Rising Ecological Awareness in Chinese Contemporary Art : An Analysis of the Cultural Environment

The past three decades have witnessed an unprecedented ecological crisis in China; however, there has been very little study of ecological concern in Chinese contemporary art. Ecological awareness has emerged in Chinese contemporary art since the early 1990s. This paper explores the various cultural factors that are involved. First, the rising ecological awareness in Chinese art in the 1990s is a corollary of ideological changes, both in social politics and in art. Chinese contemporary art in the 1990s experienced a constantly ongoing social turn to counter the dominance of the market and to continue the critical spirit. When this inner need in Chinese contemporary art encountered the thorough re-examination of the anthropocentric view caused by a severe environmental and ecological crisis, a group of artists started to focus on environmental and ecological wellbeing, as a primary concern. Secondly, the rising ecological awareness has been encouraged by a revival of Chinese traditional culture and art since the 1980s. This important factor has encouraged artists to focus on the traditional aspects of ecological concern and to reintroduce it into contemporary art. Thirdly, the rising ecological awareness reveals the impact of grassroots environmentalism in China. The analysis of the cultural environment behind the emergence of ecological consciousness in Chinese contemporary art provides considerable help in understanding the development of ecological art in contemporary China.