fbpx
publication

Half-Life of a Dream: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Logan Collection

Half-Life of a Dream publication cover
Half-Life of a Dream publication table of contents
Half-Life of a Dream publication pages 10-11
Half-Life of a Dream publication plate 55
Half-Life of a Dream publication plate 85

Foreword by Neal Benezra; essays by Eleanor Heartney, Christoph Heinrich, Jeff Kelley, and Kent Logan

144 pages, 8 ⅛ x 9 ⅛ inches, hardcover

Published in 2008

Half-Life of a Dream: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Logan Collection offers a fascinating survey of the Chinese art and cultural scene post–Tiananmen Square. Contemporary Chinese art is often discussed as a cynical reaction to emerging consumerism or as a satirical response to the academic patriotism of Socialist Realism. This richly illustrated catalogue reveals the work to be more haunted than cynical, more a matter of a nation’s suppressed psychic expression than of Pop iconoclasm or ironic detachment. Approximately fifty paintings, sculptures, and installations by artists such as Ai Weiwei, Fang Lijun, Li Songsong, Liu Xiaodong, and Zhang Huan convey a sense of the shadows and masks that have haunted the Chinese collective psyche during the nation’s troubled process of modernization.

Published in association with University of California Press on the occasion of the exhibition Half-Life of a Dream: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Logan Collection, held at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (July 10–October 5, 2008)

ISBN 9780520257795 (hardcover)