Academic Staff

Dr Angie C. Baecker

Research Assistant Professor

modern Chinese cultural studies, mass art, collective art, material culture of the P.R.C., Cultural Revolution studies, intellectual history of postsocialism, historiography of contemporary Chinese art

HJ623
+852 3400 3164
angie.baecker@polyu.edu.hk

Biography

Dr. Baecker specializes in the cultural and material history of modern China, with a focus on the socialist period in the People’s Republic of China. Her research interests include mass art practice, socialist amateurism, the material culture of the Cultural Revolution, and the postsocialist legacy in contemporary Chinese. Her current book project, Worker, Peasant, Soldier, Artist: Mass Art in Socialist China, writes an alternative history of the Maoist fine arts project through the lens of the socialist amateur artist. In addition to her scholarly research, Dr. Baecker has published widely on contemporary art.

Education and Academic Qualifications

PhD, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
MA, Tsinghua University
BA, The University of California, Berkeley

Academic and Professional Experience

Lecturer, Dept. of Art History, The University of Hong Kong

Research Interests

Research Output

Worker, Peasant, Soldier, Artist: Mass Art in Socialist China (under preparation)

“Industrial Printed Cotton Design and the Socialist Mode of Ornamentation, 1955-1979,” with Courtney Wilder (under preparation).
“Amateur Art Practice and the Everyday in Socialist China,” Made in China Journal Vol. 5, 1 (Jan-Apr. 2020): 80-7.

“The Hu Xian Peasant Art Exhibition” in Socialist Exhibition Cultures, eds. Sven Spieker, Polly Savage, Bojana Videkancis, Christine Ho, Vladimir Seput, and Tomas Glanc. Toronto: U. of Toronto Press, under review.

“The Blank Exam: Crises of Student Labour and Activism in the late Cultural Revolution film Juelie,” in Proletarian China: A Century of Chinese Labour, eds. Ivan Franceschini, Kevin Lin, Nicholas Loubere, and Christian Sorace. New York: Verso Press, 2022.

“Cultural Revolution Films and Their Production History,” in Teaching Film from the People’s Republic of China, eds. Zhuoyi wang, Emily Wilcox, and Hongmei Yu. New York: Modern Language Association, 2024.

China and Inner Asia Council Research Travel Grant, Association for Asian Studies, 2021.

Arts Writers Grant, The Andy Warhol Foundation, 2020.

Dissertation Fellowship, Lieberthal-Rogel Cener for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 2019.

Residential Fellowship, Sweetland Center for Writing, University of Michigan, 2019.

Rackham Dissertation Fellowship, Rackham Graduate School, University of Michigan, 2018.

Riecker Graduate Student Research Fellow, Center for the Education of Women, University of Michigan, 2017.

Rackham Research Grant, Rackham Graduate School, University of Michigan, 2017.

Hide Shohara Fellowship, Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Michigan, 2014.

Rackham International Travel Grant, Rackham Graduate School, University of Michigan, 2013.

Doctoral Fellowship Grant, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 2013-2018.

Friends of Tsinghua Guanghua Scholarship, Tsinghua University, 2012.

Beijing Municipal Government Foreign Student Scholarship, Beijing City Government, 2011-2013.

“Amateur Creativity in Socialist China and on Digital Platforms” roundtable session, Association of Asian Studies, Seattle, Mar. 2024.

“Mass Art as Mass Labor: The Entanglement of Production and Painting, Construction and Cartoon, c. the late 1950s” in the workshop “Participatory Knowledge Production in the Great Leap Forward,” University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Feb. 2024.

“Guiding Teachers and the Masses: The Amateurization of a High Socialist Export Art,” in the workshop “The Proletarian Promise: Materialism in 20th Century East Asia,” National Sun Yat-sen University, Apr. 2023.

