Kai Hu

Farewell Mao: The '85 New Wave and Fifth-Generation Cinema

This thesis compares and contrasts two post-socialist Chinese art movements: the ‘85 New Wave and Fifth-Generation cinema. It discusses artworks through the lens of politics, connecting Socialism with Chinese characteristics, to Maoism, to traditional culture; it examines how the artists of this era are grasping at a new opportunity to change the trajectory of Chinese art, questioning narratives imposed on post-Mao Chinese artworks by Western societies. It argues that the main elements connecting these artworks and films are their newfound freedoms of stylistic expression and loss of political unity, bringing forth artworks that embody the ideas of globalisation, postpolitics, and transhistoricity.Located in 100 McCaul, in front of room 330 for the duration of GradEx111.Click either of the PDF icons below to access my essay.

“Mao famously says...'letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting the progress of the arts and the sciences and a flourishing socialist culture in our land. Different forms and styles in art should develop freely and different schools in science should contend freely.' During Deng Xiaoping’s era, there existed a clear need for some kind of emancipation within the art world itself. Through analysing these groups of artists, we become conscious of a desire for freedom for art.”