The Logic of Micro-Narrative: A Study of Individual Life Experience in Chinese Contemporary Figurative Painting
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54097/5f7y1421Keywords:
Micro-narrative; individual experience; Chinese contemporary figurative painting; New Generation; post-70s painting.Abstract
This paper takes Chinese contemporary figurative painting after the 1990s as its research object and discusses the logic of “micro-narrative” and its relationship with individual life experience. It first defines micro-narrative, experience, and individual experience, and explains the philosophical foundation of micro-narrative through subject philosophy and Walter Benjamin’s theory of fragmentation. Second, it reviews the historical context from “Scar Art,” “Rural Realism,” and the “1985 New Wave Art” to “New Generation Art” and “post-70s painting,” arguing that the narrative mode of Chinese contemporary figurative painting has gradually shifted from grand narrative to micro-narrative. Third, it analyzes case studies of Liu Xiaodong, Chen Weiming, Chen Ke, Li Jikai, Xiong Lijun, Zhang Xiaotao, and Li Dafang from three levels: micro-sociological concern, everyday experience, and narration of site experience. The study argues that micro-narrative is not simply a narrowing of subject matter, but a new creative methodology: artists use individualized, fragmented, and everyday life experience as an entry point to re-establish connections between the individual and the era, society, and history.
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