Constructed over a millennium from the fourth to fourteenth centuries CE near Dunhuang, an ancient border town along the Silk Road in northwest China, the Mogao Caves comprise the largest, most continuously created, and best-preserved treasure trove of Buddhist art in the world. Previous overviews of the art of Dunhuang have traced the caves' unilinear history. This book examines the caves from the perspective of space, treating them as physical and historical sites that can be approached, entered, and understood sensually. It prioritizes the actual experiences of the people of the past who built and used the caves. Five spatial contexts provide rich material for analysis: Dunhuang as a multicultural historic place; the Mogao Cave complex as an evolving entity; the interior space of caves; interaction of the visual program with architectural space; and pictorial space within wall paintings that draws viewers into an otherworldly time. With its novel approach to this repository of religious art, Spatial Dunhuang will be a must-read for anyone interested in Buddhist art and for visitors to Dunhuang.

A sweeping look at Chinese art across the millennia that upends traditional perspectives and offers new pathways for art history Throughout Chinese history, dynastic time-the organization of history through the lens of successive dynasties-has been the dominant mode of narrating the story of Chinese art, even though there has been little examination of this concept in discourse and practice until now. Chinese Art and Dynastic Time uncovers how the development of Chinese art was described in its original cultural, sociopolitical, and artistic contexts, and how these narratives were interwoven with contemporaneous artistic creation. In doing so, leading art historian Wu Hung opens up new pathways for the consideration of not only Chinese art, but also the whole of art history. Wu Hung brings together ten case studies, ranging from the third millennium BCE to the early twentieth century CE, and spanning ritual and religious art, painting, sculpture, the built environment, and popular art in order to examine the deep-rooted patterns in the historical conceptualization of Chinese art. Elucidating the changing notions of dynastic time in various contexts, he also challenges the preoccupation with this concept as the default mode in art historical writing. This critical investigation of dynastic time thus constitutes an essential foundation to pursue new narrative and interpretative frameworks in thinking about art history. Remarkable for the sweep and scope of its arguments and lucid style, Chinese Art and Dynastic Time probes the roots of the collective imagination in Chinese art and frees us from long-held perspectives on how this art should be understood. Published in association with the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

This book tells two stories about the full-length mirror. One story, through time and space, crisscrosses the globe to introduce a broad range of historical actors: kings and slaves, artists and writers, merchants and craftsmen, courtesans and commoners. The other story explores the connections between object, painting and photography, the full-length mirror providing a new perspective on historical artefacts and their images in art and visual culture. The Full-Length Mirror represents a new kind of global art history in which 'global' is understood in terms of both geography and visual medium, a history encompassing Europe, Asia and North America, and spanning over two millennia from the fourth century BCE to the early twentieth century.

Published to accompany the major retrospective exhibition on Hung Liu, "Summoning Ghosts" is a comprehensive look at the work of this extraordinary Chinese-American artist. A pioneer in Chinese contemporary art before the Chinese avant-garde came into being, Lui's life spanned two centuries and bridged two totally different economic situations. The wide-ranging essays in this book, which features 140 color illustrations, reflect on how Hung Liu's evocative art is inextricably bound to her equally rich and complex life. While considering the artist's primary work as a painter, the contributors also celebrate her murals, permanent and temporary installations, photography, and video.

From the 1980s, many Chinese artists have experimented with a range of unconventional materials. Their works-in plastic, paper, silk, ash, and tobacco-form a major trend in Chinese art. The Allure of Matter offers the first serious consideration of these ground-breaking material explorations, coining the term Material Art to describe works that place "matter" itself as the primary vehicle of investigation and expression. The book contains four ground-breaking essays, profiles of twenty-five artists, and corresponding color images.

In his new book, Wu Hung raises timely questions about artistic freedom and censorship. Here, as in the Smart Museum's exhibition "Canceled: Exhibiting Experimental Art in China, " Wu uses the government's cancellation of the exhibition "It's Me" (Beijing, 1998) to anchor his analysis of the challenges faced by contemporary Chinese artists and curators.
During this time of rapid change in mainland China, artists and curators are seeking new ways to show work, and finding new allies, patrons and audiences. They are investigating ways to respond to official antagonism, to realize the potential of experimental art in the public sphere, and to maintain the independence of this art in an increasingly commercialized society. Wu addresses these issues through a survey of current exhibition practices, a discussion of the Smart Museum exhibition, a case study of "It's Me, " a rich collection of primary materials from eleven recent exhibitions. By introducing readers to the complex milieu of experimental artists and curators in China, Wu makes a major contribution to the growing scholarship on contemporary Chinese culture.

