In The Public Domain After The 80 Art "cartoon Style"

Public domain is the hot issue of the recent academic research. The marketeconomy and public domain media of China have developped so fast that China itselfhas already had the ability of constructing the public domain of her owncharacteristics, though public domain is a completely Western social discourse.Meanwhile, public domain is increasingly being introduced into many other subjects,such as Politics, Law, Literature and Communication Studies. It has been a universalconcern, especially in the disciplines of art. This thesis aims to apply the Westernpublic domain theory to explain the process of construction of China’s art publicdomain as well as how post-80s“New Cartoon Generation”rely on the art publicdomain to achieve a breakthrough in the field of contemporary art.This paper adopts the research method of combining specific theory with text.Chapter one discusses the theory of the Western public domain as a whole, includingthe introduction of the public domain concept and its development from diachronicand synchronic aspects. The public domain concept was first put forward by HannahArendt, through Habermas, extended to the socio-cultural dimensions, and developedinto a universal concept. Habermas divided public domain into the literary publicdomain and the political public domain. In this paper, the art public domain,whichbelongs to the literary public domain, is the research object; and the construction ofChina’s art public domain will be discussed in the light of the status of China’scontemporary art. Accordingly, chapter two elaborates the construction and thesignificance of China’s art public domain under the guidance of the Western publicdomain theory. Chapter three starts by introducing the five painting styles of post-80sartists in the contemporary art field, to illustrate the cartoon-style painting has beenable to get the reasons for success. Secondly, it explains the inherent relationshipbetween the public space and the generated discourse of post-80s artists’cartoon-stylepainting. Thirdly, it discusses the process of rationalization of post-80s artists’ cartoon-style painting in the public space. Finally, it expounds the generating reasonof post-80s artists’Cartoon Complex from the aspects of growing background andpsychological characteristics. Chapter four studies the case of Gao Yu, a member ofNew Cartoon Generation to illustrate the game strategies of post-80s artists in the artsfield.The article clarifies the reason and the process that post-80s artists’cartoon styletakes it place in the field of China’s contemporary art. We can say that comprehendingthe generated discourse of post-80s artists’cartoon style from the perspective ofpublic domain theory can be groundbreaking both in the innovation of theory and thenovelty of art phenomenon. It is believed that this unique theoretical perspective isbound to give the public new inspiration to look upon the generated discourse ofpost-80s artists’cartoon style.