The Spirit of Individualism

This book is about avant-garde art in Shanghai in the 1980s which challenges the narrative in the current discourse on the appearance of contemporary art in China. Offering fresh perspectives and new insights into the art and the artists of this period, the book includes critical events in Shanghai, that will attract the serious attention of art professionals and collectors. The emergence of the Shanghai art scene in the 1980s mirrors the revitalisation of Shanghai that was tasked to lead China’s economic development trajectory onto the world stage. Shanghai, with its semi-colonial, political, economic and cultural history, including the strong legacy of the early twentieth century modernist art movement, has played a vital role in China’s modernisation and presents itself as a unique case in the evolution of contemporary art in China.

“This timely, compelling, and extremely useful book adds considerably to our understanding of Chinese art immediately after the Cultural Revolution by linking the artistic development of Shanghai during the 1980s with the city’s vibrant artistic role within Asia during the 1930s and early '40s. In this multi-layered introduction to the art world of contemporary Shanghai, Lansheng Zhang skilfully exhumes suppressed or forgotten, personal histories and artistic contacts and tendencies that extended both before and after the communist takeover. Building on his personal experience of working in the Shanghai Art Museum and as an independent artist during the 1980s, Zhang augments and critiques the established historiography of "China avant-garde" to establish Shanghai as a vital centre of free thinking and innovation. His detailed institutional and chronological analysis of art schools, museums, and unofficial exhibitions is expanded into an illuminating discussion of the work of both unaligned non-conformist artists and major protagonists in the fields of "Dada" and "Political Pop" - movements more conventionally associated with Xiamen, Hangzhou, or Beijing.” (David Elliott, Curator|Writer / Museum Director / Teacher, Oxford/Stockholm/Tokyo/Istanbul/Sydney/Kyiv/Moscow/Guangzhou/Berlin)

“As a contemporary of the author, and also a participant of the Modernism in Shanghai during the 1980s, I highly recommend Lansheng Zhang’s book, The Spirit of Individualism: Shanghai Avant-Garde Art in the 1980s. It fills a long-overlooked gap in the study of China’s Avant-Garde centred in Shanghai during the period, but also connected to the earlier and subsequent development from a new historicist perspective. More importantly, the book collects the cultural, political, social material in the context into an organic whole. A must-read for understanding the evolution of Avant-Garde Art in China, but also of China in itself.” (Qiu Xiaolong, Professor, Doctor, Author (of the prize-winning Inspector Chen series translated into twenty languages and sold over two million copies worldwide)).

Lansheng Zhang is an art historian and academic, art curator, artist and designer. He has worked in these roles with universities, governments, international organisations, major art institutions in China, Australia, Japan and Europe, with substantial achievements and a record of success. His main research interests are in modern and contemporary art and design, art histories and visual cultures in Asia especially in China. He was an Adjunct Professor at the RMIT University Melbourne, Associate Professor at the East China Normal University Shanghai, Senior Fellow at Lincoln University, UK, Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University, and recently a Research Fellow at the University of Sydney.