Vocabulary of Articles:

Li Xiaoshan (1957~)
Born in 1957, Li Xiaoshan is one of the leading characters of Chinese contemporary art. His articles and activities has already been an important part of Chinese contemporary art history. His major publications include: History of Modern Chinese Painting, Attitude toward Criticism & Translation, The New China, Provocation In A Battlefield and What We Are Facing. Now he is the director of Graduate School of Contemporary Art (Nanjing Arts Institute) and Nanjing Square Museum of Contemporary Art.

Li Xianting (1949~)
Li Xianting was born in 1949 in in Jilin Province. He studied Chinese painting in the Central Academy of Fine Art and after graduation in 1978, and then he became an editor of Fine Art (《美术》) magazine and worked there until 1983. From 1985 to 1989 he was the editor of the authoritative China Fine Art Newspaper (《中国美术报》). He published a number of art articles, including the treatise What’s Important Is Not Art.

Taine (1828~1893)
Hippolyte Adolphe Taine was a French critic and historian. He was born into a family of civil servants. His childhood was spent in an enlightened cultural atmosphere in which earnest intellectual pursuits mingled with an early exposure to the arts and to nature. When he was 20, he passed first into the Ecole Normale to study philosophy. Afterwards he had been professor of the history of art and asthetics at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. His best-known works are La Fontaine’s Fables, History of English Literature, The French Philosophers of the 19th Century, On Intelligence, The Origins of Contemporary France, Italy, and Philosophy of Art, etc.

Alfreda Murck
Alfreda Murck earned a PhD at Princeton University in Chinese art and archaeology with an emphasis on the history of Chinese painting. She worked in the Asian Art Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, from 1979-1991. Since 1991 she has lived with her husband Christian Murck in Taipei and Beijing. She has published articles on Chinese art and a book on how eleventh century scholars used poetry in painting to express dissent: Poetry and Painting in Song China: The Subtle Art of Dissent  (Harvard University Asia Center, 2000). She is a lecturer at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, and is a researcher in the Palace Museum’s Painting and Calligraphy Research Center and a consultant to the Palace Museum’s English web-page.

Tao Qian (365~427)
Tao Qian, also known as Tao Yuanming, was one of the most influential pre-Tang Dynasty Chinese poets. He was born in Chaisang in Xunyang into a notable family which had descended into poverty. When young, he was torn between ambition and a desire to retreat into solitude. He began a career in government bureaucracy and served in a series of minor posts. But his sister's death, as well as disgust at the corruption and infighting of the Jin Court prompted his resignation, convincing him that life was too short to compromise on his principles. He lived in retirement for his last 22 years. His poems and essays depict an idyllic pastoral life of farming and drinking. People called him Mr. Jingjie (which means peace, moral and integrity), and he called himself Mr. Five Willows (because of the five willows in front of his house). While his poems were not influential in his time, they would later be a major influence on the poetry of the Tang and Song Dynasties.

Jiang Qing (1914~1991)
Jiang Qing, Chinese social and cultural activist, third wife of Mao Zedong and leader of the Gang of Four during the Cultural Revolution. She was born in Zhu Cheng county, Shandong province. Li Yunhe was her original name. In 1929, when she was 15, Jiang joined the provincial Experimental Arts Academy. In 1933 she joined the Chinese Communist Party, but lost contact with the Party five months later. In 1934, she was arrested by Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalism Party). After discharged from prison, Jiang became an actor in Shanghai, using the stage name Lan Ping. In 1937 she rejoined the Chinese Communist Party camp in Yan’an, where she met and married Mao.  In Yan’an she changed her name to Jiang Qing. After the Communists gained control of Mainland China in 1949, Jiang became influential in cultural circles. She had been the member of China Film Guidance Committee, director of film division of Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee, etc. During the 1960s she revolutionized Pekinkg opera by replacing the traditional repertoire with works emphasizing Mao’s doctrine. In 1965, she incited her colleague Yao Wenyuan to attack the party bureaucrats by writing the article “Comments on the New History Theatre Play ‘Hai Rui Dismissed from Office’”, and then she cooperated with Lin Biao, to complete “The Summary of Symposium on Army Literary Work”.  It was the start of the Cultural Revolution in China. In 1976, Jiang Qing was arrested. In 1991, she commited a successful suicide during her medical treatment on bail.

Mao Zedong (1893~1976)
Mao Zedong was the preeminent leader of the People's Republic of China and first secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1943 until his death. He was born in Xiangtan county in Hunan Province in 1893. From 1920s Mao became one of the original members of the Chinese Communist party. He won complete victory in the War of Liberation. Mao wrote articles and published them in Selected Works of Mao Zedong, and Collected Works of Mao Zedong, etc.

Cui Jian
Cui Jian is a Beijing-based musician, songwriter, trumpet player, guitarist and composer. He is considered to be a pioneer in Chinese rock music and the first Chinese artist to break away from conventional Chinese popular forms and incorporate a Western rock style into his songs. For this distinction Cui Jian is labeled "The Father of Chinese Rock".

