Shuitu Bufu 水土不服: Transcultural Conflict and the Globalization of Contemporary Chinese Art

When contemporary art is transplanted across cultural grounds, it sometimes fails to take: the work, the practice, or the reputation that traveled is contested, refused, or expelled. There is a Chinese idiom for this particular condition: shuitu bufu (水土不服), literally “the water and soil do not agree” (with the newcomer.) The phrase is ordinarily said of a traveler’s upset stomach, its oldest recorded use, however, belongs to the third-century Records of the Three Kingdoms (三国志), in counsel against a military campaign. This dissertation borrows the idiom as its core concept and tests it against four conflicts in the globalization of contemporary Chinese art.