Professor Paul Gladston | UNSW Research

Paul Gladston's award winning research and critical writing has had a significant international impact on the development of critical Chinese contemporary art/cultural studies: as evidenced by, among other things, the inclusion of Gladston's publications on university undergraduate and graduate course reading lists in Europe, North America and China, invitations for him to work with major institutions - including UNESCO, the Southbank Centre London, Sotheby’s Institute, the Central Academy of Fine Arts Beijing, Tsinghua University Beijing, Oxford University, Third Text, Tate Modern (Tate Papers), the ShanghArt Gallery Shanghai, Chambers Fine Art New York, the New York-based visual arts, culture and politics magazine The Brooklyn Rail, the UK National Committee on China and the Asia Society Australia; the translation of his English-language publications into Mandarin Chinese, Spanish and Russian; and his supervision of several ground-breaking Ph.D. theses by candidates from Europe, Australia and China. His current position as the inaugural Judith Neilson Chair Professor of Contemporary Art at the University of New South Wales, Sydney (funded by an AU$7 million endowment + accumulated interest) focuses on the development of an international rhizomic network dedicated to innovative research, advocacy and teaching in the field of contemporary art/cultural studies, with a particular attention to China and East Asia. Paul Gladston is better known in China by the style name 葛思谛.

Current Positions

2018-present - Inaugural Judith Neilson Chair Professor of Contemporary Art, University of New South Wales, Sydney (research, advocacy and teaching funded by an AU$7 million endowment + accumulated interest over 21 years)

2022-present - Distinguished Affiliate Fellow of the UK-China Humanities Alliance (UKCHA) and the Institute for World Literatures and Cultures (IWLC), Tsinghua University, Beijing.

2023-present - Member of the Board of Trustees, Third Text

Previous Positions

2015-2018 - Chair Professor of Contemporary Visual Cultures and Critical Theory University of Nottingham, UK

2012-2018 - Director of the Centre for Contemporary East-Asian Cultural Studies, University of Nottingham, UK

2005-2010 - Founding Head of the School of International Communications, University of Nottingham Ningbo, China

2005-2010 - Director of the Institute of Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo, China

Before 2005 – various academic management and teaching positions in higher and further education, including as a vice-principal, vice dean, head of school and head of department.

Honours and Distinctions

2024 – Visiting Professor, MICA, Baltimore, the University of Maryland and the University of Edinburgh

2019 - Moderator and co-organizer of the annual Lloyd Rees Memorial Lecture, Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney

2017-2018 - Guest Professor, Sotheby’s Institute London

2015 - Distinguished Speaker, China-Britain Cultural Dialogue Conference Trinity College, University of Oxford – part of events surrounding President of the PRC Xi Jinping’s state visit of to the UK

2015 - ‘Best Publication’ 9^th Awards of Art China - for Contemporary Chinese Art: A Critical History (Reaktion)

2013 - ‘Author of the Month,’ Zentrum für Kunst and Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe

2011 - Visiting Scholar, Fundación Francisco Godia, Barcelona

2009 - Visiting Professor, Sichuan China Fine Arts Institute, Chongqing

1986 – Elizabeth Greenshield Award for Drawing

1986 – Andrew Grant Travelling Scholarship

1985 - Eileen Stoekel-Batell Scholarship Yale University, US

Editorships and Advisory Board Memberships

2022-present - Editorial Advisory Board Member, Bloomsbury Philosophy Library, London: Bloomsbury

2021-present - Editor-at-Large for the New York-based visual arts, culture and politics magazine The Brooklyn Rail, for which Gladston presents the online series ‘“Post-West” Arts and Visual Cultures’

2020-present - Principal Co-editor of the academic book series Contemporary East Asian Visual Cultures, Societies and Politics (Palgrave)

2015-2018 - Founding Principal Editor of the Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art (Intellect)

2015-present - Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the book series Chinese Contemporary Art (Springer), Editor-in-Chief Wang Chunchen (Central Academy of Fine Arts Beijing)

2014-present - Editorial Board Member, Journal of Visual Art Practice, London: Taylor and Francis

2013-present - Editorial Board Member, Culture and Dialogue, Leiden: Brill

Selected Book-length Publications and Reviews

Paul Gladston and Lynne Howarth-Gladston (forthcoming - 2025), Dis-/Continuing Traditions: Interventions with Confucian Aesthetics by Contemporary Chinese Artists and Curators, London: Bloomsbury.

