Song Ling’s Development as an Artist in the People’s Republic of China
Song Ling was born in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1961 and now lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. Before his immigration to Australia in 1988, his early development as an artist took place within the context of the initial implementation of Deng Xiaoping’s so-called policy of ‘Reform and Opening’. One of the indirect consequences of this policy was the emergence within the People’s Republic of China, during the late 1970s and 1980s, of avant-garde forms of artistic practice which mark the beginning of what is now referred to as contemporary Chinese art (Zhongguo dangdai yishu).
Here I shall present an overview of the changing discursive conditions surrounding the production and reception of art within the PRC during the initial period of Deng’s reforms. I shall also give a critical account of the movement known as the ’85 New Wave, which became a collective focus for the development of contemporary art in the PRC during the latter half of the 1980s, as well as the development of ‘avant-garde’ art groups as a defining feature of that movement. This will include one of the ’85 New Wave’s most significant art groups, the Pond Association (Chi she), of which Song Ling was a founding member.
Liberalisation of Artistic Practice in the PRC after the Death of Mao
After the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, between 1977 and 1978 the PRC entered a period of political and cultural reorientation known as the Beijing Spring (Beijing zhi chun). This period saw not only a reinstatement of the institutional structures used to govern the ideological and practical direction of artistic production within the PRC prior to... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline
Song Ling, Café, 1985. Painting, Chinese colour on paper, 200 x 200cm. Courtesy the artist.
Song Ling, People: Pipelines No. 2, 1985. Ink and Chinese colour on paper, 105 x 90.5cm. Courtesy the artist.
