Exhibiting modernity: National art exhibitions in China during the early Republican period, 1911-1937

The early twentieth century was an era of remarkable artistic transformation in China. The widespread development of Western-style art forms like oil painting and photography appropriated from Europe and America transformed centuries-held ideas about artistic practice in China. The influx of new art inundated urban centers like Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, and Hangzhou through a thriving publication industry and were disseminated through newly established art schools and academies by scores of Chinese artists returning from study abroad in Europe, Japan and North America. New artistic approaches compelled a generation of artists to critically evaluate the historical foundation of Chinese art and formulate an array of visual strategies to formulate modern Chinese art.;As debates intensified and interpretations of modern Chinese art diversified in the 1920s and 1930s, the art exhibition emerged as one of the most vibrant platforms for debating and defining a diverse range of formal and ideological propositions about modern art during the early Republican era (1911-1937). This dissertation examines how two distinct groups---1. Artist-run societies, and 2. The central Nationalist-lead Republican Chinese government---utilized, developed, and deployed a national exhibitive models that proposed competing versions of artistic modernity during the early Republican period. Through an examination of curatorial strategies and critical responses to the national exhibitive model, the dissertation investigates the multifarious methods used by artist-run societies and the central Republican government to organize "national exhibitions of art," referred to in Chinese as quanguo meishu zhanlanhui .;National art exhibitions---both privately organized by artist-run societies and publicly staged by the central Chinese state---were integral in the discursive formation of modern Chinese art in early decades of the twentieth century. Manifestations of the national exhibitive model by these two groups were varied and complex. At times the objectives of artist-run societies merged with state-informed agendas to create a shared vision of the early Republican Chinese art world; while at other times these two divergent groups radically disagreed and proposed competing---even antithetical---visions of Chinese modern art. The widely divergent discursive iterations of visual modernity produced a highly dynamic and diverse early Republican-era Chinese art world. The dissertation charts multiple approaches to organizing and implementing the national exhibitive model, and furthermore uncovers the diversity of display strategies utilized in constructing modern Chinese art during the Republican era. The dissertation also underscores the dynamic role of the art exhibition as a generative agent in developing the visual discourse of Chinese modern art in the early twentieth century. The chapters follow a chronological development and through case studies chart the development of the national exhibitive model.;While the goal of effectively enacting the national exhibitive model eluded both artist-run societies and the central Nationalist Chinese state, the pursuit of organizing national exhibitions of art was an aspiration that cut across ideological orientations and was central to the discursive formation of Chinese visual modernity, effectively engendering a vibrant, heterogeneous early Republican Chinese art world.;(Abstract shortened by UMI.).