Haiping Yan, (Tsinghua), Laurent Dubreuil (Cornell) and Paul Gladston (UNSW) eds. (forthcoming - 2024), Transculturality and China - in the World, London: Routledge.

Paul Gladston, Lynne Howarth-Gladston, Jason Kuo and Johnson Tsong-zung Chang eds. (2023), Rethinking Displays of Chinese Contemporary Art: Cultural Diversity and Tradition, London and Singapore: Palgrave.

- ‘This is the first edited collection to critically address in its entirety questions related to the displaying of Chinese contemporary art. It includes chapters by scholars and cultural workers from diverse backgrounds involved in the interpretation of artistic as well as curatorial discourses and practices. Each of those chapters gives a detailed account of a particular, socio-culturally informed, approach to the making and showing of Chinese art - including in relation to queer identities, transculturality, the use of social media, artivism, social engagement, institutional critique, and neo-Confucian aesthetics. Together they present a vital intervention with established curatorship amidst the intensely interconnected and increasingly multi-polar cultural conditionalities of early 21^st-century contemporaneity.’

Haiping Yan, Haina Jin and Paul Gladston eds. (2023), Translation Studies and China, London and Beijing: Routledge. Transcultural Studies in China Series (Tsinghua University – UK-China Humanities Alliance).

- "The essays comprising Translation Studies and China are path-breaking in their scope ... [and] for their dialectical subtlety ... The book is exemplary in its focus on the uniqueness of individual translation." - Daniel Herwitz, Fredric Huetwell Professor of Philosophy, Comparative Literature and the History of Art, University of Michigan

Paul Gladston (2023), Художественные группы "Авангард" в Китае - 1979-1989 [‘Avant-garde’ Art Groups in China, 1979-1989], Boston MA: Academic Studies Press. [Contemporary Eastern Studies in the Russian Language].

- Revised Russian language translation of Paul Gladston (2013), ‘Avant-garde Art Groups in China, 1979-1989, Bristol: Intellect and Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Paul Gladston, Beccy Kennedy-Schtyk and Ming Turner eds. (2021), Visual Culture Wars at the Borders of Contemporary China: Art, Design, Film, New Media and the Prospects of “Post-West” Contemporaneity, London: Palgrave Macmillan.

- “The book Visual Culture Wars at the Borders of Contemporary China is both intriguing and timely, demonstrating an excellent balance of theoretical and analytical approaches to an array of subjects. It is a vital piece of work that will be of interest to students and scholars in a variety of fields.”— Paul Manfredi, Professor of Chinese, Pacific Lutheran University, USA

Paul Gladston (2019), Contemporary Chinese Art, Aesthetic Modernity and Zhang Peili: Towards a Critical Contemporaneity, London: Bloomsbury.

- "From the painstaking walk-through of theoretical issues and historical/cultural context appearing in his Prolegomenon, through the concise yet bracing conclusion, Paul Gladston's study of Zhang Peili and contemporaneity is far more than a mere biographical sketch of a single artist; it is a treatise on visual art of the present and China's particularized presence in that sphere. It is a landmark work both in terms of cultural criticism and art-historical analysis." - Paul Manfredi, Professor of Chinese, Pacific Lutheran University, USA

- "essential reading for a better understanding of contemporary Chinese art and visual culture in the global context." – Jason C. Kuo, Professor of Chinese Art, University of Maryland, MA USA

Paul Gladston (2016), Deconstructing Contemporary Chinese Art: Selected Critical Writings and Conversations, 2007-2014, Heidelberg-Berlin: Springer Verlag.

