Tracing Contemporary Chinese Art An Ethnographic Journey Through a Decade in Shanghai

This book explores the author's ten-year ethnographic journey in different locations in Shanghai. His immersion in China’s art world is grounded in a topology of places and new ways of writing and deploying history today. The ethnographic approaches to experiencing, analysing and representing space offer a critical tool to explore a different version of realism invisible in the nominal art and art history paradigms. As the market and institutional norms are still being defined, this book also documents and analyses how individuals have strived to negotiate boundaries in the art world and thus create unique selfhood. Instead of conventional methods of periodisation and stylistic analysis, this book presents a historiographic strategy emphasising the philosophical significance of spatial realism to offer insights into history, subjectivities and political institutions.

Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: Rockbund Art Museum—A museum’s history of the present.- Chapter 3: Long Museum and Yuz Museum—A heterotopic vision mediated by billionaires.- Chapter 4: Art districts—A reflection on the fate of Chinese cities.- Chapter 5: Commercial gallery—A reinvention of self in the ‘charismatic-networked game’.- Chapter 6: In-between spaces—A global adventure for collectors and curators.- Chapter 7: Conclusion.

Isaac Leung is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Arts, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is also a practicing artist, curator, and scholar in art and culture.