New China Art Classics of the 1980s

Author: Ni Jiaming (Editor)
Publisher:
Publish Date: July 1, 2004
Features: At the current stage in China, books related to art history, especially those introducing the history of modern Chinese art, always have a small readership. As far as I know, not only do general readers rarely take the time to read such books, but even specialized artists and art critics seldom do. The exceptions are usually when someone needs to write an article or research related materials. To introduce the history of Chinese art over the past half-century in a more accessible way—through a more intuitive approach—so that art history can reach a broader audience, this book adopts a visual-illustrative format, with works arranged by creation date. Our goal is to help those who lack time or patience for dense textual content grasp the main threads of modern Chinese art history in a comic-book-like manner. In fact, our approach is not entirely original in the history of art. Many experts know that in the West, some art historians consider it a necessary step to arrange important artworks chronologically before writing art history. We have simply standardized this practice.
New China Art Classics originally covered the period from 1949 to 1999, but due to the publisher's editors feeling that the 1990s' works were too recent to be considered classics, the lower limit was later adjusted to 1989. This approach can be seen as responsible and cautious. Why this time frame? Because we believe that from an art historical perspective, the 40 years after the founding of New China were a period of major transformation and unprecedented flourishing in artistic creation. During this time, a large number of outstanding artists produced works that have become an important part of the modern art tradition. Publishing a series that comprehensively reflects the creative achievements of Chinese art over these 40 years would not only provide artists and critics with a highly informative, academic, and documentary art history reference but also allow more people to easily understand the artistic developments of this era.
I remember a few years ago, when we visited some universities in Beijing to gather opinions on the publishing of art books for students, many of them pointed out that while they were eager to learn about New China's art, the highly specialized art books were too dense, abstract, and overwhelming, making it difficult for them to engage. Therefore, in compiling this series, we strived to maintain academic rigor while catering to their cultural needs, aiming to help them understand artistic creation, improve their artistic appreciation, and enhance their aesthetic perception.
New China Art Classics is divided into four volumes: the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Each volume focuses on the important works of key artists from those respective periods. The series adopts a layout of one page of text paired with one page of artwork, featuring 320 works by 200 artists. We believe that in the "image-reading era," this is indeed an effective publishing approach that meets the cultural needs of a wide range of readers. Additionally, to help readers understand the background of each work, each book includes specialized essays. We hope this will aid readers in understanding the motivations and aspirations of the artists.