Three Kinds Of Interpretations Of Contemporary Art: Field, Communication And The Power Of Knowledge -Songzhuang,China

Contemporary art originated from the rise of modernism after the Second World War and it shows that as development direction of art, the contemporary art has much to do with the society itself. After the threat of war and fears of Cold War had been eliminated, the art has pursued equality and diversity like politics and economy. Traditional fine art has been inherited and been revolted. But how the contemporary art has realized such transfer? What is the essence of the rebellion? Whether this transfer is really a tremendous influence?In 1980s,China just began its reform and opening up, contemporary art, like every new thing, filled into the room. The Academies of Fine Arts in China had been occupied by Contemporary art. Soon, contemporary art set off a wave of Chinese art boom. After 1990, the Chinese contemporary art development center was basically confirmed to be in Beijing. From the Summer Palace to 798, from Caochangdi to Songzhuang, Chinese contemporary art left the western half of the city and then spread in the eastern half of the city. Contemporary artists settled down in Songzhuang occasionally for complex reasons, but now Songzhuang became a famous contemporary art hometown " Songzhuang, China" unexpectedly. Like traditional art, the contemporary art must have its own field with its own system to keep it work on and on and needs to have a relationship with other fields to survive. Thanks to the promotional efforts made by private art museums, galleries, cultural-broadcasting companies and other non-official institutions and organizations, Chinese contemporary art has made its steps towards the world as well as the public.Contemporary Art has its own field where a system has been formed. Both the relationship between supply and demand and inheritance line has been established. A series of relationship among galleries, collectors and art museum has made the field structure stable and close. Just like Bourdieu’s theory about knowledge field, the field of Contemporary Art also has its own formation process, field marginal and the relationship between power and position. The process could go back to the beginning of the development of Chinese Contemporary Art, but the power transfer has made the margin seemingly to be infinitely expanded and has made people difficult to distinguish the Contemporary Art from the Contemporary Art field. Songzhuang is just a comparison body of Chinese Contemporary Art field. One can get a glimpse of the development process of Chinese Contemporary Art field’s construction from the development history of Songzhuang. From the operation of Songzhuang Contemporary Art system, one can resolve the system of Chinese Contemporary Art field. A lot of Art Institutions and contemporary artists came in, making it as a solid and complete field. Their lives as well as their works have made Songzhuang famous, and the most important role it plays in it is communications.Contemporary Art is an unique kind of communication which is not a general sense of communication for transmission of informative expression or significance of language and body. It may not be able to be completely understood or obtain attitude feedback. How to judge this kind of communication is effective or not? When the art shows in front of the audience, not only it cannot be judged by the traditional aesthetic standards but also be measured by the conventional techniques. When the art critics choose "rebel", "pioneer", "post modern" to interpreted, the artists themselves and the audience may not agree with these fuzzy words. When Contemporary Art surged to a high level of price again and again, the relationship between artistic value and value is not explained. When other fields have come across with Contemporary Art, in an incomplete understanding situation that all kinds of strange results have been shown by hypothesizing... How could Contemporary Art communicate with others then? In case the mutual antagonism of the relationship of exchange is general, the deliver path of the meaning of Contemporary Art is opposite to its value achievement, which can be understood that it’s not necessarily associated with the economics principles. Does it further explain the theory of the communication of Habermas about establishing society through communications?The Contemporary Art is a kind of unique "cold knowledge" and has nothing to do with the art market booming. What Contemporary Art tries to express is how to understand the contemporary art and what is Chinese contemporary art knowledge system. These are only questions without answers. There are a lot of scholars and critics who thought the beginning of the art concept starting from Duchamp is "contemporary art is a problem itself", just like the understanding of madhouse and male domination which is an inevitability requiring no question and answer. Foucault studied the knowledge and power of it and analyzed the so-called "inevitable". Is there a necessity for cold knowledge to exist? Who endowed knowledge with the attributes of "inevitable"? The historical source of Contemporary Art is born for the public, but why it can’t be understood by the public? The e.g. of Songzhuang may not be able to answer these questions fully, but we can see how Chinese Contemporary Art is "inevitable" and what kind of relationship is linked with "inevitable" and Contemporary Art field and its communication lines. All of these things compose a panoramic view from inside to outside.If Songzhuang, as an entity of Chinese Contemporary Art field possible for inspection, it builds up the system of the field by communications between one person to another, person to institutions or arts. And it establishes the outside communication net by using relationships of the institutions and the fields. Both inside and outside operation became complete and smooth year by year. This phenomenon explains the social development of Contemporary Art. At the same time, through the study of the communication of form and content, we have obtained the knowledge system of Chinese Contemporary Art its mode of transmission. Further more, we are able to solve the problem about uneasy understanding of the Contemporary Art, whether the art will transfer its own identity for commercial and discuss the marginal issues of it.