当代艺术在西方的滥觞与新左翼运动的兴起是息息相关的,这使得当代艺术及其种族、阶级、性别等意指自然地具有一种意识形态功能。然而在中国,不论从1980年代还是从1990年代算起,当代艺术的兴起与社会主义运动似乎并无直接的关系,至少社会主义不是中国当代艺术的直接推力,某种意义上,它所抵抗的对象恰恰是(中国)社会主义,也由此常常被赋予一种“启蒙”的意涵 The origination of contemporary art in the West is closely linked to the rise of the New Left Movement, which means that contemporary art and its racial, class and gender mean that it naturally has an ideological function. In China, however, there seems to be no direct relationship between the rise of contemporary art and the socialist movement, no matter from the 1980s or the 1990s. At least socialism is not a direct thrust of contemporary Chinese art. In a sense, what it resists The object is exactly (Chinese) socialism, and is often given the meaning of “enlightenment”