The James Bond Phenomenon

Download or read book The James Bond Phenomenon written by Christoph Lindner and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shanghai, long known as mainland China's most cosmopolitan city, is today a global cultural capital. This book offers the first in-depth examination of contemporary Shanghai-based art and design - from state-sponsored exhibitions to fashionable cultural complexes to cutting edge films and installations. Informed by years of in-situ research, the book looks beyond contemporary art's global hype to reveal the socio-political tensions accompanying Shanghai's transitions from semi-colonial capitalism to Maoist socialism to Communist Party-sponsored capitalism. Case studies reveal how Shanghai's global aesthetic constructs glamorising artifices that mask the conflicts between vying notions of foreign-influenced modernity and anti-colonialist nationalism, as well as the city's repressed socialist past and its consumerist present.