Despite the liveliness and creativity of avant-garde Chinese art in the post-Mao era and its prominence in the world of international contemporary art, there still lacks a systematic introduction to this important work in any Western language. Moreover, most of the relevant primary documents have existed only in Chinese, scattered in hard-to-find publications. Contemporary Chinese Art: Primary Documents remedies this situation by bringing together carefully selected primary texts in English translation.

Arranged in chronological order, the texts guide readers through the development of avant-garde Chinese art from 1976 until 2006. Because experimental Chinese art emerged as a domestic phenomenon in the 1970s and 1980s and its subsequent development has been closely related to China's social and economical transformation, this volume focuses on art from mainland China. At the same time, it encompasses the activities of mainland artists residing overseas, since artists who emigrated in the 1980s and 1990s were often key participants in the early avant-garde movements and have continued to interact with the mainland art world.

The primary documents include the manifestos of avant-garde groups, prefaces to important exhibitions, writings by representative artists, important critical and analytical essays, and even some official documents. Each chapter and section begins with a concise preface explaining the significance of the texts and providing the necessary historical background; the volume includes a timeline summarizing important art phenomena and related political events.

Contemporary Chinese Art is part of an ongoing publication series from the International Program of The Museum of Modern Art, which makes crucial art-historical writings and primary documents from regions outside the United States available in English. Other volumes in the series include Alfredo Boulton and His Contemporaries: Critical Dialogues in Venezuelan Art, 1912–1974 (2008); Modern Swedish Design: Three Founding Texts (2008); Listen, Here, Now! Argentine Art of the 1960s: Writings of the Avant-Garde (2004); and Primary Documents: A Sourcebook for Eastern and Central European Art since the 1950s (2002).

Contemporary Chinese Art: Primary Documents is published by The Museum of Modern Art and is available at MoMA Stores and online. It is distributed to the trade through Duke University Press.