Chinese Surrealism in the 1980s: an overview

During the 1980s, the manifold reception of Surrealism in China witnessed art collectives and individuals drawing from different aspects of western and Latin American Surrealism as well as the movement?s interest in African and Oceanic Art. At this juncture, I posit that it is the Surrealist notion of desire, in all its guises ? political, physical and metaphysical, repressed during the Cultural Revolution (1966?1976) ? whose outpouring underpins a broad range of Surrealist activity. There were of course other concerns directly contingent upon the historical circumstances of the 1980s in an atmosphere where unspoken red lines were regularly crossed. Surrealism was unique in its ability to negotiate the delicate politics of the 1980s compared with other modernisms. It would have been impossible to convey any form of critical socio-political message through a realist medium whilst abstract art worried government officials about hidden messages. Realism was too tangible whilst abstraction was too intangible, so the hazy musings of unconscious desire engendered freedom of artistic expression.