Rock Music
A genre of popular music originating in the 1950s. A blend of black rhythm-and-blues with white country-and-western. Rock music is a form of popular music with a prominent vocal melody accompanied by guitar, drums, and bass. Many styles of rock music also use keyboard. Its styles include blues, rock ’n’ roll, heavy metal, punk, funk, reggae, hip hop, etc. It’s hard to tell what the rock spirit is, however, young people often like rock music, for its simple, powerful, straight style, for its strong rhythm, free way of perform, and for what’s it wants to tell. 

Zhang Zhaohui (1965~)
Zhang Zhaohui is a noted arts scholar and curator from China.  He grew up in Beijing and received his Bachelor of Art Degree from the esteemed Nankai University in Tianjing in 1988, before going on to earn a Master of Art Degree in modern art history from China Art Academy seven years later.  In 1998 he graduated from Bard College in New York with another Master of Art Degree in Curatorial Studies.  He has received numerous grants and fellowships, including a fellowship from the Asian Cultural Council and Luce Foundation in 1997, and a visiting scholarship at Asialink. During the years between 1988 and 1992 he served on the curatorial staff at the National Museum of Art in Beijing, whereas he was the director of the Curatorial Section at He Xiangning Art Museum in Shenzhen from 1999 until 2000.  He became the founding director of Beijing Xray Art Center in 2002, a highly prestigious organization which is widely considered an important contributor to contemporary art in China before the appearance of 798 art compound. He is now director of Joey Art Consulting, an art institution in 798 art complex.

Cynicism
The Cynics were an influential school of ancient philosophers in Greek. Their name is thought to be derived either from the building in Athens called Cynosarges, the earliest home of the school, or from the Greek word for a dog, cyon, in contemptuous allusion to the uncouth, aggressive, mordant manners adopted by the members of the school. Whichever of these explanations is correct, it is noticeable that the Cynics agreed in taking a dog as their common badge or symbol, as early as the tombstone of Diogenes of Sinope. A popular conception of the intellectual characteristics is the modern sense of "cynic," implying a sneering disposition to disbelieve in the goodness of human motives and a contemptuous feeling of superiority. The core attitude of modern cynicism is distrust and disbelieve, especially a general distrust of the integrity or professed motives of others. Being lack of replacement, and being based on the value nihility, the modern cynics’ dissatisfaction with existing orders will probably transform to an attitude of unresisting clever and dissentient acceptance.

The Heavenly Maiden Scattering Flowers
It’s a Buddihsm story in the Classics of Vimalakirti (《维摩经》). When the bodhisattvas gave lectures to arhats, the heavenly maiden appeared. She scattered flower petals on them. The petals that touched the bodies of the bodhisattvas merely brushed over them and fell off onto the ground. Petals that touched the bodies of the arhats however, stuck. Petals were sticking all over their bodies and they tried to flick them off. They couldn’t do it. They were stuck tight.  The heavenly maiden explained, “The flower didn’t stick to the bodhisattvas because they have seen through the false views in underworld. For example, if one is in fear, his lust will be more important than everything else for him. The arhats fear death. Color, sound, smell, taste, and touch are till in their mind. Only one has no fear anymore, lust can do nothing on him. The flowers will stick to you like all your false views stick to you. ”

Tian Liming (1955~)
Born in Beijing in May 1955, Tian Liming is native of Hefei, Anhui province. He joined the People’s Liberation Army in 1971, and was an art editor in the army. He graduated as a graduate student of the professor Lu Chen in 1991. Now he is the director and a professor of the Chinese Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, a member of the Artist Association and the Art Committee of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, and a council member of the Beijing Association of Painters. His works have been published in dozens of works collections. He has held personal as well as joint exhibits with other artists and won many prizes.

Liu Qinghe (1961~)
Born in Tianjin in 1961, Liu Qinghe graduated from the folks art department of the China Central Academy of Fine Art in 1981 and got master degree of Chinese painting in 1989. Now he is the vice professor in the Chinese painting department of China Central Academy of Fine Art.

Liu Zijian (1956~)
As a representative of Chinese experimental ink painters, Liu Zijian is adept at expressing city life by traditional Chinese ink and color techniques. He is a professor of the art academy and superintendent of art institute in Shenzhen University.

Wang Tiande (1960~)
Born in Shanghai, Wang Tiande is considered an innovative artist using ink wash paintings and calligraphy in a modern way. He lives and works in Shanghai and teaches at Fudan University.

Xenia Pi?ch
Xenia Pi?ch is a Beijing based specialist in the field of contemporary Chinese art.  She is a Sinologist and art historian by training, having received her education at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London and the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Xenia Pi?ch has been writing for various international publications such as Yishu Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, Asian Art News, Art on Paper, Passagen and Springerin. Currently, she is writing her PhD dissertation under the supervision of Prof. Craig Clunas at the Art & Archaeology Department of SOAS. At the same time Xenia Pi?ch serves as China Desk Editor for the New York based magazine Art Asia Pacific.

