Two types of low-key avant-garde existed during the early 1990s: apartment art and
maximalism. They involved a retreat from the public sphere, differing from political pop and
cynical realism. Tracking back to the 1970s and 1980s, they only came to be known in the 1990s through neo-Chinese guannian (idea) art. “The neo-guannian art of Chinese avant-garde artists had been forced to abandon the avant-garde myth, the innocence, and even the naiveté that had been adopted by the ’85 Movement”. ‘Revolution in art’ was no longer their interest. Instead, change in the relationships between themselves and their environment became the focus. Wu Shanzhuan, and other guannian artists, like Xu Bing, fixated on the revolution in ideas itself to elaborate on their concept of an
anti-art project. The works of these artists were expected to be understood by viewers, and to be objects of byproducts. 1980s art can be partially comprehended as part of a project of dematerializing art-making. There is no Western historical relationship that goes along with this movement due to the integral nature of
calligraphic history, along with the vital
allegorical,
metaphorical, and
poetic combination of words and images in the history of
Chinese art. Wu Shanzhuan, along with other Chinese artists such as
Xu Bing and
Gu Wenda, hold ideas where images and words are undertaken into one holistic concept. The
anti-art development, therefore, is a response to the outside forces of the social and artistic environment. The project was initiated by Huang Yongping, and further developed by Wu Shanzhuan, Gu Wenda, Xu Bing, and others. All of these artists also embraced the traditional philosophy of
Chan Buddhism, “which encourages an ironic sensibility and a refusal to privilege any one doctrine over another in the search for truth”. Apartment art had moved on to a different approach on materialization, and that of communicated relations between artists and things, in which the subject matter was more valued than the concept/idea. Subjects being taken from daily life, the discovery of new ideas was secondary to the work being engaged. Artists were able to make art in a strictly controlled environment because originality to them didn't come from thinking, but from touching the materials. This kind of art was concentrated on the observable and palpable. The physical context of an object, its location and relocation, was also important to them. ==
Red Humor installations==