Elizabeth Parke

elizabeth.parke@gmail.com

Elizabeth Parke examines the relationships between contemporary Chinese art, urban planning, and visual culture.  Her research approach is trans-disciplinary using methodologies from art history, cinema studies, urban geography, and visual anthropology.  Her dissertation “Infrastructures of Critique: art and visual culture in contemporary Beijing (1978-2008)”, establishes urban planning’s influence on Chinese art production by drawing parallels between artistic practice and the capital’s historical and contemporary urban infrastructure.  She is researching the recent growth of the Chinese contemporary art market and how “Chinese” art is defined and framed in “global” art institutions.  She examines the work of Beijing-based artists and the tensions between locally produced, globally circulated contemporary art.  Framing her work is developing counter narratives that engage with the politics and the stakes of the ‘global contemporary.’