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Professor Paul Gladston
UNSW Judith Neilson Chair of Contemporary Art
- 2004 - Ph.D. Critical Theory, University of Nottingham: Art History after Deconstruction: Is There Any Future for a Deconstructive Attention to Art History?
- 1997 - MA Critical Theory, University of Nottingham
- 1992 - Post-Graduate Certificate of Education, Nottingham-Trent University
- 1986 - BA (hons.) Drawing and Painting, 1st Class, Edinburgh, Edinburgh College of Art
Paul Gladston's award winning research and critical writing has had a significant international impact on the development of critical Chinese contemporary art/cultural studies: as evidenced by, among other things, the inclusion of Gladston's publications on university undergraduate and graduate course reading lists in Europe, North America and China, invitations for him to work with major institutions - including UNESCO, the Southbank Centre London, Sotheby’s Institute, the Central Academy ...
- Publications
- Media
- Grants
- Awards
- Research Activities
- Engagement
- Teaching and Supervision
- 2022 - Judith Neilson Chair Professor of Contemporary Art endowment top-up (AU$1,000,000)
- 2019 - 'Inside and Outside the Yellow Box: Rethinking Displays of Asian Art', Asia Institute and School of Creative Arts, University of Tasmania, 27 May 2019 - with Lynne Howarth-Gladston. Made possible by UTAS Asia Institute Award, $2,000.
- 2018-ongoing - Initial Judith Neilson Chair Professor of Contemporary Art endowment (AU$6,000,000)
- 2017 – Sichuan China Fine Arts Institute Award, 2018 (£30,000) to support international conference, ‘Seeing the Unseen: Trans-cultural Perspectives on Contemporary Art in/from Asia’ Sichuan China Fine Arts Institute, People’s Republic of China. Conference Organisers: Professor Paul Gladston, University of Nottingham and Professor Lü Peng, Sichuan China Fine Arts Institute.
- 2015 - Co-I successful bid to Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation (US$25,000) to support staging of the international symposium ‘Wordimage: visual-verbal interstices in contemporary Chinese Art’, Seattle, October 2016.
- 2014 – Funding from ShanghArt Gallery, Shanghai (£25,000) to support the publication of Paul Gladston, Yu Youhan (Shanghai: 3030 Press and ShanghArt Gallery, 2015); 300 full-colour illustrations.
- May 2014 - Named investigator AHRC Network Project, ‘Culture, Capital and Communication: Visualising Chinese Borders in the twenty first century’. Principal Investigator Dr Rebecca Kennedy, Manchester Metropolitan University, School of History of Art and Design, Co-Investigator Dr Ming Turner, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan (AHRC contribution £26,500). Paul Gladston is cited on the successful bid as a ‘key international academic in the areas of contemporary Chinese art and border Studies’.
- May 2014 - ‘Contemporary Art, Curating and Social Engagement in Twenty-first Century China’– PI on research project involving Guggenheim NYC, Tate, City University HK, CAFA Hangzhou, Rockbund Art Museum (RAM) Symposium and bid preparation workshop November 2014 (first meeting November 2013). Supported by CAS award (£4,700), CEACS (£500) and RAM (£20,000).
- November 2013 - British Council award (£1,000) to support Research Workshop: ‘The Social Function of Contemporary Art in the PRC’, Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai.
- 2012 – Successful application to British Council, Shanghai to fund attendance at the first ‘Sino-UK Higher Education Symposium on Creative Media Industry, 2012’– Guangzhou and Nanjing, 2012, flights and accommodation. Also supported by successful application to University of Nottingham Inter-campus Mobility Fund (£8,000).
- 2013 - Paul Gladston, ‘Avant-garde Art Groups in China, 1979-1989 (Bristol: Intellect and Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013); 30 full-colour reproductions. Colour reproduction costs supported by ShanghArt Gallery, Shanghai (£2,000).
- October 2009 – The University of Nottingham Ningbo, China Conference Travel Grant: Invited Speaker, Modernity’s Cultural Politics: China in Context at the Courtauld Institute of Art: ‘Curatorial Discourse and the Limits of Speech: Critical Reflections on the Third Guangzhou Triennial, Farewell to Post-Colonialism’.
- July 2009 – The University of Nottingham Ningbo, China ‘Light Semester’ Scheme. Completion of the manuscript for Paul Gladston, ‘Avant-garde Art Groups in China, 1979-1989 (Bristol: Intellect and Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013)
- June 2009 – The University of Nottingham Ningbo, China Conference Travel Grant; Panel Member, Inter-Asia cultural Typhoon at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies ‘Translating Regions: Aesthetic Movements, Labour Regimes, Cultural Geographies’.
- September 2008 – The University of Nottingham Ningbo, China Inter-Campus Research Award, in support of the conference ‘Digital Hollywood-Digital China’ held jointly by The Institute of Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo, China and The Institute for Film and Television Studies at the University of Nottingham in March 2009, (£11,000).
- June 2007 - The University of Nottingham, New Researchers Award, ‘Chinese Avant-Garde Art Groups and Associations of the late 1970s and 1980s’ (£7,500).
- April 2006 - The University of Nottingham Ningbo, China Small Research Grant, ‘A Case Study of Chi She or the ’85 New Space Group of Chinese Artists’.
- December 2006 – The University of Nottingham Ningbo, China Conference Travel Grant; The Association of Art Historians Annual Conference April 2007: “Representing the ‘Monster City’: The Unbearable Blandness of Song Tao and B6’s Yard”.
