Chinese Surplus: Biopolitical Aesthetics and the Medically Commodified Body

Perverse Modernities

by Ari Larissa Heinrich

What happens when the body becomes art in the age of biotechnological reproduction? In Chinese Surplus Ari Larissa Heinrich examines transnational Chinese aesthetic production to demonstrate how representations of the medically commodified body can illuminate the effects of biopolitical violence and postcolonialism in contemporary life. From the earliest appearance of Frankenstein in China to the more recent phenomenon of "cadaver art," he shows how vivid images of a blood transfusion as performance art or a plastinated corpse without its skin—however upsetting to witness—constitute the new "realism" of our times. Adapting Foucauldian biopolitics to better account for race, Heinrich provides a means to theorize the relationship between the development of new medical technologies and the representation of the human body as a site of annexation, extraction, art, and meaning-making.

Genres: Philosophy, Art, Nonfiction

264 pages, Paperback

Published March 5, 2018

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a short book, this sure has a lot packed into it.
A must read for anyone interested in Chinese contemporary art and/or the body trade. If you know about Body Worlds, then this book will expand that knowledge and give greater context to that exhibition.