Translation as Repoliticization: Thinking with Gombrich (and Popper) in Post-Mao China

This article examines the reception of Ernst Gombrich and Karl Popper in post-Mao China between 1980 and 1995. By situating these two scholars’ works within the context of the Cold War, I interpret their translation into Chinese after the end of the Cultural Revolution as a reanimation of their Cold War politics, while excavating cosmopolitan convergences across the East-West divide at the height of ideological factionalism. My argument traces this repoliticization through three interconnected spheres: a politics of method that moves away from determinism and integrates art and science; a disciplinary drift from textually oriented aesthetic theory to visually oriented art history; and a translingual negotiation in contemporary art discourse centered around the term “experimentation.” The article presents a version of global art historiography that foregrounds time-bound dialogues charged with political urgencies over the universalization and proselytization of disciplinary ideas, and it offers concluding remarks on its implications for a “global art history.”