Invitation to the Defense of Hitomi Hasegawa

The Examination Panel is made up of: Dr. Carolin Bohlmann (chair), Dr. Elke Krasny (first supervisor), Dr. Sarah E. Fraser (second supervisor, University of Heidelberg) and Dr. Kuiyi Shen (external appraiser, University of California, San Diego).

Abstract

The Fuck Off exhibition emerged as one of the most significant exhibitions in 2000 Shanghai, and a turning point in Chinese contemporary art history. This is the first study that focuses on this exhibition in a larger context identifying this exhibition is the last breath of the radical art movements in the 1990s, and the starting point of the internationalisation of Chinese contemporary art. This research explores the significance of the Fuck Off exhibition, which showcased the repertoire of Chinese avant-garde artistic practices that had developed during the 1990s. The exhibition represented a pivotal point for Chinese contemporary art in the global art world and on the international market. 
Resistance in Chinese art is intricately entangled with both Chinese social and political conditions and with the globalisation of the art world. Resistance, in the context of art, must be locally specific and globally significant. Chinese artists aimed to resist Westernisation and the domestic system, while simultaneously desiring inclusion in the Western mainstream art world and market. 
Chinese contemporary art emerged after 1978 and changed profoundly after the watershed moment of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 and, again in 2000, when the Chinese government changed its policy on contemporary art. The Fuck Off exhibition and the Third Shanghai Biennale were held in 2000 and were instrumental in the shift that took place in the art market that contributed to the internationalisation of Chinese contemporary art. This doctoral research will present the first comprehensive study of this exhibition, its historical discourse, and the intentions of the artists and curators. 
Resistance, power, and discourse in Foucauldian, post-colonial and globalisation analyses are relevant for this critical art history. To understand the Chinese contemporary art discourse, I analyse the beginning and the historical transitions of contemporary art in China since late 1970s. I elucidate how China absorbed and interpreted the imported notions such as curator, exhibition in public space, artist/curator and others. My research extends how these artists who participated in this guerrilla exhibition later became successful. 
This study offers the first in-depth analysis and history of the 2000 Fuck Off exhibition held at the Eastlink Gallery, an abandoned historical warehouse in Shanghai. The entanglements and tensions between the Euro-American mainstream art world and the Chinese contemporary art scene, shadowed by the control of the Chinese government, are examined through the lens of this exhibition and rest at the centre of this study. 
The Fuck Off exhibition offered a precise narrative of Chinese underground art in the 1990s, introducing a repertoire of extreme artworks to the mainstream art world. The exhibition was well known to people, along with its catalogue, which contained several violent and deviant images. On 4th November 2000, the opening day of the Third Shanghai Biennale, this exhibition opened representing a critical crossroad in Chinese art.

Short biography

Hitomi Hasegawa is a curator and founding director of the Moving Image Archive of Contemporary Art (MIACA) and based in Hong Kong and Fukuoka. With a background in research and curation, Hasegawa has curated many exhibitions and developed screening programs across international venues.
Hasegawa has curated various exhibitions at the venues such as the Dallas Contemporary, Crow Museum of Asian Arts, Kunsthalle Dusseldorf, Mistetskiy Arsenal, Kiev, Kulturhuset in Stockholm and others. Her screening programs have been shown at National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, White frame in Basel, Swiss, the Rotterdam International Film Festival, the Oberhausen Short Film Festival, Srishti School of Art in Bangalore, India, and others. In 2023, under the banner of FIKA, she collaborated with artist Yuken Teruya and participated in his solo exhibition at the Okinawa Municipal Museum of Art. In 2022, Hasegawa curated an exhibition in the Art Naha in Naha city, Okinawa, Japan. The exhibition referred the similar complexed post-colonial histories regarding Okinawa and Hong Kong. She is a member of the Education for Gender and Sexuality in Art, Japan, and AICA. She is currently a lecturer at the National Ryukyu Universityin Okinawa Japan.

The thesis defense will be in English and will take place online.

Zoom Meeting Link: https://akbild-ac-at.zoom.us/j/3837117023

We are looking forward to welcoming you.