Jiehong Jiang
Professor Jiang Jiehong is Head of Research (Art), Director of the Centre for Chinese Visual Arts, Birmingham City University, and he is also Principal Editor of the Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art (Intellect). Jiang has extensive research and curatorial experiences in contemporary art and visual culture.
Jiang curated the Guangzhou Triennial: the Unseen (with Jonathan Watkins, 2012), the Asia Triennial Manchester: Harmonious Society (2014), the Shadow Never Lies (with Mark Nash, Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum, 2016), the Distant Unknown: Contemporary Art from Britain (OCAT Shanghai, 2016) and most recently, the First Thailand Biennale: Edge of the Wonderland (Krabi, 2018-19). Jiang’s book publications include Burden or Legacy: from the Chinese Cultural Revolution to Contemporary Art (Hong Kong University Press, 2007), the Revolution Continues: New Art from China (Jonathan Cape, 2008), Red: China’s Cultural Revolution (Jonathan Cape, 2010) and An Era without Memory: Chinese Contemporary Photography on Urban Transformation (Thames and Hudson, 2015).
Current Activity
Jiang’s research interests and expertise include Chinese art, visual culture, art education, and contemporary art and curatorial practice.
In 2016, he received funding for the international project Everyday Legend, which aims to better understand the decline in traditional Chinese arts and culture amid the country’s rapid economic growth. The project will consider how conventional design and hand-making skills can be best preserved for future generations, as well as the role contemporary artists in China can play to facilitate this.
Areas of Expertise
- Curating contemporary art
- Chinese art and visual culture
Qualifications
PhD, MA, BA.
Memberships
Principal Editor, Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, Intellect
Panel Member, the Humanities and Arts Sub-panel, the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (RGC)
Teaching
Contributing to MA Contemporary Arts China.
Research
Jiang is an expert in the field of Chinese contemporary art. His current research interests are in curating contemporary art, in particular, site-specific and socially engaged work.
Postgraduate Supervision
Current research degree students
- Sally Bailey (PT PhD), Restaging the Liminal: An Investigation of the Permeable Boundaries of Contemporary Painting;
- LIN Nuo (FT PhD), Art in the Urban Regeneration: Private Art Museum of Real Estate Development in China from 2002 onwards, (China National Scholarship Council scholarship);
- Federica MIRRA (FT PhD), The Manipulated Reality: Chinese Contemporary Art in the Urban Transformation, (AHRC M4C scholarship).
- Lily Mitchell (FT PhD), The Other Stage: Curating Chinese Contemporary Art in the UK, (AHRC CDA scholarship);
- Linda Pittwood (FT PhD), Corporeal Constructions: Representations of the Female Body in Performance, Video and Photography from Beijing and Shanghai 1984-2014, (AHRC M3C scholarship).
- Sun Ying (FT PhD), Square Dance in Contemporary China, (China National Scholarship Council scholarship).
- YU Shenglan (FT PhD), Symbiosis in Power Relations: Censorship, Surveillance, and Contemporary Art in China since 2012, (Birmingham School of Art Gertrude Aston Bowater scholarship).
Completed research degree students
- CHEN Sijing, The Transformation of Guai Imagery in China (1949-78), 2018;
- LENG Jian, Gatekeeping the Arts: National Policy, Student Perception and the Art and Design Entrance Examination in China, 2015;
- Ma Qingchao, Capturing likeness: A Visual Exploration of People and Place, 2008;
- Rachel Marsden, The Transcultural Curator: Interpreting Contemporary Chinese Art in the West since 1980, 2017;
- SU Feng, On the Interpretation of Cloud Imagery in Chinese Visual Culture, 2008;
- YU Peipei, Seeking Cultural Originality: A Critical Study on Contemporary Product Design in China, 2018.
Publications
Recent curated exhibitions
2018 The First Thailand Biennale: Edge of the Wonderland,
2 November 2018 to 18 February 2019, Krabi, Thailand
2016 Everyday Legend, November 2016 to February 2017, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai.
2016 The Distant Unknown: Contemporary Art from Britain, 4 June to 31 August, OCAT Museum, Shanghai.
2016 The Shadow Never Lies (co-curated with Mark Nash), 29 April to 31 July, the 21st Century Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai.
2014 The Third Asia Triennial Manchester (ATM14): Harmonious Society, Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, ArtWork, the John Rylands Library, Manchester Cathedral, National Football Museum and Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester, 26 September to 23 November.
2012 The Fourth Guangzhou Triennial: the Unseen (co-curated with Jonathan Watkins), The Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, 28 September to 16 December 2012.
2011 Guanxi I: Contemporary Chinese Art, The Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, 15 April to 19 June 2011; The Today Art Museum, Beijing, 9 to 25 October 2011.