- “Gladston, first with his Contemporary Chinese Art: a Critical History and now with this volume of selected writings, has distinguished himself as the most brilliant Western scholar working in this field. What makes Gladston's work so indispensable is not only his prose — it is both elegant and precise — but also that he so effectively subjects Chinese work to the same criticality that anyone reasonably would expect for any first-rate writing on art from any country.” - Drew Hammond, award-winning critic and gallerist

Paul Gladston (2015), Yu Youhan, Shanghai: 3030 Press and ShanghArt Gallery.

Paul Gladston (2014), Contemporary Chinese Art: A Critical History, London: Reaktion and Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

- "Paul Gladston's Contemporary Chinese Art: A Critical History is a vital book for future excursions in the field of contemporary Chinese Art research." - Wang Chunchen, Professor Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing and curator of the China Pavilion, 55th Venice Biennale 2013

- "Gladston's analysis of the post-1989 period, and the impact of the Tiananmen Square protest on art and culture, is particularly acute and astute." - The Art Newspaper

Paul Gladston (2013), ‘Avant-garde’ Art Groups in China, 1979-1989, Bristol: Intellect and Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

- "Paul Gladston's book "Avant-Garde" Art Groups in China, 1979-1989 fills gaps in our knowledge of the contemporary Chinese art scene and provides an inspiring and mind-opening narrative." - China Quarterly

- "Gladston’s writing strategy [in "Avant-Garde" Art Groups in China, 1979-1989] serves well in stimulating the reader’s critical thinking and this was precisely what he aimed for: to deconstruct a phenomenon and give the right to speech and judgment to the reader." – Art Zip online

Paul Gladston (2011), Contemporary Art in Shanghai: Conversation with Seven Chinese Artists, Hong Kong: Blue Kingfisher/Timezone 8.

Exhibitions

2023-2024 – Co-curator of the touring exhibition ‘Enchanted Realities: Tan Lijie - Selected Works, 2013-2020’, Salamanca Arts Centre Hobart and the National Chen-kung University Taiwan

2021 – Co-curator of the exhibition 'Dis-/Continuing Traditions: Contemporary Video Art from China’, Salamanca Arts Centre Hobart

2015 - Co-curator of the exhibition 'New China/ New Art: Contemporary Video from Shanghai and Hangzhou', Djanogly Gallery University of Nottingham, UK

2012 - Advisor to the internationally acclaimed exhibition ‘Art of Change: New Directions from China’, Hayward Gallery-South Bank Centre London

Media

Expert contributor to publications and broadcasts by Der Spiegel, Al Jazeera, Nikkei Media, Bloomberg Media, ARD (Germany), South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), the BBC and the ABC (Australia)

Selected Consultancies

2023 - Advisor to the Board of Trustees of the journal Third Text

2021- Guest Contributor, The UK National Committee on China. Paul Gladston, ‘Pushing the Limits: Tianxia (‘all under heaven’) and Beijing’s seemingly flagrant disregard for internationally recognised frontiers’ – paired with a text by Prof. Rana Mitter, Harvard and Oxford University. “The UKNCC Guest Contributor Programme is designed to stimulate a deeper exploration of China related issues; drive curiosity; and test conventional wisdom.”

2019-2020 - Advisor on Chinese Contemporary art to the Sullivan+Strumpf Gallery, Sydney

2021 – External Reviewer for Non-traditional Research Outputs, the Education University of Hong Kong

2020-present – External Reviewers for Research-led Impact projects, Chinese University of Hong Kong

