중국현대미술은 1993년 제45회 베니스비엔날레에 참가한 것을 시작으로 꾸준히 국제미술계에서 두 각을 나타내고 있다. 한·중·일 동아시아 삼국 가운데 가장 늦게 출발했음에도 불구하고 중국현대미술은 베니스비엔날레를 중심으로 점점 더 폭넓은 위치를 점유해 나갔다. 진출 초기에는 중국정부차원의 지원이 아닌 작가 개개인의 활발한 제작 활동으로 스스로의 입지를 다졌으며, 1999년 차이궈창(蔡國强, 1957-) 이 중국작가로서는 처음으로 대회 최고상인 황금사자상을 수상하여 전 세계의 이목을 집중시켰다. 중국 정부는 문화예술이 국가의 위상에 미치는 영향력을 경험했고, 본격적으로 정부차원의 지원을 시작한 결과 2005년에는 베니스비엔날레 본전시장에 중국의 국가관을 설립하기에 이르렀다. 발전을 거듭한 중국현대 미술은 2013년 베니스비엔날레 진출 20주년을 맞이하며 더 이상 서구미술의 흐름을 따라가는 후식민적 경향에서 벗어나 중국 스스로가 지닌 다양한 사회문제에 대해 논하는 작품을 선보였다. 중국현대미술의 베 니스비엔날레 참여과정에 대한 연구는 중국현대미술이 국제화를 이루어 낸 맥락과 가치를 보여준다.

As the great catastrophe in the modern and contemporary history of China, the Cultural Revolution(CR) is an object, which must have sutured the past of darkness. At the same time it is a continuous event and also a scar of memory. In other words, for history is “a dialog between the past and the reality”(E.H.Kar), CR intervenes in the reality and, on the contrary, the reality recomposes CR. From this point of view, CR is a historical event, which so far is not ended, and it is an object of memory, which is still being composed at the moment.As the saying: “Poetry is greater than history”(Aristoteles), artistic works more intensively refect the past. The works related to CR can not be an exception. And CR is endlessly exposed in the contemporary Chinese fne arts and the works of the contemporary Chinese artists—Wang Guangyi, Yue Minjun, Zhang Xiaogang and others are proved to be those who suffer from the trauma of CR and who feel no liberty from CR. For example, CR probably is a symbol showing the “identity” of the Chinese artists. And the diversity of the symbol is the experience and pattern of the dialog between artistic works and CR (i.e., intervention in reality). For example, with withering of grand-narrative and appearance of micro-narrative, the CR critical works of Guan Zhoudao were the root of the Chinese fne arts in the late 70s and early 80s. In the contemporary cultural situation, the literary works about CR actively analyzed the history (CR) from the personal point of views and explained in the way of monolog and micro-method led the 1990s’ works. In this way they tried to recompose the history “randomly”, like looking at reality with their own eyes. In this process, CR is continuously exposing new features and the real facts are appearing before us as unfamiliar phenomena. This is a way of combination and “reappearance” of contemporary arts and reality. In conclusion, the purpose of this article is to make it possible to see a section of the contemporary Chinese fne arts through the study of the icon image of CR and to analyze the way of fne arts recomposing the history and the intervening in the reality. In this sense, the author has entitled the article “Icon and Form”. It means how to reshape (the present) the typically formed icon of the CR (the past).