We cordially invite you to join us for a vibrant conversation with Dr. Hentyle Yapp on his recently published book, Minor China: Method, Materialisms, and the Aesthetic, on October 8th at 10am PDT. Dr. Yapp will give a brief presentation about his work before opening up for discussion and questions from the audience. 

In Minor China: Method, Materialisms, and the Aesthetic, Hentyle Yapp analyzes contemporary Chinese art as it circulates on the global art market to outline the limitations of Western understandings of non-Western art. Yapp reconsiders the all-too-common narratives about Chinese art that celebrate the heroic artist who embodies political resistance against the authoritarian state. These narratives, as Yapp establishes, prevent Chinese art, aesthetics, and politics from being discussed in the West outside the terms of Western liberalism and notions of the “universal.” Yapp engages with art ranging from photography and performance to curation and installations to foreground what he calls the minor as method—tracking aesthetic and intellectual practices that challenge the predetermined ideas and political concerns that uphold dominant conceptions of history, the state, and the subject.

 Hentyle Yapp is an assistant professor at NYU in the Department of Art & Public Policy. He is affiliated faculty with Performance Studies, Comparative Literature, Center for Disability Studies, and Asian/Pacific/American Institute. He is the author Minor China: Method, Materialisms, and Mediation on the Global Art Market (Duke UP) and has published in GLQ, American Quarterly, Journal of Visual Culture, Women &Performance, Journal of Literature & Cultural Disability Studies, and Verge: Studies in Global Asias.

Sponsored by USC American Studies & Ethnicity, the Transpacific Research Cluster, and the Creative, Theory, Politics Research Cluster.