Hong Ying (1962~)
Hong Ying, born in 1962 in Chongqing, is a modern Chinese author. She studied at the Lu Xun writer's academy and at Fudan University. In 1991 she moved to London and settled there since then. Her most recent novel, K: The Art of Love, has been the subject of a libel trial in China.

Geremie R. Barme
Geremie R. Barme is a senior fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies at the Australian National University. He is the author of Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Career of a Great Leader and the editor of several books, including (with Linda Jaivin) New Ghosts, Old Dreams: Chinese Rebel Voices and (with John Minford) Seeds of Fire: Chinese Voices of Conscience. He has also translated several works, has published two volumes of essays in Chinese, and was a coauthor of and advisor for the documentary film The Heavenly Gate of Peace.

Supreme Treatise on Moral Retribution (太上感应)
Tai Shang Gan Ying, English translation “Supreme Treatise on Moral”, is one of Daoist principle moral books. The author name is unknown. This book is not long, including more than twelve hundreds words. Moral retribution and karma was expounded in the name of Tai Shang lord.

Jia Fangzhou (1940~)
Born in Huguan County in Shanxi, Xia Fangzhou graduated from the Art Department of the Inner Mongolia Normal University in 1964 and worked for museums and newspapers for many years. He took part in the National Art Exhibition in 1973, 1975, and 1979. In 1980 Jia joined the China Artists Association. Two years later he turned to art theory research. In 1988 he became the vice chairman of Inner Mongolia Artists Association. After 1995, Jia Fangzhou lives and works in Beijing as an art critic and curator.

The Strange State of the World Witnessed Over Twenty Years
The Strange State of the World Witnessed Over Twenty Years is Wu Jianren’s signature work. It was first published as a series from 1903-1905 in the magazine New Novel.  In1906, Shanghai Guangzhi Press published individual volumes of the novel (each volume was comprised of 12 chapters, and the 108 chapters were published as a whole by 1910). The plot tracks the “adventurous” experiences of a protagonist, from a hastened trip home to attend his father’s funeral to his eventual failure in business.  His experiences, seen and heard in Strange State, widely reveal the grim realities of the semi-feudal and semi-colonial period of the late-Qing Dynasty. A note found in the book states, “As for the twenty years of my experience in society - looking back, all that I encountered were three types of things: the first includes insects, snakes, rats and ants; the second includes wolves, tigers and leopards; and the third includes demons and malefactor and scoundrels.”

Utopia
Utopia is a book name written by Sir Thomas More (1478~1535, born on Feb. 7th 1478 in London). Full name of this book is On the Best State of a Republic and on the New Island of Utopia. It was published in about 1516, and in the novel Utopia is the name of a fictional island near the coast of the Atlantic ocean. The word Utopia came from ancient Greek, which means "no place" or "good place". It’s not a real country, just a fictional country, a imaginary perfect place. It may be used pejoratively, to refer to a society that is unrealistic and impossible to realize. It has also been used to describe actual communities founded in attempts to create an ideal society, or refer to some good but unrealistic suggestions.

Channel [V]
Channel [V] is an international music channel whose parent company is STAR Media. Channel [V] was produced and operated from Hong Kong from 1996 until 2002, after which operations were shifted to Malaysia in order to save on costs, but some aspects are still operated in Hong Kong. It is targeted at the youth market, and plays both mainstream and alternative music.

Deng Xiaoping (1904~1997)
Deng Xiaoping was a prominent Chinese politician and reformer, and the late leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Deng never held office as the head of state or the head of government, but served as the de facto leader of the People's Republic of China from 1978 to the early 1990s. He developed "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" and Chinese economic reform, also known as the "socialist market economy", and opened China to the global market. Inheriting a China wrought with social and institutional woes left over from the Cultural Revolution and other mass political movements of the Mao era, Deng was the core of the "second generation" Communist Party leadership. Deng is generally credited with developing China into one of the fastest growing economies in the world and vastly raising the standard of living.

Jazz
Jazz is an original American musical art form which originated around the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in New Orleans in the Southern United States out of a confluence of African and European music traditions. The use of blue notes, call-and-response, improvisation, polyrhythms, syncopation and the swung note of ragtime are characteristics traceable back to jazz's West African pedigree.

Wang Jing (1982~)
Graduated from the Art History Department of China Central Academy of Fine Art in 2005, Wang Jing is the Executive Editor in Chief  in Oriental Art . Master (an art monthly in China).  She edited the book 20 Persons Being Fond of Contemporary Art, published by Sichuan Publishing house in 2008.

PUNK
Punk rock is an anti-establishment rock music genre and movement that emerged in the mid-1970s. Punk rock developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, where groups such as the Ramones, Sex Pistols, and The Clash were recognized as the vanguard of a new musical movement. Punk rock bands, eschewing the perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock, created fast, hard music, typically with short songs, stripped-down instrumentation and often political or nihilistic lyrics. The associated punk subculture expresses youthful rebellion and is characterized by distinctive clothing styles, a variety of anti-authoritarian ideologies, and a DIY (do it yourself) attitude.

