ABSTRACT
Whilst the Euro-American alliance largely controlled Modern Art, the late 20th century saw the inclusion of a new vital variant in the contemporary art world. This was of course the art of Asia, which exposed a significant number of artists from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The 1982 Venice Biennale catalogue indicated that these pieces adhered to PRC’s art policy, ‘let a hundred flowers blossom, seed through the old, bring forth the new’, and stated the expectation that this ‘exhibition will make a great contribution to the friendship and mutual understanding between the people of our two countries’. In 1993, the Venice Biennale’s director, Achille Bonito Oliva, identified cultural nomadism in his catalogue essay the Cardinal Points of Art, in which he recognised the importance of the East, especially young Chinese painters. During the 1990s, a number of individual artists and curators from the PRC did contact Venice Biennale authorities regarding the possibility of Chinese participation.
