Feminism as it has existed in Europe and America since the 1970s cannot be said to have occurred likewise in the PRC. During the Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong stated that: “women hold up half the sky.” However, since the end of the Cultural Revolution in the 1970s, there has been a reinforcing of patriarchal attitudes, and a revival of Confucianism, despite government claims to the contrary. Obstacles prevent women from fully participating in public life, or, if they do so, can create tensions within their extended families, as artist Lin Tianmiao acknowledged by interview (Lin, 2013). Several academics including Roy Forward, Sonal Khullar and Sasha Welland are engaged in researching the output of female Chinese artists and the nature of Chinese feminism. Concurrently, others including Silvia Fok and Thomas J Berghuis are researching the body and performance in Chinese art. The critical lacuna that this project aims to address is a focus on representations of women by both male and female artists.
The primary research question is: are representations of the female body in contemporary art from the PRC since 1984 indicative of dominant societal attitudes? This research will take the view that Chinese contemporary art combines the legacy of Chinese culture and art history with influences from Western art history and discourse. Therefore, to investigate this question it will depart from Laura Mulvey’s theory of the ‘male gaze,’ Freud’s theory of scopophilia,’ will use a Foucauldian approach and refer to the writings of Chinese feminists Dai Jinhua and Li Xiaojiang.