Plum Blossoms Gallery
Plum Blossoms Gallery, established by an American-- Stephen McGuinnes, has opened branches in Singapore and New York.  They collect museum standard antique textile and contemporary Asian art while also representing outstanding ink painters such as C.C. Wang and Wu Guanzhong, and also young contemporary ink painters like Wei Dong and Zhu Wei at their later development.  Plum Blossoms still remains as an extraordinary international gallery that promotes Chinese ink paintings in Hong Kong and even the world.

Existentialism
Existentialism is a philosophical movement that claims that individual human beings have full responsibility for creating the meanings of their own lives. It is a reaction against more traditional philosophies, such as rationalism and empiricism, which sought to discover an ultimate order in metaphysical principles or in the structure of the observed world. The movement had its origins in the 19th century thought of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and was prevalent in Continental philosophy. In the 1940s and 1950s, French philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Albert Camus wrote scholarly and fictional works that helped to popularize themes associated with existentialism. Existentialists deny the existence of God or any pre-defined rules. The most famous and specific saying was from Sartre: “Existence precedes essence.” Which means, there is no sacred ethics or soul beyond human beings’ existence itself.

Shougang
One of China's oldest state-owned companies, Shougang (also known as Capital Steel) built its reputation with construction steel. Shougang is China's fourth-largest steel company. After the Reform and Opening-up, to be more effective, the steel maker had to relocate its employees. The number of its employees reduced from 246.4 thousands in 1995 to 80 thousands at present, and will reach the purpose of 65 thousands before 2010. Based in Beijing municipality, its operations are being moved out of the city prior to the Olympics due to major pollution concerns.

Jiangsu Art Monthly Pictorial
Founded in 1974 , this magazine was  published by Jiangsu Art Publications initially  as a pictorial magazine for workers, farmers and soldiers. It was one of the two magazines and one journal published during the ’85 New Wave Movement.  It was published sporadically. In 1976, it became a bimonthly publication, and in 1984 transformed into a monthly publication. After the mid-80s, its editorial was tied closely to movements of Contemporary Chinese art. My View on Chinese Painting, written by the Nanjing Academy of Art graduate student Li Xiaoshan, was published in the July 1985 issue.  The article led to a wide discussion on the “Bleak fate of Chinese painting,”and was the earliest incident to catch the attention of the art world.

Confucius (551 BC~479 BC)
Confucius (Kong Zi) was the founder of Confucianism. His given name was Qiu, and courtesy name was Zhongni. Confucius was alive during the Spring and Autumn Period. He was born in the city of Qufu, in the Chinese State of Lu (now part of Shandong Province). When Confucius was young he worked as low-level official, but most of his life was devoted to education. It’s said that he had more than thirty hundreds students and seventy-two disciples. Many of his students were knowledgeable or talented. Because he disapproved of the politics of his Duke, he and his students began a long journey around the small kingdoms of north-central China. He espoused his political beliefs but did not see them implemented, finally he returned home and spent his last years teaching disciples and transmitting the old wisdom via a set of books called the Five Classics.  Confucius was famous when he was alive and was called “Saint chosen by god”, “Hierophant chosen by god”, and “Saint of thousand years”. He edited The Book of Odes (《诗》), The Book of History (《书》), The Book of Rites (《礼》), The Book of Music (《乐》), The Book of Change (《周易》), and The Spring and Autumn Annals (《春秋》). His sayings and activites may be found in the Analects of Confucius (《论语》), a collection of "brief aphoristic fragments", which was compiled many years after his death. The Analects indicates the core value of Confucianism - Ren (benvolence). Confucius’ thoughts and the Analects had deep and overwhelming influence on the whole history of China. 

Sun Zhongshan (1866~1925)
Sun Zhongshan’s given name was Wen, and courtesy name was Yixian. He was one of the most prominent founders of Kuomintang. Being born in the town of Xiangshan in Guangdong province, Sun had been a professional revolutionary in his entire life. He led the Chinese "bourgeois" revolution. Sun used to exile to Japan where he changed his name to Zhongshan Qiao, that’s why people called him Mr. Zhongshan. For a reason of respect, he was also called the "father of the republic of China”.  The Kuomintang calls him “premier forever”, and the Communist Party of China called him “prominent leader of revolution”.

Gu Wenda (1955~)
Gu Wenda was born in 1955 in Shanghai He studied at the Shanghai School of Arts and Crafts and Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou. Gu was one of the leaders of the ’85 New Wave Art Movement in China. In 1987 he left his homeland for the Unites States of America. Now Gu is an internationally recognized Chinese artist.

Shen Qin (1958~)
A native of Nanjing, Shen Qing was born on November 17, 1958, and currently works as a professional painter for the Chinese Painting Institute of Jiangsu Province. During the ‘85 New Wave Movement, Shen was considered one of the representative artists reforming Chinese painting among others such as Gu Wenda.

