Jane DeBevoise: Between State and Market. Chinese Contemporary Art in Post-Mao EraAnna Julia Fiedler

ASIEN – Nr. 143 (2017) pp. 133–34

Leiden: Brill, 2014. 312 S., 103 EUR

In „Between State and Market. Chinese Contemporary Art in the Post-Mao Era“ DeBevoise takes an excursion into the complexities of the art market in greater China, in particular the People’s Republic (PRC), from 1978 to 1993. Early on the author explains that the book should not be read as a political or economic analysis but rather as “an art historical study focused on context” (p. 8). Based on years of professional and academic experience in the field she embarks on a sociological analysis. The focus here lies on the socioeconomic conditions of the production of visual art within that period. While a major part of the book delineates the institutional shift from state to market which the industry underwent, DeBevoise particularly highlights the “hybrid space” or “in-between zone” between the two. Herefore she attributes the production of highly innovative and non-official art. Building on studies by scholars such as James Cahill, Chu-tsing Li, Gao Minglu, Julia F. Andrews and Kuiyi Shen “Between State and Market: Chinese Contemporary Art in the Post-Mao Era” is the first comprehensive analysis of the conditions under which art was produced during the “reform and opening” of the PRC’s economy…