PREFACE 7
FOREWORD 13
CHAPTER ONE - The Decline of the Art System and Ideological Control 17
1. Social Rupture and the Decline of the Art System and Ideological Control
2. The Shanghai Biennale and the First Guangzhou Triennial of Contemporary Art
3. Curators
CHAPTER TWO - Art Spaces 49
1. ‘Experimental Spaces’ of the Transitional Period
2. 798: The Background and New Space
3. Art Spaces and the Art Museum Conundrum
4. Songzhuang as a Symbol
CHAPTER THREE - Problems of the Market, Sudden Capital Inflows and the Political System 117
1. Galleries, Art Fairs and Auctions
2. Controversies
3. Problems of the Official Art System
CHAPTER FOUR - Performance and Violence: Aesthetics in Retreat and Disarray 165
1. Chaos in International Values and a Retrospective on Individualism
2. “Post-Sense Sensibilities”: After “Conceptual Art”
3. The Spread of “Sense”
4. Criticism and Debate
CHAPTER FIVE - Conceptual Art and Multi-material Arts 201
1. The Issue of Conceptual Art
2. Video Art and Artists
3. Multi-material Art and Artists
4. New Sculpture and Sculptors
CHAPTER SIX - New Painting and Painters 311
1. The Post-1978 Art History Background
2. Language Change and Painters
3. The Trend of Individualism
4. The Most Recent Trends and Their Relationship with Traditional Painting History
EPILOGUE 429
ENDNOTES 440
INDEX OF NAMES 459