front cover of Zhang Hongtu
Zhang Hongtu
Expanding Visions of a Shrinking World
Luchia Meihua Lee and Jerome Silbergeld, editors
Duke University Press, 2015
In this book, leading art experts, art historians, and critics review the life, career, and artistic development of New York based Chinese artist Zhang Hongtu. A pioneer in contemporary Chinese art, Zhang created the first example of "China Pop" art, and his oeuvre is as diverse, intellectually complex, and engaging as it is entertaining. From painting and sculpture to computer generated works and multimedia projects, Zhang's art is equally rich in terms of China's history and its current events, containing profound reflections on China's oldest cultural habits and contemporary preoccupations. He provides a model of cross-cultural interaction designed to make Asian and Western audiences look more closely at each other and at themselves to recognize the beliefs they hold and the unexamined values they adhere to.

From his early work in China during the Cultural Revolution to his decades as an artist in New York, Zhang reflects the complex attitudes of a scholar-artist toward modernity, as well as toward Asian and Western societies and himself.  Placing Zhang in the context of his cultural milieu both in China and in the Chinese immigrant artist community in America, this volume's contributors examine his adaptations of classic art to reflect a contemporary sensibility, his relation to Cubism and Social Realism, his collaboration with the celebrated fashion designer Vivienne Tam, and his visual critique of China's current environmental crisis. Zhang's work will be on display at the Queens Museum in New York City from October 17, 2015 to March 6, 2016.

Contributors: Julia F. Andrews, Alexandra Chang, Tom Finkelpearl, Michael Fitzgerald, Wu Hung, Luchia Meihua Lee, Morgan Perkins, Kui Yi Shen, Jerome Silbergeld, Eugenie Tsai, Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu, Lilly Wei

Co-published by the Queens Museum and Duke University Press.
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Zouping in Transition
The Process of Reform in Rural North China
Andrew G. Walder
Harvard University Press, 1998

Zouping offers important general lessons for the study of China's rural transformation. The authors in this volume, all participants in a unique field research project undertaken from 1988 to 1992, address questions that are far from simple and about which there is some controversy.

The questions are grouped around two issues. The first is the role of local governments as economic actors. What is this role, how have they played it, and how can we explain their behavior? Have they dominated rural economies through public ownership of industry and local planning, or has the role of local governments diminished with the rise of market transactions and private ownership? The second issue is market reform and inequality. Have rural cadres enjoyed income advantages in the new market environment? Has the provision of such collective services as education and health care declined, leading to new forms of inequality?

The chapters on the role of local government all point to a single conclusion: one cannot explain the rapid development of Zouping without reference to the role of local governments and of local government officials as economic actors. Scholarly writings about the "transitional economies" have often ignored or distorted this aspect of China's reform experience. On the second issue, changes in inequality owing to market reform, the authors present mixed findings but contribute rich new data to the research on this issue.

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