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Interviews and documentary sources in Chinese contemporary art research: Towards the critical use of polylogues

This article gives an account of the research methods and editing procedures used to inform the production of two recent books, Contemporary Art in Shanghai: Conversations with Seven Chinese Artists and ‘Avant-garde’ Art Groups in China, 1979-1989, focusing on issues related to the use of interviews and documentary sources in Chinese contemporary art research. As well as drawing attention to a range of contingent factors impinging on the reliability of interviews and documentary sources within the particular discursive contexts of China and to ways of mitigating their effects, it argues for the productive possibilities of the serial use of interviews in combination with other texts as critical polylogues.