Art Diplomacy and Nation Branding: The Visual Politics of Reinventing China

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Our research investigates how Chinese contemporary art has increasingly become a popular method to help rejuvenate China's nation brand. With the country growing in influence, its newly-gained reputation as a superpower is also being reinforced through the strategic promotion of its culture and arts. Our research aims to trace the growing power, cachet and cultural capital of Chinese contemporary art as a key element in transforming the foreign public's perception of a country that is eager to orchestrate its international image. We seek to analyse how two spheres of activities - Chinese contemporary art and government nation branding efforts - are now entwined, and with what effects for the curatorial and artistic development in China and beyond, in view of our globalised art world. Our research is born out of an urgent critical inquisitiveness to document China's global rise and its impact on world cultures. We place our research questions at the intersection of multiple concerns: artistic trends, Chinese nationalism, cultural values, (macro)marketing and global politics. We also cross multiple boundaries, be they academic disciplines (international relations and visual arts) or distinct industries (nation branding, creative arts and museums), to boost knowledge. Our starting point is the idea of nation branding and China. The concept of nation branding has been widely discussed in the past few years in fields such as marketing, international relations and communications studies. It has almost become a catch-all term, incorporating related themes such as country of origin effect, made-in country image, cultural stereotype and place branding. Our examination of the topic, however, is inspired by both theoretical and practiced-based thinking from the humanities. We approach the concept by going beyond its framework of selling a nation and maximising nation brand recognition for potential consumers and tourists, but by focusing on the promotion of national ideals, identities and values, especially on the cultural horizon. We analyse this topic from a globalised visual arts point of view by examining works by Chinese artists exhibited at home and abroad. We argue that a solid understanding of China's global reputation and national brand image must be anchored to the ways in which key visual practices are being used to advertise the country.Our research will address questions such as: How is the growing field of Chinese contemporary arts creating a new style and tone for the nation brand? How are artists creating new possibilities for China to represent itself at global events? How does the political usage of Chinese contemporary art reveal the dilemmas and politics of art diplomacy? More importantly, how does this combination of art, nationalism and state oversight affect China's latest aspirations to excel in creativity and originality in many different fields?We aim, therefore, to gain a critical understanding of the multi-layered tensions at stake: the freedom of creative imagination enjoyed by artists, institutional values and rationalities embraced by curators, the material and political gains required of nation branding, and finally, Chinese government control. Our objective is to survey this precarious terrain and highlight the political, aesthetic and ethical tensions. We seek to produce pivotal and essential knowledge so stakeholders, such as curators, artists and cultural industry professionals, can have a timely road map to help guide them through this maze.