Gao Minglu (1949~)
Gao Minglu, art critic and curator, received his Ph.D. from Harvard University, now is art history professor of University of Pittsburgh. A leading explorer of important Chinese Avant-Garde works, Gao has curated a number of significant exhibitions of Chinese contemporary art, including the 85 New Wave Art Transparency Exhibition (1986), the China Qing Dynasty Art Seminar (1988), and the Chinese Contemporary Art Exhibition (1989). From 1995 to 1998, he organized Inside Out: New Chinese Art, which became the largest China Avant-Garde art exhibition in the West. As the curator who representing Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, Gao was concerned with the exhibition Global Conceptualism; Points of Origin, 1950s-1980s in USA and Five Continents and One City (1999) in Mexico.

Shui Tianzhong (1935~)
Shui Tianzhong was born in 1935, in Lanzhou, Gansu province with Han ethnicity. He graduated from the Xian Northwest Academy of Art (renamed the China Xian Academy of Fine Arts) in 1955. Shui has lived and worked from Lanzhou, Pingliang and other places as an artist, art editor, art critic and teacher. In 1991 Shui graduated from the Graduate School of China Art Academy, and he is currently a researcher at the Graduate School of the China Art Academy. He was head of the fine arts department at the Graduate School of the China Art Academy, in charge of graduate students, deputy head of academic committee at Graduate School of China Art Academy, member of board of academic juror committee; chief editor at History and Theory of Fine Arts, Journal of Fine Arts; Juror member of People Republic of China’s Ministry of Culture Researcher Series. He was rewarded Outstanding Specialist along with funding from the State Council. For a long time Shui have participated in the research of Chinese contemporary art history and contemporary art criticism writing. He published Conversation on Chinese Contemporary Painting, Tracing Twentieth Century Chinese Painters, Passing Through The Seasons and other works. In the past few years Shui curated and organized several national art exhibitions. He participated in numerous national and international forums; he edited Twentieth Century Art in China, Twentieth Century Chinese Oil Painting, Chinese Contemporary Art Criticism Series, now in its twenty-fourth edition; edited Chinese Calligraphy Connoisseurship Dictionary, A Century of Chinese Art Reader, Chinese Art Glossary, Chinese Museum Collection Series - Twentieth Century Art in China. Shui is currently deputy director of the Chinese Artist Association theory committee, head of the Yanhuang Museum of Art academic committee, director of the Chinese Oil Painting Association, secretary general of the Chinese Studies Association; as well as a visiting professor in the fine art department at Shanghai University, and the China Xian Academy of Fine Arts.

Lang Shaojun (1939~)
Art historian, critic, and Director of the Modern Art Research Center at the Art Research Bureau in China Art Research Institute, Liang was invited to lecture in many universities, art academies, and museums in Japan, the United States, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China. His publications include On Modern Chinese Art, Reconstructing Chinese Outstanding Art, and Compendium of Contemporary Chinese Art Theory.

Liu Xilin (1942~)
Liu Xilin is the dean of the Research Department in National Art Museum of China, member of theory committee of the China Artists Association, editor of magezine Fine Art, researcher in China Central Academy of Fine Art, and emeritus professor of Shangdong College of Art. He is the author of Chinese Painting and Modern China, etc.

Wan Qingli (1945~)
Born in Beijing, Wan Qingli is a teacher, scholar and art connoisseur in China. He learned painting from professor Xiao Shufang and Wu Zuoren. He was also a student of the great artists Li Keran and Lu Yanshao. He studied under Dr. Chu-tsing Lee and received his Ph.D. from Kansas University. From 1989 he tood the position of professor of Chinese Art at Hong Kong University.

Hong Huizhen (1946~)
Art theorist. He taught art history in Zhejiang Art Academy until he was transferred to Art Education Academy in Xiamen University, where he taught landscape painting. Hong is a member of China Artists Association.  

Liu Xiaochun (1941~)
Liu Xiaochun was born in 1941 in Luoyang, Henan province and of Han ethnicity.  He graduated from the China Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1966, and in 1979 he entered the Fine Art Study Department at the Graduate School of China Art Academy. There he received his Graduate and PhD degrees in 1981 and 1985, respectively. Liu was the chief editor at Fine Arts In China, and he was deputy director of the Graduate School Committee at the China Art Academy. He has published over two hundred books, essays and reviews, including: his graduate thesis Theory on Qing Terracotta Warriors, which later became part of Chinese New Literary Art Annals; his PhD Dissertation From Animal Pleasure to Human Aesthetics, was the first to be honored with a Research Award by the Chinese Art Research Institute in 1988; and he produced an art criticism anthology Dissemination and Reconstruction - Theorize Chinese Contemporary Art. Liu is a member of the Chinese Art Research Institute’s Fine Arts Division. He is also a part-time contributor to the Theory Committee at the Chinese Fine Arts Association.

Aoki Masaru (1887～1964)
Famous Japanese Sinologist. Doctor Aoki Masaru was professor in Yamaguchi University in Japan, a member of The Japan Academy, and a member of The Sinological Society of Japan. He was specialized in the research of Chinese literature and drama.