In this first systematic introduction to contemporary Chinese art, Wu Hung provides an accessible, focused and much-needed narrative of the development of Chinese art across all media from the 1970s to the 2000s. From its underground genesis during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), contemporary Chinese art has become a dynamic and hugely influential force in a globalized art world where the distinctions between Eastern and Western culture are rapidly collapsing. The book is a richly illustrated and easy-to-navigate chronological survey that considers contemporary Chinese art both in the context of China's specific historical experiences and in a global arena. Wu Hung explores the emergence of avant-garde or contemporary art - as opposed to officially sanctioned art - in the public sphere after the Cultural Revolution; the mobilization by young artists and critics of a nationwide avant-garde movement in the mid-1980s; the re-emphasis on individual creativity in the late 1980s, the heightened spirit of experimentation of the 1990s; and the more recent identification of Chinese artists, such as Ai Weiwei, as global citizens who create works for an international audience.

No other civilization in the pre-modern world was more obsessed with creating underground burial structures than the Chinese. For at least five thousand years, from the fourth millennium BCE to the early twentieth century, Chinese people devoted an extraordinary amount of wealth and labor to building tombs and furnishing them with exquisite objects and images. In art history these ancient burial sites have mainly been appreciated as 'treasure troves' of exciting and often previously unknown works of art. New trends in Chinese art history are challenging this way of studying funerary art: now an entire memorial site--rather than any of its individual components--has become the focus of both observation and interpretation. "The Art of the Yellow Springs" expands on this scholarship by making interpretative methods the direct subject of consideration. It argues that to achieve a genuine understanding of Chinese tombs we need to reconsider a host of art-historical concepts, including visuality, viewership, space, formal analysis, function, and context. Profusely illustrated with many outstanding works of art, this ground-breaking new assessment demonstrates the amazing richness of arguably the longest and most persistent tradition in the entirety of Chinese art.

When it is completed in 2009 the Three Gorges Dam, a hydroelectric dam which spans the Yangzi River in China, will generate enough electricity to power four cities the size of Los Angeles. Despite the fact that it will drastically reduce coal consumption and eliminate 100 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year, the project is entwined in controversy. Since construction began in 1994, nearly one thousand neighboring towns and villages have been submerged and over one million people have been displaced by the dam's 375-mile reservoir.
With "Displacement," the University of Chicago's Smart Museum of Art extends a series of exhibition catalogs produced in conjunction with renowned Chinese art scholar and curator Wu Hung. This fascinating project reveals how four leading Chinese artists--Chen Qiulin, Liu Xiaodong, Yun-Fei Ji, and Zhuang Hui--have confronted the Three Gorges Dam, employing a variety of contemporary techniques to respond to the massive forced migration of people, the demolition of ancient architecture, and the devastation of the local landscape.
Alongside the catalog's lavish illustrations are three essays, penned by Wu Hung, Stephanie Smith, and Jason McGrath, which range in topic from contemporary art and environmental sustainability to Chinese film and its treatment of the dam. In addition, interviews conducted with each of the artists offer insight into their work and address the difficult task of relating artistic practice to the wider world.

Born in Chongqing, China, in 1955, Xu Bing is considered one of the most important artists of his generation. Between 1977 and 1987, he studied and taught at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing. He moved to the United States in 1990 and in 1999 received a MacArthur Fellowship, the celebrated "genius grant," in recognition of his "capacity to contribute importantly to society, particularly in printmaking and calligraphy." In 2008 Xu Bing was appointed vice president of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, and he now lives mostly in Beijing.

Many of Xu Bing's print and calligraphic works have appeared on an unlikely but surprisingly receptive medium--the tobacco leaf. A comprehensive overview of Xu Bing's tobacco projects, this volume includes reproductions of all the tobacco works, as well as several essays. Curator John Ravenal discusses the new Virginia work, its relation to the other tobacco pieces, and its place in the context of global contemporary art. Guest authors Wu Hung, Lydia Liu, and Edward Melillo address Xu Bing's work in the context of contemporary Chinese art and the history and culture of tobacco in Virginia.

Distributed for the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

This book contemplates a large problem: what is a traditional Chinese painting? Wu Hung answers this question through a comprehensive analysis of the screen, a major format and a popular pictorial motif in traditional China. The Double Screen offers a powerful non-Western perspective on diverse artistic and cultural genres, from portraiture and pictorial narratives to voyeurism and masquerade.