2019-present – Impact and Promotions Adviser, Chinese University of Hong Kong

2019 – Promotions Adviser, City University, Hong Kong

My Grants

2022 - Judith Neilson Chair Professor of Contemporary Art endowment top-up (AU$1,000,000)
2019 - 'Inside and Outside the Yellow Box: Rethinking Displays of Asian Art', Asia Institute and School of Creative Arts, University of Tasmania, 27 May 2019 - with Lynne Howarth-Gladston. Made possible by UTAS Asia Institute Award, $2,000.
2018-ongoing - Initial Judith Neilson Chair Professor of Contemporary Art endowment (AU$6,000,000)
2017 – Sichuan China Fine Arts Institute Award, 2018 (£30,000) to support international conference, ‘Seeing the Unseen: Trans-cultural Perspectives on Contemporary Art in/from Asia’ Sichuan China Fine Arts Institute, People’s Republic of China. Conference Organisers: Professor Paul Gladston, University of Nottingham and Professor Lü Peng, Sichuan China Fine Arts Institute.
2015 - Co-I successful bid to Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation (US$25,000) to support staging of the international symposium ‘Wordimage: visual-verbal interstices in contemporary Chinese Art’, Seattle, October 2016.
2014 – Funding from ShanghArt Gallery, Shanghai (£25,000) to support the publication of Paul Gladston, Yu Youhan (Shanghai: 3030 Press and ShanghArt Gallery, 2015); 300 full-colour illustrations.
May 2014 - Named investigator AHRC Network Project, ‘Culture, Capital and Communication: Visualising Chinese Borders in the twenty first century’. Principal Investigator Dr Rebecca Kennedy, Manchester Metropolitan University, School of History of Art and Design, Co-Investigator Dr Ming Turner, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan (AHRC contribution £26,500). Paul Gladston is cited on the successful bid as a ‘key international academic in the areas of contemporary Chinese art and border Studies’.
May 2014 - ‘Contemporary Art, Curating and Social Engagement in Twenty-first Century China’– PI on research project involving Guggenheim NYC, Tate, City University HK, CAFA Hangzhou, Rockbund Art Museum (RAM) Symposium and bid preparation workshop November 2014 (first meeting November 2013). Supported by CAS award (£4,700), CEACS (£500) and RAM (£20,000).
November 2013 - British Council award (£1,000) to support Research Workshop: ‘The Social Function of Contemporary Art in the PRC’, Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai.
2012 – Successful application to British Council, Shanghai to fund attendance at the first ‘Sino-UK Higher Education Symposium on Creative Media Industry, 2012’– Guangzhou and Nanjing, 2012, flights and accommodation. Also supported by successful application to University of Nottingham Inter-campus Mobility Fund (£8,000).
2013 - Paul Gladston, ‘Avant-garde Art Groups in China, 1979-1989 (Bristol: Intellect and Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013); 30 full-colour reproductions. Colour reproduction costs supported by ShanghArt Gallery, Shanghai (£2,000).
October 2009 – The University of Nottingham Ningbo, China Conference Travel Grant: Invited Speaker, Modernity’s Cultural Politics: China in Context at the Courtauld Institute of Art: ‘Curatorial Discourse and the Limits of Speech: Critical Reflections on the Third Guangzhou Triennial, Farewell to Post-Colonialism’.
July 2009 – The University of Nottingham Ningbo, China ‘Light Semester’ Scheme. Completion of the manuscript for Paul Gladston, ‘Avant-garde Art Groups in China, 1979-1989 (Bristol: Intellect and Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013)
June 2009 – The University of Nottingham Ningbo, China Conference Travel Grant; Panel Member, Inter-Asia cultural Typhoon at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies ‘Translating Regions: Aesthetic Movements, Labour Regimes, Cultural Geographies’.
September 2008 – The University of Nottingham Ningbo, China Inter-Campus Research Award, in support of the conference ‘Digital Hollywood-Digital China’ held jointly by The Institute of Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo, China and The Institute for Film and Television Studies at the University of Nottingham in March 2009, (£11,000).
June 2007 - The University of Nottingham, New Researchers Award, ‘Chinese Avant-Garde Art Groups and Associations of the late 1970s and 1980s’ (£7,500).
April 2006 - The University of Nottingham Ningbo, China Small Research Grant, ‘A Case Study of Chi She or the ’85 New Space Group of Chinese Artists’.
December 2006 – The University of Nottingham Ningbo, China Conference Travel Grant; The Association of Art Historians Annual Conference April 2007: “Representing the ‘Monster City’: The Unbearable Blandness of Song Tao and B6’s Yard”.