Shao Dazhen (1934~)
Shao Dazhen was born in 1934. In 1960 he graduated from the Leningrad Arts Academy in Russia. Shao is the director of China Artists Association, a professor at the China Central Academy of Arts, chief editor at Journal of Fine Arts, World Art; a teacher of graduate students at Leningrad Arts Academy. His publications include: Modernist Art Conversation, Traditional Art and Modernist Art, Western Modern Art Ideology, Ambiguous Sensitivity - Chinese Contemporary Art Thesis Collection. He has given lectures in Russia, Australia, Italy, France, Germany, The United States, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Taiwan. He regularly contributes contemporary art criticism writing to Chinese and international magazines.

Wang Xun (1915～1969)
Historian of Chinese Modern Art. Wang Xun studied Civil Engineering, Chinese Literature, and Philosophy in Tsinghua University in Beijing. Wang became a professor in China Central Academy of Fine Art (CAFA), and member of editorial board of periodicals Fine Art and Art Research. In 1957 he founded the first Art History Department in CAFA, which was also the first in China.

Zhou Sicong (1939~1996)
Zhou Sicong was known for her figurative paintings. Her works include “A Corner of Yihe Garden”, “The People and the Prime Minister”, “Miner”, etc. Zhou was the first grade artist in the Beijing Chinese Painting Academy and vice-chairman of the China Artists Association.

Lu Chen (1935~)
Lu Chen is good at ink painting of figures and calligraphy. He learned painting at Suzhou Art School, and graduated from the China Central Academy of Fine Art (CAFA) in 1958, majored in Chinese painting. Lu was a student of Ye Qianyu, Jiang Zhaohe, Li Keran and Liu Lingcang. Now he’s a professor at CAFA.

Ni Yide (1901～1970)
Oil painter, art critic and writer in China. He joined the Creative Society (创造社, a group of left-wing literati active in the 1920s in China, most of its members had returned from Japan) in 1923, and published novels, new poems, essays and plays on many publications such as Literature Paper and Creation Monthly. Ni Yide excelled at oil painting, especially at figure, still life and scenery.

Huang Zhuan
Huang Zhuan, graduated from the History Department at Hua Zhong Normal University in 1982 and obtained a Literature Master degree in Chinese Art History at Hubei Institute of Fine Arts.  Having received Wu Zuoren Art Foundation for master degree dissertation, Huang now teaches at Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art as Associate Professor and supervisor of master students.  He has edited MeiShu Sichao (The Trend of Art Thought) and Hualang (Art Gallery) and organized/ curated Returning Home: Chinese Experimental ink painting exhibition (San Francisco, 1995), The First Academic Exhibition of Chinese Contemporary Art (China Beijing / Hong Kong, 1996), Beyond the Future: Third Aisa-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (China) (Queensland, 1999) and Image is Power (2000) etc. Huang is now the art director of OCT Contemporary Art Terminal at He Xiangning Art Museum.

Conceptual Ink Painting
Art Critic Huang Zhuan conceptualized the term Conceptual ink painting. Based on the essay he written on the topic, he emphasizes identity and difference in a period of post-colonialism. As the symbol of national identity, ink painting should find its position in the context of Contemporary art at a global level and find its voice on issues of Contemporary culture and society.

Pierson (1925~)
Frank R. Pierson is an American screenwriter and film director. He helped write Dog Day Afternoon, which won Pierson his only Oscar statuette. He was President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) from 2001.

Joseph Beuys (1921~1986)
Joseph Beuys was an influential German artist who came to prominence in the 1960s. He is most famous for his ritualistic public performances and his energetic championing of the healing potential of art and the power of a universal human creativity. A charismatic and controversial figure, the nature and value of Beuys’s contribution to Western art has elicited a hotly contested and often polarised debate.

Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is stripped down to its most fundamental features. As a specific movement in the arts it is identified with developments in post-World War II Western Art, most strongly with American visual arts in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is rooted in the reductive aspects of Modernism.

Wang Nanming (1962~)
Chinese artist, critic and independent curator. He studied and practiced traditional calligraphy for long term, and became a critic and curator in the field of modern calligraphy and contemporary art since the 1990s.

Achille Bonito Oliva (1939~)
Achille Bonito Oliva is a highly recognized and respected Italian contemporary art critic, author of essays on mannerism, and a teacher of History of Contemporary Art at La Sapienza University in Rome. Oliva has curated thematic and interdisciplinary exhibitions both in Italy and abroad. He directed the 45th Venice Biennale, and was awarded several prizes and recognitions, such as the Valentino d’Oro, an international prize for art critics.

Popper (1902~1994)
Sir Karl Raimund Popper was an Austrian and British philosopher. He is counted among the most influential philosophers of science of the 20th century, and also wrote extensively on social and political philosophy. Popper is known for repudiating the classical observationalist / inductivist account of scientific method by advancing empirical falsification instead; for his opposition to the classical justificationist account of knowledge which he replaced with critical rationalism, "the first non justificational philosophy of criticism in the history of philosophy" and for his vigorous defense of liberal democracy and the principles of social criticism which he took to make the flourishing of the "open society" possible. His The Poverty of Historicism and The Open Society and its Enemies are two important masterpieces in the history of thoughts.

