In 2016, Tong Yujie gave a paper entitled “Gender Politics, Queer Politics: The History of the Chinese Feminist Artistic Experience Since the 1980s” at the 24″ World Congress of Art History in Beijing.
In 2016, “Feminine Power: New Perspective,” curated by Amelia Liang, was held at Dachin Contemporary Art Center in Beijing.
In 2016, Phoenix Fine Arts Publishing published Diffrencing the Canon: Feminist Desire and the Witing of Art’s Histories translated by Hu Qiao and Jin Yingcun.
From Tong Yujie Chinese Feminist Art
Associate Researcher, Art Research Institute, Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts Academic Committee Member, China Annual Art Critics Assembly Columnist, Artron.net
Published four books, including Whose Postmodernism? (Shanxi Education Press, 2007) and Artistic Rhetoric: Gender and Sexuality in Feminist Art in China (Guangxi Normal University Press, 2012).
Curated performances and happenings, including “The Chang’an School: 2011 Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition in Xian” (2011) and “State Banquet: In the Form of a Buffet” (2014), Sexology Report on the Xian Textile City Art District: Wedding on the Ruins, Performance Art, 2013, “New Silk Road: Sculpture and Installation by Young Chinese Contemporary Artists” (2017).
Chaired “Roundtable Discussion: Art Districts in 2012” (organized by Artron.net, 2012), cochaired “Feminism in the World: 2012 Beijing International Critics Forum” (Iberia Center of Contemporary Art, 2012) with Yong Xian and Di Di, and co-chaired “30 Years of Chinese Feminist Art: Shennongjia Critics Forum” (2015) with Tao Yongbai and Xu Hong.
Participated in the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth China Annual Art Critios Assembly, the 2014, 2015, and 2016 Shennongjia Criticism Forum, the 2017 Cha’er Lake Critics Forum, and the Thirty-Fourth World Congress of Art History ( Beijing 2016).