- 2022 - Distinguished Affiliate Fellow of the UK-China Humanities Alliance, Tsinghua University
- 2018 - Nominated for University of Nottingham Staff Oscar, ‘Teaching: makes best use of technology to enhance learning’ category.
- 2017 - Winner ‘International Strategy of the Year’ category Times Higher Education Leadership and Management Awards (THELMA). UoN was nominated for the THELMA on the strength of its Creative Hub, which brings together science, technology and the arts to respond to changes in government policy in China and the UK, including its museums CPD in China.
- 2014-16 - Paul Gladston, Joint Academic Chair, University of Nottingham China Cultural Visiting Hub (CCVH) development group. Successful development of curatorial training programme for museums and galleries in China in collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum.
- 2017 - UNNC/UNUK International Creative Economy Leadership Academy (ICELA) screen industry and museum masterclasses shortlisted for the Guardian University Awards under the ‘Best International Project’ category.
- 2016 - Nominated for University of Nottingham Knowledge Exchange Award.
- 2015 – Winner ‘Publication of the Year’, 9th Art Awards China 2015 for monograph Contemporary Chinese Art: A Critical History (Reaktion, 2014)
- 2013 - Nominated for University of Nottingham Staff Oscar, ‘Teaching: most inspirational teacher’ category.
- 2012 – Freeman of Berwick-upon-Tweed
- 1986 – Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Award for Drawing
- 1985 - Eileen Stoekel-Batell Scholar, Yale University, USA
- 1985 – Andrew Grant Travelling Scholarship, Edinburgh College of Art
Paul Gladston is currently working on three related research projects funded by the Judith Neilson Endowment:
- ‘The Rhizomic Thames Arcadia’
- Output - (PR) (PA) Paul Gladston and Lynne Howarth-Gladston (2023), ‘Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art and the Intertextual Traces of English Romanticism’, Journal of Curatorial Studies 12(1), 48-79.
- Output - (PR) (in preparation) Monograph: Paul Gladston and Lynne Howarth-Gladston, The Rhizomic Thames Arcadia
- ‘Contemporary Transcultural Aesthetics’
- Output – Bloomsbury ‘Contemporary Global Aesthetics’ series, Paul Gladston general series editor (2024-ongoing)
- Output - (PR) (PA) Paul Gladston (2023), ‘Other Ways of Seeing: Reading Transcultural Aesthetics through Images’, Bloomsbury Philosophy Library – London: Bloomsbury History of Modern Aesthetics.
- Output - (PR) (PA– invited publication) (PR) Paul Gladston and Lynne Howarth-Gladston (2022), ‘Chinese Confucian-literati Culture and Post-Enlightenment Philosophical Aesthetics,’ Bloomsbury Philosophy Library – Bloomsbury History of Modern Aesthetics, London: Bloomsbury.
- ‘Rethinking Displays of Chinese Contemporary Art’
- International Conference, 'Rethinking the Curation of Chinese Contemporary Art' (2021)
- Output - (PR) (FC) Paul Gladston ed. (2024), Rethinking Displays of Chinese Contemporary Art, London and Singapore: Palgrave.
Lead author of the REF Impact Case 2013 (UK), ‘Adding Complexity to the Curatorial Presentation of Contemporary Chinese Art’.
‘Dr Paul Gladston's (Associate Professor of Critical Theory and Visual Culture, Nottingham, 2005-present) research has served to problematize and add complexity to the public understanding of the relationship between contemporary Chinese art and the wider conditions of its making and showing both within and outside the Peoples' Republic of China (PRC). The Chief Curator of the Hayward Gallery exhibition Art of Change: New Directions from China (2012) drew on Gladston's expertise in the exhibition's presentation. The exhibition attracted over 22,000 visitors, with international media coverage leading to wider critical engagement in broadcast and social media. A challenging review of the exhibition in The Guardian by the high-profile artist Ai Weiwei, followed by Gladston's response, stimulated broader public debate around contemporary Chinese art.’
My Research Supervision
- 2021- ongoing - Jianxiong Jing – A Multi-modal Analysis of Classical Chinese Maps and their Relevance to Contemporary “Post-West” Cartography. Co-supervised with Dr. Marnie Feneley, ADA Humanities and Dr. Ian McArthur, ADA Art and Design. Recipient of a UNSW international scholarship.
- 2023- ongoing - Zhou Lin - Semiotics and Contemporary Chinese Peasant Painting: Recontextualising Traditional Folk Crafts. Co-supervised with Dr. Ian McArthur, ADA Art and Design. Recipient of a UNSW international scholarship.
- 2023-ongoing - Xie Tian - Chinese Shadow Puppetry of Red. Co-supervised with Dr. Ian McArthur, ADA Art and Design. Recipient of a UNSW international scholarship.
- 2023-2024 - Nan Li, international Ph.D. exchange student based at Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU). China Scholarship Council award. Research focused on 20th- and 21st-century overseas critical writing on Chinese art – including the work of Paul Gladston.
- 2022-ongoing - Ph.D. Co-supervisor, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing – with Prof. Wang Chunchen (CAFA).
My Teaching
Author and co-convenor of the UNSW UG programme:
- ‘Contemporary East Asian Art: Theories and Practices’ DART231
Lead author of the BA International Communications and MA International Communications, and of the Ph.D. programme in Critical Theory/Cultural Studies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo, China (UNNC). In 2007 the BA International Communications achieved Special degree status in Zhejiang province – the first programme to do so at UNNC.