Fan Jingzhong (1951~)
Fan Jingzhong, art historian. Fan is a professor of China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, and he used to taught in inner Mongolia normal university. He was also the chief editor of New Art (《新美术》) and Translations of Work on Art (《美术译丛》).

Cao Yiqiang (1957~)
Cao Yiqiang, a student of Francis Haskell, Ernst Gombrich and Michael Baxandall, is professor of art at the National Academy of Art, Hangzhou, and specially appointed professor of the history of ideas at Nanjing Normal University.  A propelling force among Chinese art historians working to translate English-language art history, Cao has committed his scholarship to advancing and enriching the techniques of Chinese art history. 

Yan Shanchun (1957~)
Born in 1957 in Hangzhou and graduated from Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (now is the China Academy of Art) in 1982, Yan Shanchun is the first grade artist in the Shenzhen Chinese Painting Academy. Co-authoring with Huang Zhuan, Yan Shanchun wrote The Taste, Pattern and Value of Literati Painting and A Study Series of Chinese Painters in Twenty Century - Pan Tianshou.

Wang Lin
Wang Lin, whose parents were originally from Liaoning, was born in Xian and grew up in Chongqing. In 1977 he enrolled in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Chongqing Normal College; in 1985 he enrolled in the Art History Department at the China Central Academy of Fine Arts; and he currently teaches at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. He has published many works, including Fine Arts Morphology, The Appearance of Chinese Contemporary Art, and over two hundred articles.  He organized several exhibitions, including Contemporary Chinese Art Research Document Exhibition.

New Literati Painting
It’s a culture phenomenon arose at the end of the 1980s, which is also known as “Chinese New Literati Painting”. It isn't an art organization with a defined manifesto. Nor is it a regional school with a distinctive style. Most artists of this school were trained as socialist realist figure painters and educated during a period when traditional painting techniques and principles were largely prohibited in the schools, but they have now rejected both the subject matter and styles of that era and named themselves New Literati Painters. However, their paintings, even at its most traditional, are employing unprecedented techniques to create novel images, betraying the past by a sense of ironic pathos or even cynicism.

Zhu Xinjian (1952~)
On of the representative artists of the “New Literati Painters”. He designed many famous cartoon characters, which were nominated for several film festivals such as Golden Rooster Awards.

Cai Yuanpei (1868~1940)
Cai Yuanpei was a Chinese educator and the chancellor of the Peking University, known for his critical evaluation of the Chinese culture that led to the influential May Fourth Movement. Born in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, Cai was appointed to the Hanlin Imperial Academy at 26. In 1898, he became involved in administering institutes and became: Superintendent of Shaoxing Chinese-Western School, Head of Sheng District Shanshan College, Director-Teacher of the Special Class of Nanyang Public School. He established Guangfuhui in 1904 and joined Tongmenghui the next year. After studying philosophy, psychology, and art history in the University Leipzig of Germany in 1907, he became the provisional Republic's Minister of Education in January 1912, but later resigned during Yuan Shikai's presidency. Subsequently, he returned to Germany, and then went to France. Cai came back to China in 1916 to became the Chancellor of Peking University the next year. It was during his tenure at Peking University that he recruited such famous thinkers (and future CCP leaders) to the school as Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao. In 1927, he co-founded the National College of Music, which later became the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. In April 1928, he became the first president of the Academia Sinica. Cai proposed the equal importance of five ways of life — "Virtue, Wisdom, Health, Collective, and Beauty". He was also an opponent of women’s foot binding, as well as being a proponent of women's right to divorce and remarriage.

Russian Realism
Russian Realist literature came into being during the 1830s and was primarily characterized by portrayals of grim reality under the Czar’s autocracy and serf system. Moreover, it was closely related to the Russian Liberation Movement. Writers of different styles, such as Pushkin, Gogol, Herzen, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Alekseevich, Goncharov, Shchedrin and Ostrovskij reflected upon many crucial issues during the development of Russian society.  They ruthlessly revealed and offered poignant criticisms and simultaneously took on roles as “new members” amongst common intellectuals to offer the “silver lining for a grim monarch.” As the critical strength of Western Realism waned in the ‘70s and ‘80s, the works of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Kirilenko continued to develop and expand on Realism.

Socialist Realism in Soviet Union
Socialist realism became state policy in 1932 when Stalin promulgated the decree "On the Reconstruction of Literary and Art Organizations". The Union of Soviet Writers was founded to lead the output of authors, and the new policy was rubber-stamped at the Congress of Socialist Writers in 1934. The Statute of the Union of Soviet Writers in 1934 stated that “socialist realism is the basic method of Soviet literature and literary criticism. It demands of the artist the truthful, historically concrete representation of reality in its revolutionary development. Moreover, the truthfulness and historical concreteness of the artistic representation of reality must be linked with the task of ideological transformation and education of workers in the spirit of socialism.” It became a standard definition of Socialist Realism since then. The Soviet Union exported socialist realism to China after 1949. It became the predominant art form during the early stage of PRC.

