Despite the unusual speed with which contemporary art has developed in China over the last two and half decades, a comprehensive independent archiving platform has yet to exist. Though the last twenty-five years have produced an abundance of art and with it, an abundance of documentary materials, many of the most important art publications and critical writings, especially those from the 1980's, are difficult to locate. A lack of systematic collection and organization of documentary information resulted in the sporadic existence of materials among individuals, primarily the artists and curators active in contemporary art in China in recent decades.

Asia Art Archive believes it is important to locate and preserve these materials to acknowledge the recent history of contemporary art in China and to facilitate future research and critical writing. As the only organization dedicated to systematically documenting and collecting materials relating to contemporary Asian art, AAA has undertaken a project to comprehensively document contemporary Chinese art from 1980 – 1990.

The project has four components. The first is an urgent collection drive to preserve and make accessible valuable material from this period. AAA is in the process of collecting periodicals, newspaper clippings, photographs, video recordings, exhibition catalogues, invitations, correspondence and other publications and materials that relate to the development of contemporary art in China between 1980 -1990.

Secondly, to complement existing material, AAA is conducting in-depth interviews with fifty-five to sixty key individuals from the Chinese contemporary art world of the 1980s, including artists, critics and curators. Unedited versions of these interviews will be accessible to the public on site at AAA in Hong Kong and will also be available on the project’s website beginning in December 2009.

In the project’s third component, AAA is using the footage from twenty-four interviews to create a forty-five minute documentary film about experimental art in South China (Guangzhou) in the 1980s entitled 'From Jean-Paul Sartre to Teresa Teng: Contemporary Cantonese Art in the 1980s'. Now nearing completion, this focused documentary will capture the unique perspectives of those involved during this critical period. The documentary is expected to be completed and screened in the Spring of 2009.

And finally, the project will culminate in a comprehensive bilingual (Chinese/English) website where the most important material gathered for the project and excerpts from the interview footage will be made available online as well as on-site at AAA's library in Hong Kong, where students and researchers are welcome to visit. In addition, the website will include chronologies, bibliographies and links to other important resources in the field making it the most important publicly accessible resource for this crucial period in the development of Chinese art history.

The first phase of the website will be launched in December 2009 and the second phase in April 2010.

The 'Materials of the Future' project addresses the dearth of historical records about this seminal period in recent art history and is the first of its kind to categorically document the 1980s in contemporary Chinese art. Through a website presenting newly collected historical materials and excerpts from interviews produced for the project as well as a documentary about art in the Guangzhou province during this period, AAA will bring to light never-before seen documentation about the birth of contemporary art in China.

The website will be accessible free of charge for a target audience that includes students, researchers, members of the art community, and those with a general interest in the subject. The material and films will be also made available to the public from AAA's physical library. Through its Learning department, AAA will reach out to relevant local and international university departments and libraries to distribute copies of the documentary on South China. As well, copies of the documentary and archival material will be available upon request for educational purposes.

This project is made possible by the generous support of:
The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation
W.L.S. Spencer Foundation
Creative Works
Foundation for Arts Initiatives