“Collaborative Pedagogies for Amateur Art: Peasant Art and the Creation of a Socialist Visual Vocabulary in the People’s Republic of China,” in the panel “Toward a Global Theory of the Socialist Amateur,” College Arts Association, New York, Feb. 2023.

“Toward a Theory of the Socialist Ornament: Industrial Printed Cotton Design in Maoist China,” with Courtney Wilder in the panel “Textile Modernity: The Material Cultures of Textile Production in Modern China,” Association of Asian Studies, Boston, Feb. 2023.

“Soldier Sentimentality: Production and Military Social Relations in Socialist Amateur Art Practice,” in the panel “The Military in/and/as Modern Chinese Culture,” Association of Asian Studies, Hawaii, Mar. 2022.

“High Socialist Toile: The Industrialization of Printed Cotton Textile Design and the Emergence of a Decorative Imaginary in the People’s Republic of China, 1950s to 1980s,” at the workshop “Chinese Socialism in/as Theory: Political Economy in Revolutionary China,” American Council of Learned Societies, May 2022.

“Consolidating the Contemporary: The Socialist Origins of ’85 New Wave Group Art Practice” in the panel “Confounding Existing ‘Etiquettes:’ Probing the Institutions for Contemporary Visual Art in the Global East,” International Institute for Asian Studies 12, Kyoto, Aug. 2021.

“Conspiracy Film Criticism and the Gang of Four as Cinematic Auteur,” in the panel “From Socialist Utopias to Post-Revolutionary Consensus,” European Association for Chinese Studies, Heidelberg Aug. 2021.

“Amateur Art Practice in Socialist China” in the panel “Revisiting the Amateur in Twentieth- Century East Asia: Cinema, Photography, and Art,” Association for Asian Studies, Denver, Mar. 2019.

“Laboring Medicine: Barefoot Doctors and Revolutionary Cultures of Medical Practice in the P.R.C.,” in the panel “Medical Expertise during Historical Transition in Twentieth-Century China,” American Association for the History of Medicine, May 2018.

“Barefoot Doctors and the New Medical Cultures of the Cultural Revolution,” China Between Worlds, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, May 2017.

“Max Weber and Reform-Era China” in the panel “Thinking Economics in Twentieth-Century China,” AAS- in-Asia, Academia Sinica, June 2015.

“An Intellectual History of Max Weber in Reform-era China,” in the conference “Max Weber and China: Culture, Law, and Capitalism,” School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Sept. 2013.

“Mansudae in Africa,” in the workshop “Vrysheidspark and Other Governmonumentalities: A Walkshop,” University of South Africa, Sept. 2011.

“Toward a Global Theory of the Socialist Amateur: Collective Pedagogies, Nonaligned Modernism, and Postsocialist Legacies in China, Yugoslavia, and India,” with Katja Praznik, Sanjukta Sunderason, and Bojana Videkanic (discussant), College Art Association, New York, Feb. 2023.

“Textile Modernity: The Material Cultures of Textile Production in Modern China,” with Viviane Chen, Robert Cliver (discussant), Courtney Wilder, and Yuan Yi, Association for Asian Studies, Boston, Feb. 2023.

“The Military and/in/as Modern Chinese Culture” with Xiaomei Chen (discussant), Belinda Q. He, Dylan Suher, and Lawrence Zi-Qiao Yang, Association for Asian Studies, Honolulu, Mar. 2022.

“From Socialist Utopias to Post-Revolutionary Consensus: Dismantling the ‘Gang of Four,’” with Benjamin Kindler and Mei Li Inouye, European Association for Chinese Studies, Leipzig, Aug. 2021.

“Revisiting the Amateur in Twentieth-Century East Asia: Cinema, Photography, and Art,” with Shota Ogawa, Stephanie H. Tung, and Alexander Zahlten, Association for Asian Studies, Denver, Mar. 2019.

“Medical Expertise during Historical Transition in Twentieth-Century China,” with Joshua Hubbard and Pei-ting C. Li, American Association for the History of Medicine, May 2018.