2010 Beyond Memory: Contemporary Photography in China, The Art Museum of Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, 19 November to 10 December 2010.
Selected book publications
2015 An Era without Memory: Chinese Contemporary Photography on Urban Transformation, London: Thames and Hudson. Hardback book, 192 pages, ISBN 9780500544433.
2011 Guanxi: A Collection of Letters with Twelve Artists, Shanghai: Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing Group, ISBN 9787545208511.
2010 A Decade Long Exposure: Central Academy of Fine Arts and Contemporary Chinese Photography, Shanghai: Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing Group, ISBN 9787545207866.
2010 Red: China’s Cultural Revolution, London: Jonathan Cape, Random House, ISBN 9780224087810.
2008 The Revolution Continues: New Art from China, London: the Saatchi Gallery and Jonathan Cape, Random House, ISBN 9780224084994.
2007 Burden or Legacy: From the Chinese Cultural Revolution to Contemporary Art, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, ISBN 97879622098695.
Selected book chapters
2018 ‘The Transient City: Urban Transformation in Chinese Contemporary Photography’, in Wang Meiqin and Minna Valjakka (eds.), Visual Arts, Representations and Interventions in Contemporary China: Urbanized Interfaces. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
2016 ‘Harmony Imagined’, in Bashir Makhoul and Alnoor Mitha (eds.), Conflict and Compassion: A Paradox of difference in Contemporary Asian Art. Manchester: Home, pp. 51-71,ISBN: 9780992952495.
2015 ‘Conformed Bodies’, in Iwona Blazwick (ed.), Adventures of the Black Square: Abstract Art and Society 1915-2015.London: Prestel, pp. 261-4,ISBN 9783791365954.
Selected Journal publications
2019 Principal Editor, Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art (6.2&3): Everyday Legend: Reinventing Tradition in Contemporary Chinese Art. Bristol: Intellect. ISSN: 2051-7041.
2019 Principal Editor (with Guest Editor Monica Merlin)
Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art (6.1): Gender in Chinese Contemporary Art. Bristol: Intellect. ISSN: 2051-7041.
2018 Principal Editor
Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art (5.2&3): Chinese Art outside the Art Space. Bristol: Intellect. ISSN: 2051-7041.
2018 Principal Editor(with Co-Editor Wenny Teo)
Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art (5.1): Chinese Artists in the Globalised Art World. Bristol: Intellect. ISSN: 2051-7041.
2017 Principal Editor
Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art (4.2&3): Making A New World: the Arts of China’s Cultural Revolution. Bristol: Intellect. ISSN: 2051-7041.
2017 Principal Editor(with Guest Editor Karen Smith)
Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art (4.1): The World of Art Museums in China. Bristol: Intellect. ISSN: 2051-7041.
2015 ‘The “China Dream” Reimagined: Contemporary Photography in China’, in Claire Roberts and Yi Gu (eds.), Trans-Asia Photography Review: Composite Realities: the Art of Photographic Manipulation in Asia, Volume 6, Issue 1, fall 2015, ISSN: 2158-2025.
Selected conference contributions
As Founding Director, Jiang has been responsible for convening and contributing to the CCVA Annual Conference since 2007.
In addition, Jiang has contributed to many conferences including the recent events listed below:
Impacts 18 | International Symposium: Cities of Culture, 30 years on. Who has the edge?18-19 October 2018, Liverpool Town Hall, Liverpool, The Institute of Cultural Capital.
Presence: A Window on Engaging with Chinese Contemporary Art and Culture,11 May 2018, St. George’s Hall, Liverpool, Salford University and Open Eye Gallery.
Look/17: An Era without Memories,12 May 2017, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool.
Oxford China Forum 2017, 16 February 2017, University of Oxford, Oxford.
International Curator Workshop, 11-14 July 2016, Faculty of Fine and Applied Art, Chulalongkorn University and Office of Contemporary Art and Culture, Thailand Ministry of Culture, Bangkok.
Exploring the China Dream: Trajectories and Articulations of Soft Power in the Sinophone World, 15-16 August 2016, Department of Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish Studies, Stockholm University, Stockholm.
Chinese Tradition: Chinese Reality, 30 April 2015, the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), University of Cambridge, Cambridge.
(In)direct speech: ‘Chineseness’ in contemporary art discourse and practice, 16-19 March 2015, Artistic Studies Research Centre, Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon, Lisbon.
Abstract Art and Society, 13-14 March 2015, Whitechapel Gallery, London.
ATM14: Conflict, Compassion, Resolution, 20 November 2014, Imperial War Museum, Manchester.
The Harmonious Society, 29 September 2014, University of Salford, Media City, Manchester.