Colloquium: March 26, 2019
Speaker: Dr. Eva Kit Wah Man, Professor of Humanities, Hong Kong Bapitst University
Title: Impacts of Global Aesthetics on Chinese Art: The Adaptation of Moxie and the Case of Dafen Art Village in China
Tuesday, March 26th at 2:30pm Clearihue, A307
Abstract:
This paper starts from the discussion of Paul Crowther's arguement that in an era of accelerating global consumerism, techniques arise for the mass reproduction of imageries. The developments have suppressed the normative dimension of aesthetics with a consumerist sensibility, and the features of imagery all refer to cultural mediocrity. This sensibility, in a constant process for buying and the effective implementation of large-scale marketing strategies, overlooks key quesitons of ontology, aesthetic experience and cultural excellence. This paper turns to the art village Dafen Cun in Guangdong, China as an illustration that global consumerism has exerted its influences on Chinese traditional aesthetics. Dafen village is famous for its copy practice, the art workers in the village are producing hundreds of cheap hand copies of popular Western and Chinese paintings appear on computers for consuming purposes. This phenomenon recalls the recent history of Guangdong painters who were invited to "moxie" (meaning imitation in the context of Chinese aesthetics) Western paintings in the late 19th century also for commercial ends. The paper then revisists the genuine notion of moxie as imitating or copying the works of the old masters, apprehending the artistic styles and significant forms for one's future artistic development. In a deeper level, moxie performs a necessary way of learning from Nature through discovery of the delicate features of the physical objects, endeavors to enhance one's artistic and aesthetic senses with the ultimate aims of manifesting the state of infinite being. The discussion critically examines the changes of the meaning of moxie under the impacts of global consumerism in China, which has greatly departed from the traditional wisdom in Chinese aesthetics.