My Qualifications

UNSW Judith Neilson Chair of Contemporary Art

2004 - Ph.D. Critical Theory, University of Nottingham: Art History after Deconstruction: Is There Any Future for a Deconstructive Attention to Art History?
1997 - MA Critical Theory, University of Nottingham
1992 - Post-Graduate Certificate of Education, Nottingham-Trent University
1986 - BA (hons.) Drawing and Painting, 1st Class, Edinburgh, Edinburgh College of Art

My Awards

2022 - Distinguished Affiliate Fellow of the UK-China Humanities Alliance, Tsinghua University
2018 - Nominated for University of Nottingham Staff Oscar, ‘Teaching: makes best use of technology to enhance learning’ category.
2017 - Winner ‘International Strategy of the Year’ category Times Higher Education Leadership and Management Awards (THELMA). UoN was nominated for the THELMA on the strength of its Creative Hub, which brings together science, technology and the arts to respond to changes in government policy in China and the UK, including its museums CPD in China.
2014-16 - Paul Gladston, Joint Academic Chair, University of Nottingham China Cultural Visiting Hub (CCVH) development group. Successful development of curatorial training programme for museums and galleries in China in collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum.
2017 - UNNC/UNUK International Creative Economy Leadership Academy (ICELA) screen industry and museum masterclasses shortlisted for the Guardian University Awards under the ‘Best International Project’ category.
2016 - Nominated for University of Nottingham Knowledge Exchange Award.
2015 – Winner ‘Publication of the Year’, 9^thArt Awards China 2015 for monograph Contemporary Chinese Art: A Critical History (Reaktion, 2014)
2013 - Nominated for University of Nottingham Staff Oscar, ‘Teaching: most inspirational teacher’ category.
2012 – Freeman of Berwick-upon-Tweed
1986 – Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Award for Drawing
1985 - Eileen Stoekel-Batell Scholar, Yale University, USA
1985 – Andrew Grant Travelling Scholarship, Edinburgh College of Art

My Research Activities

Paul Gladston is currently working on three related research projects funded by the Judith Neilson Endowment:

‘The Rhizomic Thames Arcadia’

Output - (PR) (PA) Paul Gladston and Lynne Howarth-Gladston (2023), ‘Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art and the Intertextual Traces of English Romanticism’, Journal of Curatorial Studies 12(1), 48-79.
Output - (PR) (in preparation) Monograph: Paul Gladston and Lynne Howarth-Gladston, The Rhizomic Thames Arcadia

‘Contemporary Transcultural Aesthetics’

Output – Bloomsbury ‘Contemporary Global Aesthetics’ series, Paul Gladston general series editor (2024-ongoing)
Output - (PR) (PA) Paul Gladston (2023), ‘Other Ways of Seeing: Reading Transcultural Aesthetics through Images’, Bloomsbury Philosophy Library – London: Bloomsbury History of Modern Aesthetics.
Output - (PR) (PA– invited publication) (PR) Paul Gladston and Lynne Howarth-Gladston (2022), ‘Chinese Confucian-literati Culture and Post-Enlightenment Philosophical Aesthetics,’ Bloomsbury Philosophy Library – Bloomsbury History of Modern Aesthetics, London: Bloomsbury.

‘Rethinking Displays of Chinese Contemporary Art’

International Conference, 'Rethinking the Curation of Chinese Contemporary Art' (2021)
Output - (PR) (FC) Paul Gladston ed. (2024), Rethinking Displays of Chinese Contemporary Art, London and Singapore: Palgrave.