Jiang Zhaohe (1904—1986)
Chinese painter. He was influenced by Xu Beihong’s theory of realism and assertion of Chinese painting reforming. In 1930s, he was impelled by the left-wing literary and art movement, starting to create works of their style. During Japanese invasion, he created his most famous painting “Refugees”.

Ye Qianyu (1907—1995)
Ye Qianyu was a famous cartoonist in the 1930s. He is presumably the first Chinese comic artist to use speech balloons, in a strip created in 1929. Shanghai Magazine Co. published his cartoon collections of Mr. Wang (《王先生》) and Anecdotes of Xiao Chen in Beijing (《小陈留京外史》) in the late 1930s.

Guan Liang (1900—1986)
Courtesy name Liang Gong. He studied western style painting at the Pacific Arts School in Tokyo, Japan. In 1922 he returned to China and began to teach art at various arts schools in Shanghai. In the Northern Expedition War he quit his job and went to the war. Guan Liang was famous in drawing traditional opera figures. His published books include Drama Characters (《关良戏剧人物》) and Guan Liang Catalogue (《关良画集》).

Feng Zikai (1898~1975)
Chinese modern painter, cartoonist, translator, writer, and art and music educator. He was a student of Li Shutong, After graduation he went to Tokyo to study music and art, where he was influenced by Japanese painter Takehisa Yumeji’s style, and started to portray children’s life to cartoons after he came back to China. He published a number of albums, including Zikai’s Cartoons, etc.

Wu Guanzhong (1919~)
Chinese painter. Wu Guanzhong's paintings have the colour sense and formal principles of Western paintings, but a spirit and tonal variations of ink that are typically Chinese. Natural scenery is reduced to its essentials - simple but powerful abstract forms. Wu Guangzhong has had solo exhibitions in major art galleries and museums around the world. His paintings were exhibited at the British Museum in 1992, which was a first for a living Chinese artist.

Ding Shaoguang (1939~)
Born in Shanxi, Ding Shaoguang is a Chinese artist. He is the founder and representative painter of Yunnan Painting School.

Shi Guo (1953~)
Chinese experimental ink painter. Shi Guo learned art from his father Shi Lu, and now he is the dean of the Design and Art Department of Zhuhai Campus of Beijing Institute of Technology.

Li Xiaoxuan (1959~)
Chinese painter. He is adept in modern figures of ink and wash. Now he works as the vice professor in Tianjin Academy of Fine Art.

Dong Kejun (1939~)
Painter, art critc. His works are focus on the life and culture in mountain areas, and he’s an important painter of “Guizhou Art Phenomenon”.

Dai Guangyu (1955~)
Independent artist. Dai guangyu was born in Chengdu in 1955 and reside in Chengdu now.

Harmony Between Man and Nature
Harmony between man and nature is one of the fundamental concepts in classical philosophy. There are two tiers of meaning within this concept. The first tier is the coherence between man and nature; the universe is the world at large and people form the smaller one. The second tier is the similarity between man and nature, or the connection between them, which implies that man and nature are in essence connected and therefore, all matters of man should follow their natural course to attain harmony between the two. Laozi said, “Man rules the earth, earth rules heaven, heaven rules the way, and the way of ruling is as is.”  This demonstrates the similarity and connection between man and nature. The Confucian school in the pre-Qin period promoted harmony between man and nature and became one of the key views of Confucianism for two thousand years.

Lu Shengfu (1949~)
Lu Fusheng was born in November, 1949, in Dongyang, Zhejiang province. Lu specializes in traditional Chinese painting and fine arts theory. He graduated from the Chinese Painting Department at the China Academy of Art in 1981. Currently Lu is chief editor and copy editor at Shanghai Calligraphy and Painting Publishing House; editor of Cloud and Calligraphy magazines; an artist at the Shanghai Chinese Painting Academy; and a professor at Shanghai University’s Fine Art Department. His work Ornamental Phoenix Hairpin received a silver prize from the 6th National Art Competition, and entered the National Art Museum of China collection. His publications include Lu Fusheng: Portrait Paintings Series, Contemporary Chinese Painting Selected Set - Lu Fusheng, Discussion on Harmony, The Way of Life in Calligraphy, as well as other works.

Pi Daojian (1941~)
Chinese an art critic, art historian. He co-founded and became the editor-in-chief of MeiShu Sichao (The Trend of Art Thought) in the 1980s. Now Pi Daojian is a professor in the South China Normal University, a member of academic committee of the Guangzhou Triennial (orgznized by Guangdong Art Museum), and a member of academic committee of the Guangzhou Art Museum. He wrote essay collection Contemporary Fine Art and Culture Sellection, treatise Art History of Chu, and Catalogue of Chu Art. He also edited Chinese Experimental Ink and Wash of the 1990s, History of Black and White, China . 20 Years Experimantal Ink and Wash, and Chinese Art History and Art Appreciation, etc.

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