Press Release

CCAA is pleased to announce that the 2017 critic award is presented to Mr. Lu Mingjun for his book proposal “Frontier Vision-Geopolitics Investigation in Contemporary Art and the Politics of Post-Globalization”.

Lu Mingjun holds that the growing trend towards ethnic separatism and the returning of political conservatism in recent years prove that the global narrative is facing severe challenges. In the much more complicated and brutal post-globalization world, ethnicity, religion, frontier, and the national narrative of China have become widely-debated topics once again, indicating an urgency to rethink the world geopolitics, economic and cultural structure.

Lu’s proposal attempts to renew our perception of border, frontier, identity, and their relationship to artistic practice in China today. His goal is not to provide the view of the historian, merely offering us a different understanding of history and China, but also to use various unique individual perspectives that of a new sense and vision of art and politics through their active intervention and engagement in this violent progression of reality.

The jury decided to award Lu’s proposal for his seeking for a new art-political sensibility, which is different from both overly optimistic global narrative and that of nationalism. We believe through his in-depth analysis of specific case studies, and by covering a wide spacial and temporal dimension, Lu seems to be capable to present a cogent and compelling case, that has an urgency that speaks to an agenda very much tied to our time.

Lu Mingjun 鲁明军

CCAA Announces the Tenth Anniversary Special Prize of
2017 CCAA Chinese Contemporary Art Critic Award

To mark the tenth anniversary of CCAA Chinese Contemporary Art Critic Award, the jury decided to give a special price to Mr. Zhang Xianmin for his proposal “Moving Image in Public”. After ten years of supporting independent art criticism in China, the jury now intends to encourage critics to reach beyond perceived borders, beyond a narrow definition of contemporary art.

Zhang’s proposal does not focus on individual artistic creation as conventional art criticism may do. Instead, his research touches upon a wider scope of visual and media culture highly relevant to contemporary art.

Zhang Xianmin is one of the most important advocates and critics in the field of Chinese independent moving image. His continuous writing and participation has greatly encouraged the independent film making. Zhang Xianmin’s earlier book on the underground film scene“Invisible Images”established his unique style of film criticism, by echoing the film language in his mode of writing and going beyond formalistic film analysis. The special prize winning book proposal “Moving Images in Public ”will focus on another genre of moving images, those that fall into oblivion for various reasons such as over-exposure, over-appropriation, and excessive circulation in the public sphere.

Zhang Xianmin 张献民