My Research Supervision

Supervision keywords

contemporary art

art theory

Areas of supervision

Critical Theory
Contemporary Chinese Art
Aesthetic Modernity, Postmodernity and Contemporaneity
Decolonisation of Museum and Gallery Spaces
Cultural Diplomacy and Soft Power

Ph.D. Completions:

UNSW

2022 - Luise Guest - (In)visible Ink: Gender and National Identity in the Work of Four Contemporary Chinese Artists. Co supervised with Dr. Scott East, ADA, Art and Design. Degree awarded with minor revisions. ADA Dean's Award

University of Nottingham UK:

2019 - Linda Pittwood, Representations of Women in Contemporary Chinese Art - funded by Midlands Three Cities Award (M3C) (AHRC)
2018 - Renata Abou-Eid, Translating Cultures, Adapting Lives: the role of cultural interpretation in the acculturation of Polish migrants in the English East Midlands
2016 - Joachin Lopez, (Non-)Rational Chinese and Western Photographic Heterotopias in Shanghai
2015 - Meng Jing, TV Representations of the Cultural Revolution in China
2014 - Yao Yung-wen, Cultural Diplomacy and Contemporary Chinese Art

At time of leaving the University of Nottingham in 2018 Paul Gladston was supervisor of four further Ph.D. theses

External Ph.D. examiner:

2020 – Chinese University of Hong Kong
2019 – University of Glasgow
2019 – Chinese University of Hong Kong
2018 – Australian National University
2017 – University of Glasgow
2016 – Chinese University of Hong Kong
2014 – University of Lancaster
2013 – University of Glasgow
2011 – University College London

External MFA examiner:

2018 - The University of Western Australia

Currently supervising

2021- ongoing - Jianxiong Jing – A Multi-modal Analysis of Classical Chinese Maps and their Relevance to Contemporary “Post-West” Cartography. Co-supervised with Dr. Marnie Feneley, ADA Humanities and Dr. Ian McArthur, ADA Art and Design. Recipient of a UNSW international scholarship.
2023- ongoing - Zhou Lin - Semiotics and Contemporary Chinese Peasant Painting: Recontextualising Traditional Folk Crafts. Co-supervised with Dr. Ian McArthur, ADA Art and Design. Recipient of a UNSW international scholarship.
2023-ongoing - Xie Tian - Chinese Shadow Puppetry of Red. Co-supervised with Dr. Ian McArthur, ADA Art and Design. Recipient of a UNSW international scholarship.
2023-2024 - Nan Li, international Ph.D. exchange student based at Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU). China Scholarship Council award. Research focused on 20^th- and 21^st-century overseas critical writing on Chinese art – including the work of Paul Gladston.
2022-ongoing - Ph.D. Co-supervisor, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing – with Prof. Wang Chunchen (CAFA).

My Engagement

Lead author of the REF Impact Case 2013 (UK), ‘Adding Complexity to the Curatorial Presentation of Contemporary Chinese Art’.

‘Dr Paul Gladston's (Associate Professor of Critical Theory and Visual Culture, Nottingham, 2005-present) research has served to problematize and add complexity to the public understanding of the relationship between contemporary Chinese art and the wider conditions of its making and showing both within and outside the Peoples' Republic of China (PRC). The Chief Curator of the Hayward Gallery exhibition Art of Change: New Directions from China (2012) drew on Gladston's expertise in the exhibition's presentation. The exhibition attracted over 22,000 visitors, with international media coverage leading to wider critical engagement in broadcast and social media. A challenging review of the exhibition in The Guardian by the high-profile artist Ai Weiwei, followed by Gladston's response, stimulated broader public debate around contemporary Chinese art.’

My Teaching

Author and co-convenor of the UNSW UG programme:

‘Contemporary East Asian Art: Theories and Practices’ DART231

Lead author of the BA International Communications and MA International Communications, and of the Ph.D. programme in Critical Theory/Cultural Studies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo, China (UNNC). In 2007 the BA International Communications achieved Special degree status in Zhejiang province – the first programme to do so at UNNC.

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Location

Arts, Design & Architecture

UNSW | Art & Design
UNSW Sydney
Humanities and Languages
Rm. 220 Morven Brown Building
Kensington Campus
Kensington, NSW 2052

Contact

p.gladston@unsw.edu.au

Publications

by Professor Paul Gladston

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ORCID as entered in ROS

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4996-616X