Join the Cambridge University China Forum for a Fireside Chat and Q&A session with me on the 25th of November! This event is free and open to all. Please sign up via the QR code or this link here). It’s the end of November in Cambridge so there might actually be a real “fireside”!!
Tuesday 25th November – 18:00-19:00 – Blue Boar Common Room, Trinity College, Cambridge
This book asserts Surrealism resolutely chimed with traditional Chinese thought whilst reflecting and refracting contemporaneous socio-political issues from Mao to now. A ‘historico-intrinsic’ relationship coalesces archival and primary sources consulted in Chinese, French and English, artist interviews as well as cosmopolitan political theory. The purported originality of European modernism is overturned, ascertaining traditional Chinese concepts of spontaneity were cited by Surrealists as redolent of automatism, the notion of creating without forethought.
Surrealist art was officially prohibited under Mao’s rule (1949-1976). However, the book interrogates potent tensions in clandestinely created surrealist artworks by Zhao Shou and Sha Qi, who discovered the movement while studying abroad. Furthermore, Walden explores how several European Surrealists aligned Chinese calligraphy with automatism as well as Michel Leiris and Marcel Mariën’s travels to Maoist China and their diametrically opposed visions of the nation. Amidst post-socialism, the book posits that the ’85 New Wave consciously employed Surrealism to process the traumatic Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and react to newfound societal freedoms. Subsequently, the volume considers why a new artistic tendency of ‘surrealist pop’ emerged in the 1990s. At present, Lauren Walden reveals how Surrealism has become officialised and even promoted by Chinese authorities owing to revolutionary resonances between traditional Chinese art and the western avant-garde.
The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, Chinese studies, and Surrealism. Part of the book is available open access here.
This study investigates cultural exchange between the Surrealist movement and the People’s Republic of China (1949-present).
Surrealist art was officially prohibited under Mao’s rule (1949-1976). However, the book interrogates potent tensions in clandestinely created surrealist artworks by Zhao Shou and Sha Qi, who discovered the movement while studying abroad. Furthermore, Walden explores how several European Surrealists aligned Chinese calligraphy with automatism as well as Michel Leiris and Marcel Mariën’s travels to Maoist China and their diametrically opposed visions of the nation. Amidst post-socialism, the book posits that the ’85 New Wave consciously employed Surrealism to process the traumatic Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and react to newfound societal freedoms. Subsequently, the volume considers why a new artistic tendency of ‘surrealist pop’ emerged in the 1990s. At present, Lauren Walden reveals how Surrealism has become officialised and even promoted by Chinese authorities owing to revolutionary resonances between traditional Chinese art and the western avant-garde.
The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, Chinese studies, and Surrealism.
Chapter 4 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license
Pátio da Claridade near the Barra district of old Macao consists of a long alleyway of 48 buildings originally fishermen’s homes and that was then formerly managed by STDM as a social housing project for the elderly. The north side of the patio consists of a row of two-storey units. The south side of the patio is a row of identical units with two overlapping dwellings occupying the same plot, both with a small courtyard and access ways facing the inner street. On the main street, the first-floor balconies double as a continuous sidewalk canopy alongside a street front-facing ground floor with mezzanine level. The Pátio is now severely degraded, almost totally empty and boarded up although there are apparently plans to develop it as a “food street” (click in here to see those plans)… Anyway, here’s what Pátio da Claridade looked in October 2025…
the old legation entrances of Great Britain, Japan and France – the first two on Zhengyi Lu (formerly Canal Street) and the French on Dongjiaomin Xiang (Legation Street).
