Being and Becoming in Contemporary Chinese Art

This talk by Peggy Wang, associate professor of art history and Asian studies at Bowdoin College, addresses the conflicting pressures that artists in China confronted during the 1990s and early 2000s, including rapid urbanization and cultural globalization. Even as they navigated political constraints and deficits in resources, contemporary artists enacted productive strategies for making and exhibiting their art. This lecture foregrounds artists’ assertions of being and becoming, both as critical tactics for configuring identity and generative topics unto themselves. Wang will particularly examine how artists studied the vibrant dynamics of change through temporal, historical, and material dimensions in their art.

This lecture is presented in conjunction with the exhibition , on view at the Kemper Art Museum from February 27 to July 27, 2026.

Part of the Sam Fox School Public Lecture Series

About the Artist

Peggy Wang is associate professor of art history and Asian studies at Bowdoin College. She earned her PhD in art history from the University of Chicago. She is the author of The Future History of Contemporary Chinese Art (University of Minnesota Press, 2020), which engages new models of interpretation and narratives of agency. Her research has been supported by Jacob Javits, Fulbright-Hays, and Fulbright fellowships, and yielded publications in venues such as Art Journal, Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, positions, and 21: Inquiries into Art History, and the Visual. In 2010 she served as editorial associate of the Museum of Modern Art publication Contemporary Chinese Art: Primary Documents. Her current research focuses on artists’ perceptions of the future, particularly in relation to cosmologies and technologies.     

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