“Place and Being: Lui Shou-kwan and the Political and Ecological Crises of Abstraction in Hong Kong,” Art and Media Studies, Fulbright University Vietnam, Saigon, Oct.10, 2022.

“Contradictions and Converging Spatial Complexes in ‘M+ Sigg Collection: From Revolution to Globalization,’” HKU Fine Arts and Art History Alumni Association, Apr. 2022.

“The Blank Exam: Crises of Student Labor and Activism in the Late Cultural Revolution Film Juelie,” Department of Chinese History and Culture, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, July 2021.

“The Laboring of Art: Socialist Amateur Art Practice and the Arrival of the Contemporary in the People’s Republic of China,” in the Cultural Management Online Lecture Series, Faculty of Arts, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Dec. 2020.

“Expertise and the Cultural Revolution: Making Sense of Barefoot Doctors.” Grupo de Estudios del Este Asiático, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Mar. 2017.

“The Contemporary in China: A Case Study in Art,” Summer in Beijing Program, College of William and Mary, Jul. 2013.

“Interdimensional Communique” by Chen You-Jin, Books from Taiwan 8 (Spring 2018): pp. 34-9.

“A-Ga,” by Yang Fu-Min, Books from Taiwan 7 (Winter 2017): pp. 40-5.

“Nine Days and Nine Nights” by Yang Tu, Books from Taiwan 6 (Spring 2017): pp. 22-6.

“Mausoleums of the Kings of Chu at Xuzhou” by Li Yinde, Tomb Treasures: New Discoveries from China’s Han Dynasty (San Francisco: Asian Art Museum, 2017), pp. 27-8.

“A Complete Map of the Ten Thousand Countries of the World,” Matteo Ricci et al., and “A Complete Map of the World,” Ferdinand Verbiest et al., Asian Art Museum interactive website, 2016, http://ricci.asianart.org/, http://verbiest.asianart.org/.

“Painting as Historical Witness: Xu Weixin and Documentary Realism” by Wang Lin, Xu Weixin: Monumental Portraits, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Museum of Art, 2016), pp. X-Y.

“Anxiety Aesthetics: A Conversation with Jennifer Dorothy Lee,” Made in China Journal, Jun. 2024.

Review of Material Contradictions in Mao’s China, eds. Jennifer Altehenger and Denise I. Ho, Seattle: U. of Washington Press, 2022. In The PRC History Review, No. 64, Feb. 2024.

“Socialist Art from China, Remade in Michigan,” CityLab, Feb. 21, 2018.

“In Defense of Difficult Art at the Guggenheim’s Controversial Exhibition,” Vulture, Oct. 17, 2017. Republished on Slate.

“Zhao Zhao: The Young Pretender,” The New Statesman, Oct. 19, 2012, pp. 73-4.

“The Culture Interview: Ai Weiwei,” The New Statesman, Oct. 19, 2012, pp. 60-3.

“Melodrama and Métissage: The Art of Ming Wong,” LEAP 10 (Aug. – Sept. 2011): pp. 142–9. Bilingual publication, translated into Chinese by Dai Weiping. Reprinted in Sexuality: Documents of Contemporary Art, ed. Amelia Jones (Cambridge, M.A.: The MIT Press, 2014).

“Hollow Monuments,” ArtAsiaPacific 72 (Mar./Apr. 2011): pp. 63–4. Trilingual publication, translated into Chinese and Arabic by the editors.

“Between Signifier and Signified: The Art of Li Songhua,” Visual Production 5-6 (2007): pp. 135–9. Bilingual publication, translated into Chinese by the editors. Reprinted in Critical Moment: New Media and Installation (Shanghai: OV Gallery, 2008), pp. 48–49.

Reviewer. Journal for Visual Art Practice. 2024.
Reviewer. Critical Arts. 2023.
Reviewer. Asian Studies Review. 2022.
Reviewer. Feminist Media Studies. 2022.