Interview with Dr. Alina Sinelnyk: the transcultural research of contemporary Chinese ink

The ediorial team of ReNetMoCoCA launches the new blog feature “Members in Conversation” with an interview: Dr. Alina Sinelnyk shares insights on her her recent art historical research.

Dr. Alina Sinelnyk in front of a mural created by MAHKU (Movimento dos Artistas Huni Kuin; The Huni Kuin Artists Movement) for the facade of the Central Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale.

Alina is an independent scholar, focusing on contemporary Chinese ink art as well as art by contemporary Chinese American and Chinese British artists. She also currently teaches History of Art at the University of Edinburgh. In 2021 Alina completed her doctoral thesis at the University of Edinburgh, which explored Western exhibitions and collections of contemporary Chinese ink art, using works by Californian artist Zheng Chongbin as a case study. Her research has been published by Palgrave-Macmillan (2024), Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art (2022) and Hong Kong University Press (forthcoming). Prior to this, Alina worked at international auction houses, including Sotheby’s and Bonhams.

What inspired you to research contemporary Chinese (ink) art?

I first came across Chinese ink art as a student while studying Prof Chia-Ling Yang’s courses. I still vividly remember attending two exhibitions as part of our classes – The Shanghai School at the Cernuschi Museum in Paris and Masterpieces of Chinese Painting at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London – which gave me a rare opportunity to study Chinese ink paintings first-hand. Prof Yang’s brilliant teaching made me passionate about the study of Chinese ink art. I then discovered how this art form has a global resonance and applicability. This motivated me to start researching and working with various international contemporary artists who also champion the idea that the centuries-old cultural heritage of Chinese ink art has a great and diverse potential in current contexts, too. As artist Zheng Chongbin says, ‘ink is for everyone’.

What is your recent research about and why is it of interest to academic and general audiences?

My latest publication is the chapter ‘Collecting and Exhibiting Global Contemporary Chinese Ink Art: Zheng Chongbin’s Pictorial and Digital Ink Works in Western Art Institutional Contexts’. The chapter has been published in August 2024 in Palgrave-Macmillan’s book compilation Rethinking Displays of Chinese Contemporary Art: Cultural Diversity and Tradition, edited by Paul Gladston, Lynne Howarth-Gladston, Johnson Tsong-zung Chang and Jason Kuo. I discuss how selected Western museums and galleries have approached collecting and exhibiting contemporary Chinese ink art, using works by globally recognised Californian artist Zheng Chongbin as examples. My main objective is to critically reflect on how such curatorial practice does, could, or should look like in the 2020s.

Can you name an artist that you are particularly fascinated about and explain us why?

One work I am especially fascinated about is Zheng Chongbin’s installation Wall of Skies (2015). It comprises a wall of variously shaped shimmering ink-and-acrylic panels, a reflective floor, and specially chosen luminous lamps by California-based company Soraa, founded by Nobel Prize winner Nakamura Shuji. The key element of the installation is thus light. It is all about the ephemeral play of multiple illuminations and dynamic subject to minute changes such as each of the viewers’ steps on the highly reflective floor. Chongbin treats Chinese ink painting in a non-conventional way as a light-emanating material substance that interacts with other materials as part of the installation, from the light bulbs to the specially built floor. What is fascinating to me is that ink art is turned here into something not only to be ocularly explored, but to be immersively experienced – the installation directly engages the viewers’ whole sensorial apparatus and also activates their spatiotemporal awareness.

Which theoretical/methodological approach needs growing in your view and why?

Very often contemporary Chinese ink art is discussed only from a cultural perspective, as it is associated with the Chinese and wider Sinophone cultural and historical contexts. However, contemporary Chinese ink art is such a diverse and globally developing field, as part
of which artists employ a variety of different approaches to this art form that often go beyond the medium’s cultural implications. For example, among various examples, Yang Yongliang uses the centuries-old form of Chinese mountain-water ink art (shanshui) as a means to
ecocritically reflect on today’s climate crisis, which is – obviously – a planetary concern. That is why I believe it is very important to apply to the study of contemporary Chinese ink art more diverse theoretical/methodological approaches that would allow to position
today’s ink art not only within contexts of local or regional cultural discussions, but also contexts that address wider global issues and topics of mutual/relational concern.

What kind of major institutional/political developments do you see for Chinese art related research in your region/country – what are the challenges for (emerging) scholars who want to study/research Chinese art in Scotland/the UK?

It is great to see exhibitions of contemporary Chinese ink art appearing more frequently across the UK. For example, in 2022 to 2023 Edinburgh’s Talbot Rice Gallery exhibited ink works by Qiu Zhijie, giving Scotland-based audiences a rare and significant opportunity to see examples of today’s global contemporary Chinese ink art first-hand. Such exhibitions at international contemporary art galleries, like the Talbot Rice Gallery, also help broaden Art History students’ understanding of the diversity of media and approaches used in contemporary art. This can play an important role in helping encourage students and (emerging) contemporary art scholars to study present-day Chinese ink works. Thus, it is important to see more of such curatorial initiatives across Scotland and other parts of the UK in the future.

Thank you for sharing insights on your research with us – we are looking very much forward to hear/see more of your work in the future!

ReNetMoCoCA-Blog Editors

We are a team of several editors dedicated to scholarly and curatorial work in the fields of modern and contemporary… Weiterlesen

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